Putting the mobile in automobile

· 15 minute read · via Punchkick
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Introduction

The interior of a Kia at dusk, its Android Auto dashboard glowing, with a couple embracing beside a beach bonfire in the background

One of the most obvious places for mobile technology to intersect with travel is with automobiles, which have been slowly evolving to include digital features over the last few years.

From Bluetooth connectivity that allows drivers to take calls over their car speakers to multimedia systems that integrate more closely with internet radio and streaming platforms, cars have inched toward the territory of consumer technology with each new model year release.

But technologies have begun to emerge that take this connectivity a step further, and remove the onus of innovation from the car manufacturers themselves. Technology companies like Apple and Google are beginning to invest in car connectivity, and third parties are each clamoring for ways to modernize the car—and propel it into the future.

Driving experiences are a central part of many consumers’ daily lives, so it should come as no surprise that automotive has become an area of intense interest for mobile companies. “Time spent in the car is extremely personal time,” said Punchkick strategist Billy Collins, “especially if you consider how often people are driving by themselves. So if mobile is the most personal incarnation of digital technology, it’s only natural that cars intersect with mobile.”

Beyond streaming audio or providing access to phone calls, how can cars and mobile interact in ways that are actually useful for drivers? According to Punchkick designer Andy Detskas, the same rules that apply to roadside signage can inform connected car interfaces. “Just like signs need to be concise, clear, and legible at 75 miles per hour, so too does the car display,” Andy Detskas said. “The typical design basics are important here—readable type, large target areas for buttons, and short line lengths for quick messages.” These basic considerations help ensure safety for drivers, but also present opportunities for quick points of contact for apps on the go.

“People spend an inordinate amount of time in cars, whether it’s a daily commute or a road trip, their own or someone else’s, whatever. But even though people spend so much time there, it hasn’t been explored from the mobile perspective.” —Billy Collins, Strategist

But capitalizing on that time is difficult, because the times when mobile is most relevant might also demand a good portion of drivers’ attention. “There’s a lot about the connected car that hasn’t been tested,” said Collins. “We don’t know definitively what people want when they’re driving. It’s virgin territory.” But the advantages of successfully bridging mobile and automobile are compelling.

Connected car experiences are unique in that they have to account for a number of unique factors, including drivers’ attention and providing immediate, clear, and contextual information. According to Collins, “The screen in the car is the next logical hurdle as we think about the future of the mobile user experience.”

CarPlay diem

In order to provide development platforms that give brands a voice in the automotive space, both Apple and Google have explored extensions of their flagship mobile operating systems that are specifically designed to run in cars. CarPlay, iOS’s counterpart in dozens of car brands’ vehicles, and Android Auto, the Google equivalent for the world’s most common mobile OS, both extend smartphones’ utility into traditional car infotainment systems.

But thinking about CarPlay and Android Auto as mere extensions of a mobile experience limits the imagination to what apps might do with a second screen, Punchkick strategist Billy Collins argues.

“The ‘connected car’ doesn’t necessarily mean people are looking at screens while they’re driving. They allow people to engage with maps, music, phone calls, and more without distracting from the core task of driving.” —Billy Collins, Strategist

“Today’s connected car platforms aren’t an extension of the phone or the tablet. They’re completely different screens with their own unique use cases.” Approaching in-car experiences with this perspective can yield more useful and engaging apps for drivers.

Today, both Apple and Google provide strict guidance around what types of apps can appear on these connected car platforms. Likely in the interest of driver safety and respecting the attention driving demands, CarPlay and Android Auto provide few avenues for custom development. “Apple is guarded about who can develop for CarPlay today,” said Collins, alluding to Apple’s close partnership with a handful of audio streaming apps. “But you can imagine a future where these platforms grow into a sandbox where developers can reach drivers in safe and reliable ways.”

Android Auto offers similar limitations, allowing developers to show new notifications and providing a scarce number of interface layout options so as not to distract drivers from the road. But both CarPlay and Android Auto become more compelling when you consider the development burden it lifts from automotive manufacturers, who are slow to upgrade infotainment systems or lack software development capabilities in-house.

“Android Auto and CarPlay are exciting because they remove the development burden from the automakers, and create a middle ground where developers can play.” —Billy Collins, Strategist

What’s more, the fast upgrade cycles of mobile operating systems will allow Apple and Google to push new features to users’ devices, rather than relying on firmware updates to vehicles’ infotainment systems in the field. The benefits of brought-in connected car systems (as opposed to “built-in” systems) are clear: easy upgradeability allows drivers to add new features to their cars over a number of years, rather than relying on infrequent and unreliable updates from an original equipment manufacturer.

Apple launched new CarPlay features in its iOS 8.3 release that allow iPhones to wirelessly connect via Bluetooth Low-Energy. The change removes barriers to in-car infotainment systems that might not include the once-necessary iOS Lightning cable, and might allow for a wider range of cars to join the CarPlay ecosystem via Bluetooth. “The days of simply getting in the car and having your iPhone wirelessly populate the in-car system with your favorite CarPlay apps, media, and notifications might soon be upon us,” said Collins.

These connected car systems go further to integrate with consumers’ daily lives than mobile ever has, and represent a first arena for mobile to expand outside of its 5-inch displays. “Just as wearables are redefining what an ‘app’ means, with different form factors and capabilities, CarPlay and Android Auto are expanding that definition as well,” said Collins.

“We’re getting to the point that when we think about ‘mobile,’ we’re thinking way outside the old assumptions of what constitutes mobile. It now includes all of these other screens or devices that smartphones can control.” —Billy Collins, Strategist

Tapping into OBD-II

Even before smartphones existed, automakers began integrating a standard for diagnostic information and maintenance that spans models and manufacturers. Called On-Board Diagnostics, or OBD, this port exists on nearly every vehicle manufactured since the mid-1990s and is intended to provide mechanics or dealership technicians with critical data about the vehicle’s overall health.

OBD provides access to critical engine codes, passive status of fuel levels, and more. Recently, technology companies have begun repurposing OBD to provide that same data to the user. Products like Automatic include wireless Bluetooth OBD adapters that connect to dedicated smartphone apps to report crucial engine information and make suggestions about driving trends. But these systems are repurposing old technologies originally intended for mechanics, and addressing user needs in circuitous ways.

“Companies are beginning to investigate OBD to track maintenance or vehicle health, which is interesting. But it’s a stopgap between what’s possible now and what will be possible in the future.” —Billy Collins, Strategist

Automakers are investigating different ways to bridge the divide between cars and digital, with strategies that run the gamut from obvious to ambitious. “There are a ton of directions the connected car could go,” said Punchkick iOS developer John Norton, “from connecting old cars with OBD to newer cars that come with built-in connected features. There are some car manufacturers essentially building a SIM card into a car so it functions as a wireless hotspot, allowing it to connect to the OEM’s own systems and web services. But this technology seems to assume that there wouldn’t be a connected phone already talking to web services right next to the driver.”

The built-in versus brought-in dichotomy defines how drivers will engage with connected features in their cars going forward, and is often dictated by manufacturer adoption. Because providing real-time information about car health is immensely useful and powerful for drivers, closer integration with car manufacturers will obviate the need for OBD connections in coming years. As cars evolve to become more aware of the mobile devices inside them, and as smartphones evolve to better retrieve data from cars, these connections will become even better.

“The locus of control exists with OEMs,” says Collins. “Those car manufacturers who are most successful engaging users inside and outside of the car will be those who empower the user to connect with and control their vehicle on mobile. And that will eventually happen without the need for additional hardware.”

Apps that today rely on OBD connectivity will over time grow to take advantage of these new connection systems. Eventually, the largest car manufacturers will make APIs available that provide information about the car’s health and diagnostic data over time, in addition to present states related to velocity and fuel. The automotive mobile experience of the future will remain constantly informed of a car’s every move, and leveraging OBD is one step in the direction of full, unfettered integration.

Leveraging Bluetooth

Before cars reach the stage where they seamlessly integrate with our mobile devices, manufacturers have a number of technologies that can modernize vehicles and provide value to tech-hungry drivers. Many of these ideas revolve around streamlining or digitizing common practices, such as unlocking the car or finding parking, and providing alternatives to replace the proverbial key fob.

Most of these opportunities involve Bluetooth Low-Energy technology, which requires significantly less power consumption for passively connected mobile phones and also includes new features for beaconing between devices. “Bluetooth LE is giving cars all kinds of new capabilities, beyond what OBD can do,” said Punchkick strategist Billy Collins. “And that trend is only going to continue as both cars and smartphones get smarter.”

In the future, unlocking your car will be as simple as walking up to it with your Apple Watch.

With this background Bluetooth awareness, cars and phones can communicate over a much wider range and exchange information traditionally reserved for radio-frequency key fobs. In the future, your car will intelligently unlock as you approach, assisted by the Bluetooth-aware smartphone in your pocket. In addition, wider range beaconing technology will help find your car inside a parking lot, beyond what geolocation is capable of today. “When your smartphone and your car are aware of one another, and can communicate over wider ranges, a lot of common frustrations will disappear,” said Collins.

Many of these innovations are dependent on Bluetooth or similar wireless integration into cars, but Collins argues that this evolution is likely and necessary. “I’m excited about the future of vehicle development, and how mobile is shaping that future for vehicle OEMs.” Integrating new proximity awareness technologies, similar to the rollout of CarPlay-style infotainment replacement systems, will create a development platform that technologists can explore while automakers reap the benefits.

“Mobile is removing unnecessary hurdles and absorbing anything that requires keys or switches into one centralized device in our pockets.” —Billy Collins, Strategist

These spaces will become even more interesting as wearables become more commonplace. “Wearables extend this convenience even further, because they remove the additional obstacle of the mobile device in your pocket,” said Collins. “These simple actions—like unlocking the car or finding it within a parking lot—are accessible from your wrist without having to unlock your phone and open an app.”

Over time, as the wearable industry matures and platforms like Apple’s Watch OS and Google’s Android Wear become more capable, these products will alleviate the need for tethered smartphones altogether. “Because wearables have sensors for location or acceleration inside of them, soon they won’t even need to be tethered to a smartphone to do things like connecting to external devices,” said Collins. “They can do what they were made to do without a phone or a database to connect to.”

Designing for drivers

Between CarPlay or Android Auto and technologies that enable new in-car experiences, brands and app makers have opportunities to connect with drivers in entirely new ways. But appreciating the context of driving and addressing customers in the car involves a consideration for what information is most pressing and relevant in the car, and a respect for drivers’ divided attention.

To this end, both Apple’s and Google’s connected car platforms take clarity and immediacy into account, offering developers few tools to display graphical elements on screen and instead prioritizing voice-activated features or spoken notifications. With respect to driver attention, these platforms err on the side of safe and unobtrusive communications. But the ability to control Pandora from a connected car infotainment display is one thing, and truly providing access to smartphone features in car-optimized capacities is more valuable.

How we interface with cars is fundamentally different than how we interface with smartphones—this much goes without saying. Whereas mobile displays have the luxury of our attention for minutes at a time, automotive displays have to factor conciseness and clarity into account in completely new ways. How do these considerations impact the design of connected car apps? According to Punchkick designer Andy Detskas, this comes down to understanding users’ expectations in the car.

“There’s an idea to design products around what people are going to use it for 98% of the time. For example, a Xerox machine is going to do all kinds of things, but people are most commonly going to walk up and copy something. So the process to make copies needs to be obvious, immediate, and efficient.” —Andy Detskas, Designer

But identifying which tasks are most relevant to drivers is no simple feat. As cars and mobile devices become more sophisticated, and as access to once-complex systems becomes easier on the go, users’ expectations about what they can do in the car will evolve. “Cars are becoming entertainment hubs,” said Punchkick iOS developer John Norton, “but that’s just the beginning. New ways of interacting with the content on your phone, as facilitated by the car and future interfaces like voice activation, are going to allow drivers to reclaim portions of their lives. We’ll start to perceive the car as a space to get things done, from triaging emails to listening to podcasts and everything in between.”

Reducing the number of taps involved in any task can simplify user flows, and also help developers narrow the scope of what in-car apps can do.

But might these complex, multifaceted tasks interfere with the core task of driving? According to Andy Detskas, there are ways to avoid overcomplicating things. “Interacting with the voice is obvious, but there are on-screen things you can do to improve the interface for drivers.” Many of the user interface learnings that apply to mobile apps can inform low-touch in-car experiences, as well. “Practices to keep visual density down, like minimizing the number of fonts or colors in an interface, can help prevent distractions. Minimizing the number of taps to accomplish any task—ideally, no more than two—can help simplify the user flow, and would also help developers narrow the scope of what the in-car app can do.”

These ideas seem straightforward, and are assisted by recommendations in Apple and Google’s design guidelines, but fly in the face of common interface practices in modern automobiles—even among technology leaders in the space. “Teslas have these massive displays, and that’s definitely going to become the expectation for users,” said Detskas.

“But right now, they’re incredibly information-dense. Everything is skeuomorphic, looking like chrome or leather and stuff like that. And it clutters the interface—I was surprised that Tesla would take such an analog approach with its UI, but it reflects that they’re still part of the auto industry’s legacy in that regard.”

With development from both automakers and Silicon Valley giants, a number of user interface approaches are sure to challenge the status quo in coming releases. But the focus on clarity, and minimizing the amount of visual clutter or decoration in the UI, are best practices that extend beyond automotive. “These rules apply everywhere to varying degrees,” continued Detskas, “but they’re intensified in the car and in wearables, where attention is limited and even the occasional glance is a luxury.”

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