Those lovely people over at Nokia have furnished us with a few images of what their dashboard integration will look like, as well as the names of a few more partners for the Terminal Mode initiative. Intended to smarten up your car's hardware with the phone's capabilities -- whether that be to play back music, use Ovi Maps, browse the web, or whatever else -- this was announced
in partnership with Alpine yesterday, but today we're hearing that
Fiat,
Harman Becker and
Valmet Automotive are also getting in on the fun. The gallery below shows off a mockup from Valmet, which plops your Nokia into a cradle just under the Eva concept's "on" button, and then transfers all the important stuff onto an LCD integrated into the dashboard above. Nokia tells us that each OEM will have their own particular design, so this might not be how they'll all look, but as far as ease of use goes, we don't know how you can improve much on what's being shown already. Let's just hope the software is as effective as the presentation is handsome.
posted March 4th 2010 7:31AM
The concept of your phone or other external device being central to your vehicular experience is NOT the future. The future for reasons practical will be that you login to your car automatically the second you insert your (electronic) key. Your profile is then downloaded from teh cloud, including Spotify (for example) playlists, heat, seat, radio station and other car settings. Your phone should not be part of the equation, beyond perhaps acting as a satnav if the vehicle you are travelling in doesn't have one.
@Oflife : You're suggesting that you actually own many equally-capable computers, and have a roaming profile. It's an attractive idea, but I'd much rather have one computer, one roamable profile (for backup/upgrades) and several "cradles", provided that the one computer can do all that it's meant to.
Your idea's more likely to be supported by people that want us to actually buy new gadgets, though. ;)
@Oflife
In all those things, I would prefer to still be driving my car.
@Oflife
It's much more economical to have an upgraded set of functionality determined by a mobile device. No need to buy a nav system for your car if your handset can do it. Also, why keep music in sync on a car system? If your saying you don't think a car should require you to have a mobile device, then I agree completely. I think this should be billed as the evolution of Sync/Onstar/Blueetooth/MP3 player car integration. Basically a degree of modularity to display and audio sharing. I doubt the auto makers will like that idea though, they would rather sell you a hard mounted nav system worth $500 for $5000, than a universal dock and display for $1000.
"as far as ease of use goes, we don't know how you can improve much on what's being shown already"
Shouldn't Engadget staff burst into flames if they say such things in the context of Nokia? :p
@sockatume We have extinguishers on standby, just in case.
@Vlad Savov : :D
@Vlad Savov
i would rank you up for that. but i can't.
It seems very complicated to program a custom ui for every car. Wouldn't it be simpler, to dublicate the phones display on a bigger, touch sensitive screen?
@Fero What will be custom is the particular physical implementation, such as where the handset gets docked/cradled, and probably the size and position of the LCD. We don't know too much about the software side of things yet.
@Fero
i dont think people want to have a huge phone on their dashboard.
and, i think phone UIs wont be as nice or comfortable to use in cars.
@Fero
Why ?
You still can have an application with the right UI started when car cradle is detected, i dont see a problem here. I fact, this could be a good modular concept, with car manufacturer releasing its own car interface for most used platforms (Adnroid/Symbian/iPhone/whatever (or imagine your preffered order here :D))
Is that an optimal location for a handset to get a GPS fix with it's internal chip?
Ok, this car probably ain't hardtop...
@longjohn
The car could provide the gps information to the phone/screen
Eva?
The green on button reminds me of Eureka to be honest.
Airplanes have glasscockpits, now cars will get one too.
I know its just a concept but I have a big problem with how they designed the phone holder. I've owned a lot of Nokia phones in my day and they are never the exact same size. It looks like with this system I will be stuck with the phone that comes with it for the life of the car.
@mrbobvilla : Looks like there's a big plastic insert, like a dock adaptor, that you can change.
Hmm im sure in the future they will have audio upgrades for old model Corvettes Star Trek
As long as it looks better than that piece of crap plastic car I'm totally up for it.
@Gwanatu I liked that 3d-model-like car!
Throw in Michael J Fox and the chance for me to see my mom at her prom and we have a deal! Lol
For a sec I thought that green thing was a beer can chiller lol
So it is two way communication. Maybe we can tune up our cars soon with our phones and read those error codes too....
And watch DVB-H TV when cruising...
http://research.nokia.com/news/9356?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter