|
App store in Automotive
Franz Walkembach, Wind River
Mobile devices have been fixed in functionality for quite a while. Meanwhile the world has changed. Mobile devices beame more powerful and end users got the ability to load applications onto the mobile device during operation. This concept has grown quickly and the number of applications increased. Operators provide them in an "App store" which is clearly one of the hypes in the market today. How does this affect automotive ? For many years car manufacturers like the idea of downloading an application to an infotainment system in the car after shipment of the car to the manufacturer. Several attempts have been undertaken to reach this goal with limited success.
With the threat of smartphones and PDAs that provide navigation as well as personal navigation devices (PND) at relatively low price this goal has become very critical. Being mobile devices the PDAs, smartphones, and PNDs do provide application downloading by the "App Store". So why not provide an "App Store" for the infotainment device in the car ? A lot of OEM and Tier 1 in automotive are talking about this or do run projects to get first experience with this subject. Most of the companies underestimate however the effort behind the visible app store. Is the content in the "App Store" for free ? Billing, cashing, ticketing and the business model are items which need to be clarified upfront when running an app store. Specifically for the automotive domain the question of quality, reliability and responsibility for the applications in the "App Store" needs to be addressed. End users do not expect that the infotainment system breaks because they did load an application from the "App Store".
On the example of the Wind River Moblin based "App Store" some of these items will be highlighted and bottlenecks of those presented. Pros and Cons of some solutions in the market will be shown. The whole process from the user interface down to the "App Store" server backbone elements will be described and software structures shown. Some examples will be shown where "App Stores" where successfully brought to market.
|
