The Ford Developer Program

KL Tech Muse

13 years ago

Ford Motor Company opened up their app program to all developers at CES 2013 The new platform is called Uplink it is a suite of technology that works with Connect to Sync. This program has gone through two years of beta testing using such apps as Pandora however now it is open to all developers. It should be opened to North America, Europe and China by the end of the year. Ford has hired people from the mobile industries work previously done some development so they are ready for the volume. They’ve have told developers there are certain categories they will not permit including games videos anything with a lot of texts involved. Ford has developed a multiple number of test that the developer’s app must pass before it is even submitted. These standards are available at the Ford Developer Program website. Ford would like developers to concentrate on using voice commands or if that’s not available quick touch. Right now Ford is concentrating on the driver and they want to make sure that the apps are distraction free.

Developers can work on either the iOS platform or the Android platform. The IOS platform works with the Xcode package in Objective C. The Android platform uses the Eclipse package in Java. Is it a Json library with an API call. The head unit software accepts and manage the information. The head unit software is being open to the industry. Ford is trying to work with competitors so that developers don’t have to develop a different package for each car company.

The apps once developed or tweaked for the environment will be available directly through iTunes and the Google Play Store. Ford is also continuing to work on opening up their diagnostic platform or OpenXC Platform to produce more data for research. If you are developer and interested in developing for the Ford platform you can find more information at the Ford developer website.

Interview by Todd Cochrane of Geek News Central for the TechPodcast Network and by Don Baine, the Gadget Professor. l

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