At last year’s Geneva Motor Show, Nokia was talking about the proposed ‘Terminal Mode’ industry standard that would enable smartphones to support in-car entertainment and information systems.
Since then, Terminal Mode has become MirrorLink - and now Nokia has announced the first commercially available solution for the MirrorLink platform.
It’s a Symbian app called Nokia Car Mode. The app is designed to work with the forthcoming Symbian Belle OS, making it easier for customers to use navigation, listen to music and handle voice calls while driving. It’ll be available for download from the Ovi Store by the end of the year.
Also announced today was the Alpine ICS-X8, which is a dashboard-mounted unit that allows MirrorLink capabilities to be ‘retro-fitted’ in compatible vehicles. Users can then control smartphone applications from the unit’s 7-inch display screen.
Floris van de Klashorst, Automotive Services Director of Nokia’s Location & Commerce business, said “MirrorLink and Nokia Car Mode are a big leap forward in allowing car drivers to access their favourite smartphone services. Via MirrorLink users have comfortable and safe access to maps, music and telephony on their phones when they're in their cars even while driving. In the future, MirrorLink will enable plenty of other popular features since we're only at the beginning of what we can do by linking smart devices with vehicles. We expect developers to come up with innovative new applications optimised for use in cars.”