Social Machinery

It looks like everyone wants to have an Application store: you see Apple celebrating three billion downloads milestone, RIM and Google launching their own apps store to support BlackBerry and Android phones respectively and even operators like China Mobile, Vodafone and Telefonica exploring this avenue.

But have you thought on automobile applications store?

Well, Ford thinks they can bring application stores technology to its vehicles. The automobile company will open a programming interface for Ford SYNC, their current in-car entertainment system, to third parties. This will allow SYNC users to download applications for their cars from Ford’s application store. Applications like Pandora are already available.

How everything started

Initially Ford ran a project with six students from the University of Michigan campus to help it convert 100,000 applications from the iPhone App Store down to those that would be relevant for use in vehicles. But when students started modifying them to work with SYNC using vehicle buttons and voice-commands, legal restrictions became a showstopper for the project. 

Then, the students decided to modify the project and start to collaborate to create applications tailor-made for Ford from scratch by creating a open API model. This could facilitates development of SYNC-enabled versions of existing mobile apps plus introduces new path for developers to bring unique automotive applications. 

MyFord Touch

Now the project is becoming mainstream with Ford announcing their latest evolution of the Ford SYNC system called MyFord Touch which integrates SYNC system with your phone and the Internet. For instance MyFord touch system could make your car into Wi-Fi hotspot and includes HD radio with iTunes tagging support. 

The new interface has been designed to replicate a traditional car dashboard, but everything is interconnected. There are two 4.2″ LCD screens on either side of an analog speedometer, plus an 8″ touch-screen LCD in the center console. Controls on either side of the steering wheel make it easy to navigate different options.

According to K. Venkatesh Prasad, technical leader “The explosive growth in apps comes from community-created development, software geeks chatting about code on social media sites, open collaboration. That’s the genesis of app innovation, and that’s the spirit we wanted to capture for SYNC.” 

“Imagine being able to access your favorite Internet radio services in your vehicle, all by voice command,” said Doug VanDagens, Ford director of Connected Services. “Think about how excited young drivers will be when they can access their most recent social networking messages and have them read to them by our text-to-voice capability.” 

MyFord Touch will be available on the 2011 Ford Edge and have global availability on the 2012 Ford Focus.

Read more: Mashable