A fifth of consumer vehicles in North America and Western Europe will have car radios with app capability by 2017, according to a new report by Jupiter Research.
The study says new standards such as MirrorLink that connect the phone to the car are helping to push app technology forward. About 90 million cars will be able to connect to apps in 5 years, it said.
The main factor holding back the growth of apps in cars right now, is simply the slow pace of new car sales.
“Sky-high smartphone ownership and a standardized approach to integrating apps into the vehicle head-unit mean that the barriers to making the connected car a reality have all but gone,” says the report’s author Anthony Cox.
The success of connecting phones with cars will drive down the price of factory infotainment systems. But “big data” collected from factory telematics systems might emerge as a source of revenue for auto makers and telematics providers.
Source: Juniper Research
We’re not there yet, but we are getting there. And consumers definitely want it. The UI is still flawed and inconsistent. We have set consumer expectations high. Now we have to live up to it.