Automakers and technology companies are increasingly joining forces to bring customers the connected car.
In the past few months, major automakers, notably GM, Honda and Ford, have made a slew of tech announcements.
Late last year, GM became the first automaker to announce it would integrate Apple’s voice-assistant software Siri into two of its new smaller, budget Chevrolet models–the Spark and Sonic. In January, Honda followed suit and said it would add Apple’s Siri Eyes Free Mode into its 2013 Accord, Acura RDX and Acura ILX.
Siri Eyes Free–which allows drivers to interact with their iPhone while keeping their focus on the road, where it should be–will be a dealer installed option in the models, Honda said at the time.
Ford and GM announced during the Consumer Electronics Show in January they would open their APIs and dashboards to outside developers, in a bid to grow app integration in their vehicles.
And just this week, GM announced this week that most of its 2015 Chevrolet, Buick, GMC, and Cadillac models will come with embedded 4G LTE mobile broadband. The service will be made available in the United States and Canada, through AT&T, in 2014.
Other tech enhancements in 2013, include Amazon’s first connected car app, Amazon Cloud Player, which will allow customers to bring their music collections to their Ford dashboards.
But it’s not just about bringing music, GPS and mobile connectivity to cars. Earlier this month, Gigaom developed an interactive infographic of what they think the connected car of the future will look like. Eventually connected cars will evolve into something more complex than channeling music from your smart phone to your car’s dashboard.
Cars will have increasingly advanced voice command capabilities. Drivers might, for example, be able to dictate emails or communicate with their home.
