most app developers don’t have the incentive to learn deeply about those requirements and do the extra work required to customize their wares for each new vehicle, which might see 700,000 units shipped a year, Payne says. (Compare that to the 1.5 million new Android phones activated each day.)
OpenCar has built a free software development kit (SDK) that Payne describes as essentially “an HTML framework for running apps in a car.” He says that the majority of the source code in the SDK is open, helping a developer learn about the underlying principles of app development appropriate to the car.
The main purpose is to allow a developer to create apps for a generic car interface. The apps can then be easily adapted to match specific vehicle requirements.
OpenCar reviews the apps through automated testing and some human evaluation, and provides feedback on improvements that could make them more appealing to automakers. The company is motivated to make developers’ projects a success, Payne says.
“We’re not going to charge developers anything,” he emphasizes.
The business models for developers would be similar to current models for mobile devices, with options including free apps that support other endeavors, app sales, subscriptions, and advertising. (In-vehicle advertising raises lots of issues that the auto industry is starting to hash out now. Payne says early experiments focus on location-based offers such as a coupon for the drycleaner that you pass each day on the way to work.)
Ultimately, a developer using the OpenCar platform decides when the app is done. It would then be placed in OpenCar’s online clearinghouse for third-party apps, where automakers will be able to browse for ideas they might include in future vehicles. The clearinghouse will be available in late spring, Payne says.
A second OpenCar development kit will allow automakers, system integrators, and suppliers to essentially create a profile that represents the specific make and model they’re working on—essentially meeting the app developers halfway. These profiles capture the car’s unique telematics, graphic layout, controls, voice interaction model, and other elements. Apps developed on the OpenCar platform can be easily made to match these unique profiles.
OpenCar plans to make money by licensing its platform to automakers, Payne says, and by offering professional services to help them build their unique vehicle profiles and make use of specialized tools that faithfully render the environment in their vehicles for developers, leading to better apps.
In the end, Payne sees something akin to the streamlined tools and marketplaces available to developers creating apps for Android and iOS, which make it relatively easy to build and publish smartphone and tablet apps today.
“We can create a system where everyone’s focusing on their own domain of excellence,” Payne says. “Right now we have a system where the integrators are being forced to go out and learn about the apps, and the app developers are being forced to learn about the HMI, which only scales up to about as much as it has right now. We have about a dozen, 15 apps that we see over and over in all our cars.”
And that’s where a platform like OpenCar’s could really pay off. Payne says his company could unlock a much broader array of apps for vehicles that would be highly useful to small audiences—call it the long-tail curve of in-car apps.
Payne’s favorite example is an app for people who commute by car ferry. “I want Washington State Ferries (WSF) service to tell me, ‘I can see you’re racing for the boat. You’ve already missed it. That’s OK. The queue is this long and you’re going to be on the 5:20 boat. Don’t worry.'” (This idea is not at all far-fetched. Late last year WSF began a pilot project to show travelers the estimated number of vehicle spaces available on certain upcoming sailings.)
Payne acknowledges the ferry wait-time app has limited appeal and probably would not be built under the status quo for automotive app development—the status quo OpenCar is challenging.
The 19-person company has been privately funded to this point, but has not yet taken venture capital investment, Payne says. That is likely to change if 2014 unfolds as he hopes it will. A large part of the funding has come from its partnership with Mazda. “We’ve done a lot of things that will benefit Mazda in a big way,” he says.
Payne says Mazda recognizes that the model for safely bringing lots of app choices to vehicles is not for each automaker to publish its own development kit—though some, including Ford and General Motors, have done so. Unless a company owned a monopoly share of the market, “you’re still not going to get developers to use a particular SDK and standardize around that as the sole mechanism,” he says.
He says the benefits of the OpenCar platform will grow with each automaker that joins, as it will provide a bigger addressable market for developers, and in turn a broader set of apps for customers of those participating automakers to choose from.
OpenCar isn’t the only company trying to better integrate apps and automobiles. Google, through its newly announced Open Automotive Alliance, presents another option for Android developers. The alliance includes Audi, GM, Honda, Hyundai, and Nvidia, and promises open standards and customization of the Android platform in vehicles.
Payne’s early read on the OAA is that it could be complementary to OpenCar, but also “potentially competitive.”
Meanwhile, Apple, with iOS 7, promised last summer seamless integration of its devices through a car’s in-dash system for properly equipped vehicles beginning this year. More than a dozen manufacturers have indicated plans to include the feature.
With these moves by major players in mobile apps and innovative approaches from upstarts like OpenCar, 2014 is shaping up to be a significant year in the growing competition to define the app platform for cars—a major frontier in software.
