Toyota and Microsoft will host a joint live webcast tomorrow, Wednesday, April 6 at 1 p.m. Pacific. “Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft, and Akio Toyoda, president of Toyota Motor Corp., to discuss a collaboration between the two companies.,” says Microsoft.
Other details are not forthcoming. However, the announcement already gave rise to brainy tweets along the lines of “Mayday! Mayday! Imagine a Prius that runs on Microsoft Windows. Apply brakes …”
Winrumors thinks that “the companies will likely partner to offer a full Microsoft Automotive solution that goes further than Toyota’s previously announced Bing integration. Stay tuned for further details tomorrow.” On-line geeks speculate that “They’ll probably do their own Toyota style MS Sync service like what Ford has had, and now Kia also has though they call it something else.”
To find out whether Winrumors or the geeks are on target, watch the event at http://www.microsoft.com/newscenter .
I like the value in Microsoft products (seriously, I do) but I’d much rather see what Apple could do with a car.
Yeah, Apple has the UI game down. In a car, easy UI is that much more important.
That said, I love the bluetooth integration with my iPhone 4 and ’10 4Runner. It starts playing the iPod app as soon as I turn the vehicle on, it will stream Pandora, and using apple’s Voice Control (hold the home button), I can control the phone with voice commands and it uses the 4Runner’s microphone for the voice inputs. It is pretty minimalist as far as integration, but it works really well. I just wish switching between my phone and my wife’s phone didn’t require stepping through as many menus.
I am more interested in what Android could do in a car. I want a car that can run flash :)
I think they’ve coordinated Entune with Microsoft the entire time. It makes sense since Sync, Uvo and Blue & Me use Microsoft’s Automotive platform.
As for the Apple UI idea, the chances of that happening seem slim. Apple’s desire for complete control would mean it would probably only work with iPods. As hated as Microsoft is, at least their system is device agnostic, adapting to everything from iPods to USB flash drives.
In a simplified shut down procedure for push button ignition Toyota and Lexus products, Microsoft will introduce three new buttons to all Toyota products, CTRL-ALT-DEL. Pressing all three of these buttons together will result in a forced shut down of your Toyota product.
All kidding aside, I really do love the Ford Sync system but my last experience in a rental Edge with the Sony touch controls left me cold. The solution felt very Microsoft, latency in button pushes, took forever to sync to my MP3 player, ironically a Zune for cripe sakes, and several crashes that resulted in a forced reset of the system. I suspect Ford has tacked on too much crap and the internal processor is overtaxed for how much has been added to the shell, GUI, and applets.
I hope Toyota does it better.
Bing? Bing blows. Even Google does a better job of finding what you want on Microsoft’s web site.