“Technology giants Google Inc. and Apple Inc. are about to expand their battle for digital supremacy to a new front: the automobile,” Neal E. Boudette and Daisuke Wakabayashi report for The Wall Street Journal.
“Next week at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Google and German auto maker Audi AG plan to announce that they are working together to develop in-car entertainment and information systems that are based on Google’s Android software, people familiar with the matter said,” Boudette and Wakabayashi report. “The coming announcements signal Google’s response to an initiative launched last June by Apple to integrate iPhones and other devices running its iOS operating system with car makers’ dashboard control panels. Apple so far has the support of BMW AG, Daimler AG’s Mercedes-Benz division, General Motors Co. and Honda Motor Co.”
“With its ‘iOS in the Car’ initiative announced last June, Apple hopes to turn the iPhone into a kind of brain for operating dashboard electronics, using the car’s built-in display to interact with services such as maps and traffic information,” Boudette and Wakabayashi report. “Apple has said that it expects a dozen car brands to adopt the technology in 2014.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: While this WSJ article tries very hard to make this look like an even fight (omitting many of the vehicle makers who are working with Apple, for example), it most certainly is not. Apple is dominant.
Not only has Audi blown any chance to be among the next vehicles we buy, they also look as alone as Ford (stuck with Microsoft’s horrid “system” that simply kills Ford’s vehicle quality rankings).
Audi and Ford are two islands of incompatible crap surrounded by oceans of iOS.
iOS users want their devices to work seamlessly with their vehicles. Android settlers don’t even seem to know how to fully work their pretend iPhones and iPads. iOS users have disposable income and the proven will to spend it. Android settlers are cheapskates and/or the poor.
Obviously, Audi is currently highly confused. (“Gee, all of our customers seem to have iPhones. Hey, let’s deploy Android and tout it at a tech show!”)
So far the list of smart manufacturers who have shown interest for iOS in the Car and/or Siri Eyes Free includes:
• Acura
• BMW
• Chevrolet
• Chrysler
• Ferrari
• Ford
• General Motors
• Honda
• Hyundai
• Infiniti
• Jaguar
• Kia
• Land Rover
• Mercedes-Benz
• Nissan
• Opel (Vauxhall)
• Toyota
• Volvo
Tagged: android, automobile integration, car makers, iOS, iOS in the Car, iOS vehicle integration, vehicle integration 
