Have You Programmed a Ford Lately?

LAS VEGAS — In a bid to move more apps to the dashboard, Ford has announced it will give away tools to help software engineers adapt their apps for the Ford Sync system. Ford’s open source software development kit lets programmers create apps that work with the buttons on a Ford’s steering wheel and its in-car voice recognition program. Ford will still have an approval process that will look more like Apple’s than Android’s. Certain kinds of apps will be barred, like games, elaborate video and anything that would require extensive reading. The dashboard is becoming one of the most hotly pursued settings for apps because of its potential for advertising focused on a captive audience. 

On average people spend more than two hours a day in their cars. And of course, because people drive to stores, advertisers see them as particularly receptive to location-based advertising. The program is not just for developers, though. At Ford’s announcement at the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Julius Marchwicki, connected services product manager at Ford, said the company would direct people with nothing more than an idea to jacAPPS, a Michigan-based developer chosen to work with Ford. Ford also announced nine new apps that would be part of the Sync system, including The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Aha Radio, Rhapsody Radio, the Amazon Cloud Player and a location app, Glympse.