Apple announces 'iOS in the Car'

Since Apple pulled out of the San Francisco Macworld event, the company's Worldwide Developer Conference has taken the place of primacy on its product-announcement calendar.

On Monday, they hinted at new Mac Pros, unveiled iOS 7's flattened interface and unveiled their Pandora-fighting iTunes Radio service. That's nice and all. Plenty of us at Autoweek have iPhones. A few of us are longtime Apple heads, and plenty of car guys happen to be gadget freaks, as well.

But the biggest news in our world is the announcement of what Apple's calling “iOS in the Car.”

We know little at this point, but we do know it's an evolution of Apple's iPod Out technology, which was touted by BMW pretty heavily a few years ago and whose functionality was summarily neutered with the arrival of the iPhone 5 and its Lightning connector.

In short, iOS in the Car takes over your screen and allows you to do things in what we presume will be a way familiar to iPhone users.

We also know that it'll rely on Siri for voice commands and Bing for maps. As to the way you'll actually interact with your apps? We're not sure yet, though we assume it won't be a straight port of your phone's screen.

This may well obviate the need for pricier apps like GM's BringGo for the Chevy Spark (which is already available with Apple's Siri Eyes Free tech), unless, of course, you happen to be one of the Android-loving masses.

You'll see it in cars from automakers including Honda, Acura, Mercedes-Benz, Nissan, Infiniti, Ferrari, Chevrolet, Hyundai, Kia, Volvo and Jaguar in 2014.

By Davey G. Johnson