QNX Collaborates With Ford to Drive Industry Standard for Integrating Smartphone Apps Into Cars

SmartDeviceLink Technology Now Available for QNX Car Platform for Infotainment

QNX, a subsidiary of BlackBerry, today announced that Ford Motor Company has ported its open source SmartDeviceLinkâ„¢ (SDL) technology to the QNX CARâ„¢ Platform for Infotainment.

SDL is designed to bring an intuitive and fully integrated app experience to the car. It allows drivers to use voice commands, steering-wheel buttons, and other in-car controls to interact with smartphone apps that provide navigation, music, location sharing, and other services. Drivers can, as a result, stay connected to their apps while keeping their eyes on the road and hands on the wheel.

SDL offers broad device and platform compatibility, enabling the automotive developer community to create apps that will work, unmodified, across multiple automotive brands and vehicle models. Moreover, it allows automakers to deliver a consistent app experience across vehicles, while retaining the flexibility to customize that experience for each specific brand or model.

“Through our collaboration with QNX Software Systems, SDL will gain exposure to the many automakers and Tier 1 suppliers that use QNX technology as the software foundation for their infotainment and telematics solutions,” said Paul Elsila, CEO of Livio, a wholly owned subsidiary of Ford and the project maintainer of the SDL open source project.

“With its large market share, QNX can play a key role in driving the adoption of auto industry standards, and we are excited to work with them in building vendor-neutral technology that can simplify the integration of smartphone apps in any brand or type of vehicle.”

Ford created SDL by contributing its award-winning AppLink™ software to the open source community. Like the QNX CAR Platform and QNX® Neutrino® OS, SDL complies with the industry-standard Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX), providing a familiar programming environment for developers.

“Through this joint initiative with Ford, QNX is helping to accelerate support for a standard that can simplify app integration and empower a larger community of app developers to add real value to the driving experience,” said John Wall, Senior Vice President and Head of QNX Software Systems.

“QNX has always been a champion of industry standards that increase interoperability, promote software reuse, and enable product differentiation. That is why we are excited to collaborate with Ford on SDL, and why we believe that it will benefit consumers, app developers, and the auto industry as a whole.”

QNX Software Systems offers a comprehensive portfolio of infotainment, telematics, safety, and acoustics solutions deployed in more than 60 million vehicles worldwide. More than 40 automotive OEMs use QNX software, including the QNX Neutrino OS, the QNX CAR Platform for Infotainment, the QNX OS for Safety, and QNX acoustics middleware, for their head units, digital instrument clusters, advanced driver information systems (ADAS), handsfree systems, and connectivity modules.