Your browser is out-of-date!

Update your browser to view this website correctly. Update my browser now

×

Ford Seeding Market For Sync-Controlled Apps

San Francisco – Ford
went to the CTIA convention here to announce the launch of a software
developers kit (SDK) that will enable app developers to modify BlackBerry and
Android smartphone apps so they can be controlled via voice through Ford’s first-
and second-generation Sync systems.

The apps would use
Bluetooth to connect the phones to Ford’s Sync system.

The development
promises to expand the number of Sync-controlled smartphone apps, which are
currently limited to Stitcher’s Internet news and podcast app, OpenBeak’s
Twitter-streaming app with text-to-voice conversion, and Pandora’s Internet
music service, which delivers cellular-streamed music programming to a
Sync-enable factory sound system via stereo Bluetooth. Apps can be downloaded
from the Android and BlackBerry app stores.

“More and more
drivers will find a way to use their devices and their apps while in the car,”
said Derrick Kuzak, Ford group VP for global product development, during a
keynote speech here. “They can do it unsafely, or they can do it through safer
voice-activated solutions such as Ford Sync, keeping their eyes on the road and
their hands on the wheel.”

The SDK release,
the company added, “marks the latest move by Ford to forge a more open collaborative
bond with the wireless, consumer electronics and app developer communities to
create a safer and smarter in-car connectivity experience that leverages”
mobile devices that consumers already own.

At the show, Kuzak
also asked the wireless industry to work closer with Ford to help motorists
drive more safely. Ford, he noted, is the first automaker to adopt Bluetooth’s Message
Access Profile (MAP), which in Sync-powered

MyFord Touch user interfaces

offers text-to-voice capability to read aloud text messages and reply to text
messages by voice. He asked handset makers to adopt the standard in more
phones.

Sync, launched in
October 2007 on the Ford Focus, delivers voice control over a vehicle’s
entertainment systems, Bluetooth-connected cellphones for hands-free calling,
and USB-connected MP3 players.

Second-generation
Sync systems

extend voice control to additional functions, including
climate-control functions. It also features two USB ports instead of one and
adds an SD card slot, RCA A/V inputs and Wi-Fi, which turns a vehicle into a
mobile hot spot when a cellular USB modem is inserted. The next-gen system also
adds built-in GPS, enabling drivers to use Ford’s currently available TDI
(Traffic, Directions, Information) service.

Featured

Close