Anyone know when new apps are coming for the infotainment system? How will they be distributed?

 

Where did you hear there would be apps for it?

 

MyLink is an open framework system with a toolbox for developers similar to Apple's iOS for the iPhone and iPad. There is a free website and review/approval process for potential developers to write apps for the system with GM's assistance.

The Valentine V1 radar detector has an iPhone app that communicates via Bluetooth with the detector and displays more comprehensive information about the bogeys and allows customization of the detector settings from the iPhone.

Pandora works on your MyLink system via an app on your iPhone (and very well, I might add) and simply ports the iPhone data to MyLink. This app was written by Pandora and approved by a GM for use. I contacted Valentine's engineers via email about a month ago and suggested that maybe they could think about writing an app for MyLink that ports the detector data from the iPhone to the infotainment screen, giving them the web address of the developer's gateway. How cool would that be?

Believe it or not, I got a very positive and enthusiastic response from their head of engineering saying they went to the website, saw possibilities and would definitely look into it, thanking me for the idea.

I am not a programmer, but I did sign up on their developers portal. It was very interesting to see the different modules that are available to developers. Things such as road speed, gear position, rpm's, engine performance data, etc. are all available as well as GPS information and cellular streams that can be incorporated into apps, as well as USB and SD card data. It's a huge sandbox.

 

^^^^^^

Good info!

 

Interesting indeed. As I DO write code (in several languages) it will be fun to have a look around at the Mylink website.

Thanks for the info

 

Maybe I'm lacking imagination. I see nothing in this set of data that GM couldn't display already. What value can a dev add to it? Also, what is the monetization strategy? Advertisements or a few thousand paid apps?

 

Yeah. I was thinking of writing a Spotify app.

I'll need to look at both SDKs to see how they actually work.

 

Ability to download data to your smartphone (or other Bluetooth device) might be nice. Or how about an app that provides a service not currently offered? How about a Siri type app?

As the apps for MyLink are written in Javascript (same as Android and iPhone apps), should be a relatively simple matter to port them over.

Just throwin' out some thoughts

 

I keep seeing references to iPhone. Does the system offer equal functionality for Android devices?

 

iPhone apps are not JavaScript. They're "Object-C".
Android apps are not JavaScript either. They're a modified "Java" (which is totally different from JavaScript).

 

I'm trying to figure out how to get ahold of their SDK!

 

Haven't done any iPhone apps but I have done Android ones in Javascript. Hell, I've done 'em in Python and C++ as well

 

I would like an app that allows me to make various settings changes from a central location. Call it Hot Button or something. For example, to change the steering feel, you currently have to select Home, Settings, Vehicle, etc. With Hot Button, you could define a icon to set the steering to what you want with one selection. Another example, to get the speed limit display in the IP monitor, you have to hit the left selector button, scroll up to I, then scroll to select it. With Hot Button, a single selection would change the display.

 

Me too. I'm going through the GM SDKs right now. I downloaded their "in-vehicle SDK" a few minutes ago and I'm checking it out. It's a lot of Java JAR files that seem pre-compiled, so I'm not sure why they're calling it an SDK. Even their PDFs are hardly helpful.

It seems that their Apps are HTML5/JS driven, which is good for me since that's the primary type of programming I do day to day.

That's interesting. Are they using wrappers? I haven't developed for Android or iOS yet. I only know what language they run on.

 

Have a look here:

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3...lop-in-android

 

Someone must've said this about cell phones 25 years ago...what would anyone want to do other than make a phone call?

 

Very interesting... I may have to start playing with the Android SDK then. I'm going to have to do it at some point anyway because the Spotify SDK basically needs an agent running on the phone to get it to work with an external device that isn't the Spotify App itself. LOL

 

Where'd you find the SDK? I can't seem to find it

 

https://developer.gm.com/

 

Excellent! Danke