Not every app works well on the dashboard at 50mph. So the Car Connectivity Consortium (which developed the MirrorLink standard for mirroring your smartphone onto the car radio) is creating a standard for certifying which apps are acceptable for MirrorLink, it confirmed.
The certification process should be finalized in October.
The Consortium believes that MirrorLink car radios will be a standard feature on cars by 2014, said PCMag. Toyota already offers MirrorLink radios in Europe and Sony and Alpine and planning to bring aftermarket MirrorLink radios to the U.S. this year. A MirrorLink phone, the Samsung Galaxy SIII comes to the U.S. this summer.
To ensure that only safe apps will be accessible while driving, the Consortium is creating 2 classes of apps: restricted and unrestricted. The former category would include apps that might only be accessible when the car is parked.
Approved apps might require a minimum font size and a maximum number of text lines per screen. A texting app, for example, would be required to go into voice command only, when the car is running.
“The consortium’s goal to have the world’s most popular apps approved as soon as possible,” said Alfred Tom, Ecosystem Workgroup Chair of the group.
Source: Car Connectivity Consortium via PCmag.com
