New iPhone App Will Unlock, Start Your Car
Lost your car keys?
There’s an app for that.
And while it may not help you find the lost keys, a new iPhone application will help you unlock and even start your car. The new application, released this week, includes an iPhone application and a receiver that enables users to lock, unlock and remotely start their car with the phone rather than the car’s key fob.
The Viper SmartStart is the latest example of automotive electronics functions migrating into Apple iPhone and other smartphones, including turn-by-turn directions or locating the closest gas station.
Such ideas are a challenge for automakers and aftermarket suppliers for whom advanced auto electronics have been highly profitable.
“The days of these dedicated products we could put in our cars are rapidly coming to an end unless those products evolve into something more integrated,” says William Matthies, an auto electronics veteran who now heads market research firm Coyote Insight.
Some automakers are embracing such integration rather than fighting it. Ford’s latest version of Sync, an in-car communications system developed with Microsoft, works with a Bluetooth-enabled smartphone to offer turn-by-turn directions. And Ford just announced partnerships with the University of Michigan and the University of Detroit Mercy to encourage students to devise new mobile applications.
“We recognized the trend,” Ford spokesman Alan Hall says. “Sync will be able to leverage the power of your mobile device.”
Of course, this just make it all the more alarming should you lose your iPhone. Or what happens if you lock your iPhone that unlocks your car in your car?
Why bother breaking into the car, just steal the phone. That’s my motto…
I work in Automotive Spare Parts and having an App like this as a backup will save lots of people a lot of trouble when they loose their keys.
Knowing my customers though, they’ll loose their original key, not get it replaced, then loose their spare, still not get it replaced, then loose their phone, and whinge to me about how difficult it is to get new keys when their car is stranded on the side of the road.
Soon to be heard on the streets;
“No, officer, it isn’t mine, I dialled the wrong number.”
Next app for the iPhone. Owners of the “Living Doll” will be able set the sex dolls to say certain phrases or appear to sing songs through there new iPhone attachment. They will also be able to have phone sex with their dolls.