iPod integration in the car
Cars are getting to be pretty advanced and feature rich. CNET has an article that talks about how iPods are integrated into more than half of 2009 models. QNX likely has contributed a large portion to many of these models. Its satisfying to see your work end up in real-world product.
The article also has some interesting stats on hard drives and bluetooth integration in cars. The head units in cars these days are as powerful as many desktop computers and have even more peripherals.
Now unfortunately, the one thing the article has completely wrong is that “Microsoft Automotive Platform … offers the most universal integration”. If I were to compare MS Auto to QNX Car, I’d like to point out:
- CD’s are not dead. MS Auto currently doesn’t do CDs, or CD Changers. QNX is shipping in many cars today with that feature. We also support MP3-CD’s
- Ripping CDs, or USB Sticks. QNX’s MME manages all this for you so that when you ask to rip a CD or list of USB tracks to your hard drive it will do that as fast as possible without interrupting your playback. And if you power off your car, it’ll continue where it left off.
- Embedded hard drive support: without ripping, do you support a hard drive?
- Internet Radio integration.. how connected are you without the internet?
- QNX Car also has the same “most universal integration” features that MS has: USB Mass Storage, iPod, PlaysForSure, Zune, Bluetooth.
- QNX Car is shipping in many other makes than Ford. In fact the last stat I heard is that it is in over 40% of the 2009 models! I should talk to marketing to get a completely accurate number.
As usual, Microsoft has lots of dollars to spend on advertising, but the real question is how good is their product? QNX has always been quality driven, and therefore is chosen to run space equipment, nuclear power plants, and the fancy features in your car.
Good points, Dan. I think QNX needs to reach out to the author, Wayne Cunningham, so that he understands QNX’s superior integration (and market share!). About 200 car models ship with QNX technology in them, which is way more than Microsoft.
Dan, I am pretty familiar with the MME but was surprised to hear that it supports Internet radio integration. Is this a new feature in the “QNX Car” platform? Ideally, I should be able to stream via either RTSP/RTCP or by fetching a file from its URL over HTTP and play it through the MME? How does the MME support this? Where can I find more details on Internet streaming offered by the MME?
Hi Glen,
In 20.9 it was available as an undocumented feature. In 20.10 we’ll document how it works and how to use it. Currently we support MP3 and AAC streams with metadata over HTTP. This can let you play content like shoutcast.com.