Sprint To Automakers: Give Us Your Tired, Your Poor, Your Wretched In-Dash Gizmos


Sprint Nextel presents a new “Velocity” in-vehicle communications and entertainment architecture at the LA auto show. You can’t buy it from Sprint, but Sprint hopes your automaker will buy it from them. This did not keep Sprint from taking jabs at its presumptive customers:
“They know how to make great cars. They assemble these vehicles that we all fall in love with. But when it comes to this stuff, they are not in the communications business.”
So spoke Wayne Ward, Sprint’s vice president of emerging solutions, to Reuters.
Velocity meets automakers with severe migraine. Misunderstood technology did cost precious J.D.Power points. Consumer Reports panned the MyFord Touch system and called GM’s new CUE system “convoluted and frustrating.”
“This stuff is pretty hard,” said Ward who hopes that automakers learn to leave the stuff to the experts.
Velocity is an application framework for infotainment and telematic systems. It includes Infotainment and streaming music, remote locking and unlocking, vehicle start, 911 assist, even creating a rolling Wi-Fi hotspot.
Sprint’s first customer is Chrysler which uses Velocity as the basis for its UConnect system in the Ram pickup truck and Dodge Viper.
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Automakers suck at software, it's no secret. This goes double for the aftermarket (Kenwood, Pioneer, Alpine...etc). Google and Apple have user interfaces pretty well figured out. Motorola's auto dock for their razr line does a nice job of skinning android to make the thing easy to use for music, navigation, and telephone while behind the wheel. Automakers need to leave this one to the software/usability experts.
there is no way in hell I would want a sprint app running my car. I hate that friggin company. It figures they would say "this stuff is hard" funny that's what your company does, yet it's difficult for you. That explains a lot! I'll trust GM and others to make an app and have it more secure than sprint ever thought they needed it. Any brand that starts picking up sub brands to handle in car technology is only shooting themselves in the foot. Do it yourself and do it right.
"But when it comes to this stuff, they are not in the communications business" Neither is Sprint-Nextel. These two losers have by far the slowest network around. Try to use the internet on their cell network here in the Bay Area- your lunch hour will be over before you can load a page.
I'm surprised someone didn't do this already. I wonder if any car company went to a communications company and said "We need a system that does X,Y, and Z" before developing it themselves.