walmartbread

As an application developer and a car lover, this would open so many fun doors for me. Some very, very fun doors.

K-Spaz

Omg, now even my car can get a virus. Ain't this wonderful. Norton AV for GM/Ford/Chrysler... Wonder what this will cost...

darkmercury

New technology from vendors is driving this development for customization. Look at Nvidia's automotive interface platform that is open to developers. This is sick!!!!

http://www.nvidia.com/object/tegra-automotive.html

~Stingray

It will be interesting to see what comes out. How may apps do you really need in a car?

JerriVette

Actually it would be accurate as many performance options will be dealer installed. The brake duct sketch was just one example.

APPs I could give two craps about but dealer installed performance options has peaked my interest.

Thanks for the post!

ryoder

As a developer, this is great news. Also, the fact that the API supports HTML5 and javascript development means that building apps is going to be much faster and easier. It should open up a lot of possibilities. Of course the apps have to be approved but someone will crack the system and allow us homebrew developers to build non-sanctioned apps.
Imagine a track day app that shows all your buddies locations in real time on the map and allows you to record the whole thing. If you could add front mounted cameras you could have a whole swarm of cars with cameras logging content in real time.

K-Spaz

Hey yea! Now even when I track my car I can drive with people who are paying more attention to their stereo display than they are to driving the car. This is gonna be great!

BlueOx

Oh, you think the stereo is what it's about...:

The Sport Overlay displays the following vehicle metrics:
• Vehicle Speed: Up to three digits are displayed. Leading zeros are not displayed. The current speed is centered above the label. The label may change between MPH and km/h, depending on vehicle settings.
• Engine Rotations Per Minute (RPMs): The vertical line and triangle indicate current RPMs. As the RPMs increase the green back-fill follows.
• Transmission State (Current Gear): The numbers and letters displayed are dependent on the type of transmission in the vehicle. The types of transmissions are automatic or manual. The PRDN- is for automatic transmission vehicles, with the D changing to D1 or D2. Once the vehicle has shifted into drive, M1 or M2 are for automatic vehicles in manual shift mode. The 1 or 2 are for manual transmission vehicles.
• Lateral G-Force Graphic: Left and Right G-Forces are displayed the graphic fills to the left or the right depending on the measure value. The measured G-Force displays as a digital number as a digital number at the top of the graphic.

B]Performance Data Recorder...[/B]
[QUOTE]If equipped, the Performance Data Recorder (PDR) has an icon on the Home Page screen.
The PDR records video, audio, and vehicle data. This data is stored on an SD Card accessible by the driver

tuxnharley

That's OK, you can text them to tell 'em to pay attention to their driving.................

K-Spaz

Head unit, whatever you want to call it. That's fine. Look, I've been doing embedded systems work for a little over 20 years, and I've been programming since the late 70's. So yea, I used a generic term for what these people will be looking at (vs looking at the road). But, at least I know how to open and close a quote tag... Evidence to MORE programming experience... back to a day when applications programmers and systems programmers actually cared that they dotted all the i's and crossed all the t's.

Still don't need "apps" in my car... I can build CAN bus hardware now, what's this going to do for me, allow me to do the code for it in GWBasic?


HTML cripples the mind...

BlueOx

So you wouldn't want to use that to record your track efforts??

K-Spaz

What I'm saying is, I can do that now using the OBD port. If I want to build the thing myself, or buy one already commercially made, I can do that. So, any hacker can go cobble together a datalogger, and get all the data they want. When I'm tracking a car, I don't spend much time looking at the speedo. About all I care to see is an idiot light for oil pressure and temp, all the rest can wait till I'm done driving.

Means the code will be script, and will run so slow as to not be worth it for any serious datalogging. I don't see this as something new, other than to say they'll now have another interface available, and have made coding easier for those folks who don't care about the tradeoffs of such "features".

I'd be more excited if they said, 'We just gave you a new, higher bandwidth bus to talk to the car's onboard systems, and we're going to openly publish all the protocols for talking to said bus." Now I'll be impressed...

BlueOx

I certainly see your point...for you. Others won't have your abilities.

K-Spaz

Looking a little further, I see they are also talking about licensing and "full certification" for developers. Methinks these = $$$$$ Cha Ching... This doesn't sound like some sort of open source initiative.

Hey, I may be wrong, but it seems pretty odd that they'd go from the full onboard diagnostics of the C5, to virtually none on the C6, and then allow something like this on the C7. To have it actually work well and offer some additional ability to the consumer? That's just not in GM's best interest unless there's some underlying hidden costs too. And I mean, in addition to the fees to actually become a developer and write code. Maybe I'm reading it wrong, but it sounds like Gm wants to skim what everyone writes as well.

OMG

I love how quickly this thread got buried, but a thread about the tail lights looking like the Camaro goes on for weeks...

This thread just shows the generational gap of the plumber owners and the newer markets that GM is aiming for. lol.

BlueOx

Very good point. I brought this thread and am one of the "old guys". I just noticed this capability but would likely never utilize it. I don't even have my HUD turned on!

brentil

I actually registered the day it was announced and downloaded the SDK and documentation. I'm more interested in the in-car apps than the remote apps. I've got plenty of ideas for apps I already developed for smartphones that would be great for the in dash system.

Also like so many other topics there is so much misinformation in this thread about how the system works. The SDK documentation spells out all of the API features, times the apps can/cannot be used, accessibility to system resources, and restrictions to information. If there was more reading and less haters gonna hate this thread could have actually been useful instead of devolving into crap.

OMG

That's because *most* people don't buy the car to track it or do anything than parade around that they have a shiny expensive car and pose in front of it.

Anything that requires them to think about how to improve the car outside of aesthetics or bolt on's to say they have more power is completely ignored. I call it adult ricerism.

tuxnharley

Well, maybe for some, but most of us old farts actually have a life beyond just our Corvettes, and spend time on other cars/activities/etc as well.

Time is valuable, and we don't spend it all on any one thing.

That said, I'd guess that your abilities in the area being discussed here far exceed mine and that of most on the Forum. Everybody's good at something; this appears to be your area of expertise.. Not so much so in my case.......

brentil

I wasn't even really referring to apps geared towards performance or track events. I make a route tracking app that lets you compare your daily routes to see which are really faster & efficient. After you use it long enough it can build a history and tell you things like "take this route because on Tuesdays at 6pm it's always the fastest." Or you can use it to determine which is the most fuel efficient because of the least amount of idle time and constant speed. So there you go, saving both time and money from the dash of your car!