Going native
To understand how these issues can be addressed, consider the software options available to infotainment system developers. For many, the tried-and-true approach is a native C/C++ toolkit such as EG Guide, Qt, or Crank...
Going mobile
HTML5, for example, offers many capabilities of a traditional HMI toolkit, including a rendering engine, content authoring tools, and a programming language; it also offers benefits that some native toolkits would be hard-...
Blending output
To combine these environments successfully, a software platform must support several key technologies. The first is graphical composition, which consolidates output from multiple application windows onto a single display. The windows...
Abstracting services
To combine environments, the platform must also provide an abstraction layer that enables applications created with a variety of tools and languages to interact with system services. For instance, in a service abstraction layer based...
Containing apps
Applications from the mobile world can help enrich and extend the infotainment UX. Nonetheless, it's important to ensure the security (and hence the safety) of the car by protecting it from the "wild west" of mobile apps. The system's...
Keeping it fresh
To stay current, an infotainment system must support over-the-air (OTA) software updates. This requirement will only grow in importance as cars become more connected to fast-evolving cloud services and mobile devices...
