BMW Group sets up its third AppCenter in China

With the introduction of MINI Continued in 2010, the BMW Group became the world's starting time carmaker to permit the application-based and extensive integration of the Apple iPhone into its models. Available as an option, MINI Connected links upward with a elementary USB connectedness and the MINI Continued App to plow the smartphone into a central interface for infotainment within, and relating to every aspect of, the car.

This technology has provided the launch pad for an all-new in-car infotainment experience. In spring 2011 this interface and app were also fabricated available for BMW vehicles in the form of BMW Apps and BMW Connected. Added to which, the BMW Grouping has since expanded the app concept to include the internet-based services from BMW Online (available since 2001) and, this summer, likewise BMW Live. Other uniform apps – and therefore services – from third-political party providers can besides be integrated into the concept and used in BMW and MINI vehicles.

Scope for rapid and flexible expansion.
With the app concept – using either the application-based integration of a smartphone or a browser inside the vehicle – the BMW Grouping developers have created a highly flexible and still unrivalled platform. Indeed, the functional telescopic of the vehicle can be significantly broadened with the help of vehicle-specific apps certified by the BMW Grouping, enabling functions such as web radio, GoogleTM Local Search and FacebookTM to be used inside the vehicle safely and in convenience. But that is but the first. The app concept allows the range of functions to be expanded almost infinitely. Updating the app or installing some other compatible app brings new functions into the car – without the need for any modifications to the car itself.

"For us, the whole effect of apps is about non merely the private functions inside the vehicle, such as web radio or Google, but also the avenues this opens up to us beyond them. This technology makes our vehicles fit for the future." (Florian Reuter, Product Management MINI Continued)

Market-led solutions – worldwide. The BMW AppCenters.
In addition to speed, flexibility and personalisation options, the app concept also opens up significant potential for solutions tailored to specific markets. And that prompted the BMW Group to add a third AppCenter, in a joint project with the BMW Grouping ConnectedDrive Lab China in Shanghai, to complement the first AppCenter in Munich'south Research and Innovation Centre and its American counterpart at the BMW Group Technology Office USA in Mountain View, California.

"Where ConnectedDrive is concerned, we want to maintain our edge in future every bit well. That is why, aslope the existing AppCenters in the Research and Innovation Eye in Munich and at the BMW Grouping Technology Office in Mountain View, we have established a new BMW Group ConnectedDrive Lab in Shanghai. Together with my colleagues from the evolution department, I was able to visit the lab this summer. Even before completion of the new premises, our colleagues over at that place are already working on developing the first apps specifically aimed at the Asian marketplace." (Dr. Klaus Draeger, Fellow member of the BMW AG Board of Management, Development)

Extending its development capacity in this way underlines the not bad importance which the BMW Group attributes to the subject of applications. The iii AppCenters in Munich, Mountain View (California) and Shanghai form a network that is working on the research and evolution of forward-looking apps for smartphones and browser-based technologies. With its 3 locations, the BMW Group is in a position to optimally come across differing client requirements and the desire for a geographically relevant range of apps.

"The regional proximity of the AppCenter in Mountain View to Silicon Valley allows united states in-depth insights into and exciting collaborations with highly innovative and creative start-ups." (Dirk Rossberg, Head of BMW Grouping Technology Part USA)

The AppCenter in Shanghai factors the needs of the Asian market into its development work, which ways that, in conjunction with its Munich location, the BMW Group can bulldoze developments forward with its fingers firmly on the pulse of the fourth dimension. All three AppCenters work as function of a network using identical platforms, technologies and software components. Short development times of between ii and 12 months allow the swift implementation of premium-quality market-led and brand-specific solutions. The focus of the developers is primarily on apps in the areas of customs, car-related functions, infotainment and location-based services. Depending on the brand and the targets, the focus tin shift and be expanded to come across specific requirements – for, as the BMW Grouping experts predict, this is going to be a hot topic of the future.

BMW Group ConnectedDrive Lab China.
In addition to the marketplace-led offerings for BMW Apps and MINI Continued, further software topics fall within the lab'southward remit as well. Asia-specific features for the display and operating concept and for driver assistance systems (e.g. traffic sign recognition) tin be optimally developed on location thank you to an intercultural, predominantly Chinese team. Moreover, it allows activities such as the development of an open source infotainment platform every bit part of GENIVI to be directly linked to the Asian markets. Needless to say, the developers are working in shut consultation with the centre of BMW Grouping development at Munich's Research and Innovation Middle.

"It is actually exciting to be leading a young, interdisciplinary team here in China as office of a global development network. As a megacity, Shanghai is a globally significant location for innovations and trends. It'southward a place where groundbreaking impulses are generated for design, mobility and the key technologies of the hereafter. Later on just a few months we are delighted that, with our team of xx highly qualified and motivated developers, brandish and operating concept designers and software experts, we are already able to present the beginning tangible results for series development." (Alexis Trolin, Head of BMW Group ConnectedDrive Lab Red china)

Third-party apps from external providers.
In addition to the special functions it has created itself, the BMW Group is besides using the technical capability provided by MINI Continued and BMW Apps as a platform for the integration of services from other providers. These "third-party apps" will allow a host of infotainment functions which customers already use at domicile to exist transferred seamlessly to the machine and operated past the commuter. And that means they volition have access to the services they want – such as personalised music streaming – at all times, whether they are on foot or travelling in the car.

"With third-party apps we're aiming to requite customers the chance to select the provider they prefer, or at least one they are familiar with, for each specific awarding. In add-on, when it comes to new functions through other apps nosotros can, of form, also recommend a provider offering the service they are seeking." (Andreas Schwarzmeier, BMW ConnectedDrive)

By opening upwardly this platform to apps from other providers, the BMW Group is underlining its leading position in both the integration of mobile devices into its cars and the introduction of internet-based in-car services. Development times are getting even shorter, and the option of products wider and more customer-specific. And, most chiefly, local requirements can be covered to optimum effect by a diverse structure underpinning the available services. In the USA, BMW Apps and MINI Continued customers tin can already apply the pop and cost-free personalized internet radio service Pandora®.

"Our aim for the time to come is to take our cooperation with premium infotainment providers to the adjacent level in order to give our customers in-car admission to the services they already utilise at abode." (Andreas Schwarzmeier)

Simply apps which meet the requirements of the BMW Group for in-auto use are certified and approved past the BMW Group for MINI Connected or BMW Apps. Development partners help the BMW Group to this end with suitable guidelines, tools and auto-related expertise.

Innovative functions, adapted to the make.
The flexibility of the local interface is too evident in the brand-specific evolution of BMW Apps and MINI Connected. Both apps offer access to web radio and Facebook, for case, but MINI Connected also features driving and community-oriented functions such as the MINIMALISM Analyser and Mission Control. BMW Apps, meanwhile, serves the need for seamless functionality and ease of information access with functions such equally the integration of the iPhone calendar.

"MINI drivers are different from BMW drivers. That's why it's of import for us to exist able to offering them a specially developed service – in the grade of MINI Continued. This also applies to apps from third-party providers. Here we can piece of work effectively with exciting external partners to give customers access to their services inside the MINI." (Florian Reuter)

The latest version of MINI Connected already offers upward to ten different functions, but the developers at the BMW Group are besides working on the integration of boosted features. Besides equally the integration of streaming podcast services and virtual travel guides, square® would enable the community area of MINI Continued to expand to include the link-up with location-based services and social networking. Customers can use foursquare to explore their surroundings or check out a nearby restaurant, for example, and to access whatever tips the customs tin offer. They can too see where their friends are
hanging out.

"We have a local interface, which tin can be adapted along private and customer-specific lines so that every customer – BMW or MINI – can access a set of functions which adjust their personal requirements." (Uwe Higgen, Head of the BMW Group AppCenter in Munich)

Personalising applications in BMW Online.

From this summer, BMW ConnectedDrive customers have been able to widen their app experience across iPhone-based BMW Apps to include browser-based applications from BMW Online. Added to which, they can use their internet-compatible smartphone to access the latest applications from BMW via BMW Alive. For case, BMW offers all customer groups and markets a constantly updated and configurable range of functions. To enable this browser-based functionality, the machine needs to exist specified with BMW ConnectedDrive and accept an Net connexion – either via the integrated SIM card or the customer's mobile phone – to the backend servers on which the applications are running. The applications can then be selected from the bill of fare of the on-lath system via BMW Online or BMW Live and accessed immediately. In this way, the BMW ConnectedDrive parcel offers comfortable access to the desired applications, in the fashion y'all would expect from BMW.

"With BMW Online and BMW Live, MINI Continued and BMW Apps, we are offering a range of technically contrasting but complementary solutions which appeal to different customer groups. Keeping both smartphone and backend applications separate from overall car development will allow our models to stay at the leading edge of applied science over a period of years." (Uwe Higgen)

Leadership stretching back years.
The BMW Group already has something of a tradition when information technology comes to taking the lead as an innovator in the integration of CE devices. In 2004 the BMW Group became the world's outset carmaker to allow the Apple iPod to exist integrated into the audio system of its models. Indeed, the BMW Group exclusively unveiled the first technology solution for the integration of the iPhone into the infotainment system of its cars just in time for the device's launch in 2007. Also, since March 2011 the iPod Out function has allowed the familiar Apple iPod interface to be displayed in the car's on-board monitor and operated via the iDrive Controller or multifunction steering cycle. Since the vehicle tin can thus access the iPod function of the iPhone direct, BMW also offers customers all the native add-ons for the iPod, such as the Genius role, which searches the user'southward music library and automatically compiles playlists of tracks that go well together.

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Source: https://www.bmwblog.com/2011/10/18/bmw-group-sets-up-its-third-appcenter-in-china/