Seat is not the only car manufacturer who tries to bring its clients new technology on the infotainment screens. At the Mobile World Congress, in Barcelona, Ford announced the popular navigation and traffic app Waze will be available to Ford owners globally from April 2018.
With more than 100 million active users, Waze is the world’s largest community-based navigation app, helping drivers to outsmart traffic together.
First announced at CES, the collaboration means that Apple iPhone owners will be able to project Waze from their smartphone to the big screen in their car. Ford already offers mobile navigation app Sygic on the AppLink platform, and the SYNC 3 Navigation System with FordPass Live Traffic.
Ford SYNC AppLink enables drivers to use supported smartphone apps on their vehicle’s integrated touchscreen; with advanced voice and steering wheel controls. AppLink is powered by SmartDeviceLink (SDL) an open source software solution promoted by a number of auto makers. SDL provides a common interface between apps and vehicles.
Ford, also in Barcelona, announced that the mobile app from audio-on-demand podcast app Acast would be made available to drivers. This offers offline downloads and an intelligent recommendation engine analyses commute times to suggest podcasts which best fit journey length. Acast was one of the winners of Ford’s 2017 “Make it Driveable” Paris AppLink Challenge, a start-up focused event to help companies develop ideas that make journeys better.
Ford also confirmed that the following apps will be coming soon to AppLink:
BPme – find BP petrol stations and pay for fuel from the comfort of your car
Radioplayer – from next month, discover and stream favourite radio shows, podcasts
Cisco WebEx – safely join and participate in meetings on the go with voice commands
