Apple CarPlay and QNX, a new approach in automotive infotainment?

Apple CarPlay seems a little bit less closed than the traditional Cupertino approach. N4bb reports a statement from Paul Leroux Public Relations Manager at QNX Software Systems in which he confirms that Apple is a QNX strategic partner in automotive.

“Connectivity to smartphones and other mobile devices is a key strength of QNX Software Systems’ platform for car infotainment systems, and many automakers and tier one automotive suppliers use our platform to implement smartphone/head-unit integration in their vehicles. We have a long-standing partnership with Apple to ensure high-quality connectivity with their devices, and this partnership extends to support for Apple CarPlay.”

As already seen yesterday, at the moment CarPlay is intended to work jointly with an iPhone or a Ipad, but such collaboration with QNX opens some interesting window on additional capability that inprinciple cannot exclude some standalone systems.

QNX has presented its approach during  Las Vegas CES last January and also some collaboration with HERE solution by Nokia.

At the moment is not clear how much integrated and in some way intrusive would be the CarPlay with QNX but for sure such interest and talk in automotive infotainment is a harbinger of big things during this year.

Yesterday we saw a demo from about Volvo solution using CarPlay, let’s see now below the Mercedes approach in which also Siri capability is shown.

Apple CarPlay unveiled at Geneva International Motor Show (updated with Volvo video and info)

As rumors said, Apple today early morning announced its iOS in the Car solution during Geneva Motor Show named CarPlay.

As already posted in this blog such solution is not yet a complete and fully integrated automotive solution but is anyway a step in such environment and for sure a big step for the marketing and echoes involving from a site Apple and on the other site Ferrari, mainly, and Mercedes and Volvo.
Apple says that “CarPlay gives iPhone users an incredibly intuitive way to make calls, use Maps, listen to music and access messages with just a word or a touch. Users can easily control CarPlay from the car’s native interface or just push-and-hold the voice control button on the steering wheel to activate Siri® without distraction. Vehicles from Ferrari, Mercedes-Benz and Volvo will premiere CarPlay to their drivers this week, while additional auto manufacturers bringing CarPlay to their drivers down the road include BMW Group, Ford, General Motors, Honda, Hyundai Motor Company, Jaguar Land Rover, Kia Motors, Mitsubishi Motors, Nissan Motor Company, PSA Peugeot Citroën, Subaru, Suzuki and Toyota Motor Corp”.
I still think, anyway, that CarPlay will be a sort of mainstream solution in automotive infotainment  market because of still present involvement of external device, i.e. iPhone/iPad with iOS7 and I’m convinced that for the very high end solution the central device will be in the car and eventually could communicate with smartphones, and this seems in line with the upcoming solution from Nokia HERE and QNX,  Google with Open Automotive Alliance (OAA); solutions that still see many manufacturers also involved in CarPlay.

For sure CarPlay will help automotive and the introduction of internet-centric device in the Car exploiting  the ability of Apple to break and create new Market segments.
[Update] Volvo presented a video (see below)  illustrating the new User interface integrated in a car and in a press release claims that Apple CarPlay will be available in forthcoming Volvo models based on the new Scalable Product Architecture (SPA), starting with the all-new Volvo XC90 later in 2014.
In the same press release a statement of Håkan Samuelsson, President and CEO, Volvo Car Group is reported: “iPhone users will feel completely at home in a new Volvo. We have created a wholly-integrated user experience in our large portrait-oriented touch screen that takes the in-car mobile device experience to a new level. That, coupled with the obvious driver safety benefits of an advanced voice control system like Siri, made Apple a perfect match for Volvo”

From what we can see, it seems that Volvo considers the Apple CarPlay as a very important added value to its automotive infotainment solution, that in principle could act without CarPlay.