At Apple's recent World Wide Developers Conference (WWDC) the Cupertino behemoth announced that twelve of the world's largest carmakers have signed up to its 'iOS In The Car' system that will integrate iPhone functions into the car's infotainment system. This will allows manufacturers such as Kia, Opel, Nissan, Honda and even Ferrari to benefit from iPhone features like Siri, messaging and message dictation, maps, web searches and apps like Wikipedia and Twitter that will be integrated into the car itself.
The appeal for car manufacturers is easy to see; the car world operates at a glacial pace compared to the telecommunications world with updates measured in years rather than weeks and months, so the ability to push new updates to users earlier is hugely attractive.
But are these 12 manufacturers (and others who are said to be waiting in the wings) jumping into Apple's bed too soon? Smartphone integration in your car is ideal; we all use our smartphones on a daily basis and are accustomed to their silky smooth operation and ease of use, something in stark contrast to the clunky interfaces of a lot of in-car infotainment systems. However, the Apple world is notoriously a closed one with users restricted by what Apple allows them to do.
For the majority this has no ill effect; they can make calls, send texts and browse the web all day long without a care in the world, but what about non-Apple users? The iPhone will not communicate with anything it does not like. Ever tried to Bluetooth a file between an iPhone and a Windows or Android phone? No dice. Now imagine you are the owner of one of these phones whose car includes iOS In The Car. Unless Apple changes the protocols to allow its system to play nice with other systems then you effectively have a worthless system. Want to stream music from your Nokia Lumia? I'm sorry that does not compute! Want to receive a hands-free call on your Samsung Galaxy? You would have an easier time connecting to the car beside you and shouting through the window; and don't even try to load a USB full of your favourite songs/pictures of you dog - Apple doesn't do USB, believing everything should reside on the Cloud.
Two of the biggest manufacturers missing from the twelve signees are Audi and BMW. Both of these manufacturers either have or will soon roll out their versions of 'iOS In The Car' that include multi-platform integration, the ability to download apps from both the App Store and Google Play and support for Siri and S Voice (Samsung's version). The German giants have been working on and refining their MMI and iDrive systems for years and see no need to sign up to Apple's plan when their systems are on the verge of being launched.
Whatever the future holds we have come a long way from using a special adaptor that looked like a cassette tape to hook up our first generation iPods.