VROOM VROOM: Automotive Tech and the Future of Mobile Development

BY: Jimmy Tristovski – Recruitment Specialist

One of my principal obsessions growing up (and still to this date) can all be credited to one individual, Karl Benz; A passionate and exceptionally intelligent engineer who is commonly acknowledged as the inventor of the modern automobile with the first use of the internal combustion engine. Many great individuals further expanded on Benz’s original design and after a century, we are left with arguably one of the most important inventions in our daily lives, the automobile.

In my earlier years, I was the proud owner of a 97’ Ford Mustang GT and I was absolutely floored by the design of this car, speed, handling, and all the features in the fully loaded car. I always thought to myself “What are they going to come up with next?”

We now live in a society dominated by technology; more specifically mobile tech. A recent study by mobileinsurance.com has revealed that the average person spends 90 minutes per day on their phone. That figure may not sound like a lot, but that amounts up to 23 days a year and 3.9 years of the average person’s life is spent staring at their phone screen.

Personally, I have never downloaded a mobile application tailored to my vehicle. Being the car obsessed guy that I am would generally lead people to believe that I have installed a few mobile applications that would enhance my driving experience. I believe this is one area in the mobile app world that could use a “jump start” and could become quite lucrative for the next team of developers to create something that people would use everyday. There are many facets one could explore in creating useful mobile applications that enhance our everyday lives when it comes to automobiles — safety and performance come to mind; however, aside from way finding apps like Google Maps and Waze and the bat mobile’s remote recall, armor and weaponry, there have been no major breakthroughs yet.

I believe that the near future will see an assimilation of mobile and automobile tech that could lead to further development in our job market as well (specifically for developers in the automobile industry). As you will see in the links provided below, new tech and applications are emerging that can be integrated with each other.

What will we see next? I would love to see an application where someone can start their car and manipulate the temperature of their car via their mobile device.

Who’s going to do it?

http://www.computerworld.com/article/2497610/mobile-apps/8-apps-to-keep-your-car-rolling.html?page=2

http://www.autonet.ca/en/2013/11/05/the-top-nine-new-automotive-technologies-of-2014

http://www.caranddriver.com/features/2013-10best-10-most-promising-technologies-feature