Smile, you're driving!

Smartphone apps are the new black when it comes to personalising your driving experience and, while some companies provide tight integration with infotainment systems, others like to provide a more peripheral experience.

Ford Australia last week announced that its Ford SYNC Applink system will appear in selected Australian models from 2014. The first three apps available for Ford AppLink locally will be Pandora, Kaliki and TuneIn Radio. With the Blue Oval’s SYNC system, these apps can be voice controlled by drivers without using their hands.

Pandora is free personalised internet radio. Enter a favourite artist, track, comedian or genre, and Pandora will create a personalised station that plays their music and more like it. Rate songs by giving thumbs-up and thumbs-down feedback and add variety to further refine your stations, discover new music and help Pandora play only favoured music.

TuneIn lets people listen to the world’s music, sports, talk and news from wherever they are, with more than 70,000 AM, FM, HD and internet radio stations and more than two million on-demand programs streaming from every continent.

Kaliki collates the top news stories from major newspapers and magazines and provides an audio version for on-demand playback in the customer’s vehicle. The Kaliki Audio Newsstand app lets drivers of Ford AppLink-enabled vehicles to listen to their favourite news and magazine stories.

In a related announcement, the Ford MyKey system will also make its way to Australia, beginning with the Ford Fiesta ST hatch next month. MyKey allows owners and/or parents to set what amounts to parental controls in a car.

This may provide some peace of mind to worried parents sending their P-plated offspring out onto the roads alone, by offering the ability to configure the system to:

>> Disable the audio system completely if seatbelts are not used
>> Chime at set points between 70 and 140km/h
>> Prevent the seatbelt reminders from timing out
>> Prevent safety technologies such as stability control from being deactivated
>> Deliver an earlier low-fuel warning at 120km, in addition to the typical low-fuel warnings, to reduce the likelihood of running out of fuel

“This is a significant safety feature for young drivers, who are over-represented in crash-related statistics in Australia,” said Ford Executive Vice President of Global Marketing, Sales and Service and Lincoln, Jim Farley.

“MyKey provides some direct parental control over their car. It allows owners to set sensible restrictions for young drivers and delivers piece-of-mind for parents.”

Meanwhile over at Holden, the MyLink system has migrated beyond the Cruze, Barina and VF Commodore to be included in the full range of Trax city-crossovers also due on sale next month.

Like Ford’s Applink, MyLink integrates smartphone apps into the vehicle’s infotainment system, giving safer access to Pandora internet radio, Stitcher smart radio, TuneIn and BringGo navigation apps.

“Drivers are increasingly expecting to remain connected to the outside world while driving, whether that’s making hands-free phone calls or playing their favourite internet radio stations,” said Joanne Markham, Holden’s Director of Electrical Engineering.

“Our approach in the introduction of this enhanced connectivity in the car is to use an interface which is intuitive, using a large touch-screen with options that are simple to read and easy to learn.”

Much of this is connectivity is directed at the Northern Hemisphere, where such systems have been part of the automobile scene for some time. As such, manufacturers are looking for different angles with their app integration.

A good example is Volkswagen of America, which has teamed up with Google to create SmileDrive – an in-car app aimed at maximising the fun of every driving trip.

“A lot of time is spent in the car today, whether it is for the daily commute to work or setting off with friends and family on a weekend camping trip,” said Kevin Mayer, Vice President of Marketing at Volkswagen of America.

“We wanted to provide a way for consumers to add a little more flair to their road trips and a way to share the good times in their VW's with their friends.”

Connecting through Bluetooth (importantly, to any car that has Bluetooth connectivity -- it does not have to be a Volkswagen), the app will run in the background, without interaction from anybody, quietly snooping on, and taking statistics about the trip.

After a drive is complete, the app uses factors like location, distance, time and weather to deliver users their ‘Smile Score’ and awards them with “stickers”, or virtual bumper stickers for unique accomplishments earned while out and about.   

What exactly these ‘accomplishments’ actually are remains unclear, but according to the developers there should be nothing that could encourage dangerous driving. An example is the ‘Night Owl’ sticker awarded for late night trips.  

On a longer sojourn, SmileDrive will allow car users to produce a travelogue full of maps, photos and descriptions that could be uploaded and shared with friends. SmileDrive will also feature a ‘Find My Car’ system that logs the parked position of your vehicle.

Some hand-held gaming devices are designed to be aware of each other as likeminded folks pass by each other on busy streets. For example, the Nintendo 3DS and the PlayStation Vita are constantly searching for others nearby to ‘punch’ (connect) and exchange friendly data without the knowledge of their owners.

In a similar way, SmileDrive will ‘see’ fellow Volkswagen drivers running the app and offer a virtual wave to them. None of this will be visible or audible at the time to drivers, but afterwards they will be able to marvel over their collection of Volkswagen ‘punches’.