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Ferrari, Volvo, and Mercedes to unveil first iOS in the Car-integrated vehicles next week

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When announcing iOS 7 last year, Apple previewed an upcoming featured called iOS in the Car that will allow automotive manufacturers to integrate iOS-powered mobile devices into the media centers in their cars. The feature was noted as “coming in 2014” and no more was said about it until just recently when developers managed to get the system working on the iPhone Simulator.

Now, the Financial Times reports that three automotive companies are preparing to show off their first new vehicles equipped with the technology. This doesn’t necessarily mean that iOS 7.1—the update that will enable the feature on the iPhone and iPad—is coming next week.

While the update has been in beta for several months and could be released to the public next week, it’s also possible that the auto makers’ announcements will simply be a preview of things to come, with the software continuing to be developed on Apple’s end until a later release.

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Comments

  1. Daniel Sims (@SimsDaniel) - 10 years ago

    Wow, what happened to BMW? Disappointing.

  2. Anoop Menon - 10 years ago

    Nice indeed. Its a good move, I still hate the fact that some of the German cars doesn’t even support iPod to start with. This is a welcome move. Does this means that you cannot pair any of your non iOS devices via bluetooth?

  3. Dimitri Kyriakis - 10 years ago

    Mercedes has QNX built into it. IOS will sit ontop of it & run with QNX. Its already been said.

  4. This integration will open up so many things in future, Anyway its already very hard to integrate android with anything because of so many different hardware/software profiles. It is becoming clear that ios is moving to a more integrated lifestyle strategy … which will be very diffcult for android to do, unless
    samsung does a similar move. But which car manufacturer would be interested ? and which mobile phone version of android with which model are they going to integrate with which car ? Fragmented the story of android. LOL

    • Jaysin Harry - 10 years ago

      You can already get an Android based head unit. See for example http://szsion.en.alibaba.com/

      I think integration issues are overstated:- many apps work well enough…

      In any case, the Open Automotive Alliance is a recent coordinated effort spearheaded by Google to address the issues you allude to (announced at CES this year).

  5. Nice. A new development form factor for IOS and new business.