Apple’s automotive invasion continues, with Honda’s announcement that Siri Eyes Free will come to three models this year. That follows Chevrolet’s integration of Apple’s virtual assistant last fall, a trend that will continue throughout the year as seven more automakers look to Cupertino for help.
But this is about much more than putting Apple’s virtual assistant into cars. It’s about giving automakers voice controls on the cheap and giving drivers what they really want: a seamless connection between their iPhone and their car.
“[The] iPhone has become so integral to people’s lives that they continue to use them in their vehicles,” said Vicki Poponi, assistant VP of product planning for American Honda. “Offering Honda and Acura owners Siri and its Eyes Free mode via Bluetooth is an incredible opportunity to provide next-generation connectivity and meet our customer’s ever-changing needs.”
Siri will be available to owners of the 2013 Honda Accord, all-new Acura RLX and ILX later this year through a dealer-installed software update. Although Honda isn’t providing a price or exact date, a Honda spokeswoman told Wired no additional hardware is required, which means Siri functionality could relatively easily and cheaply expand to other Honda and Acura models.
Activating Siri Eyes Free while driving is dead simple. Driver’s long-press the steering wheel-mounted voice control button to access Siri and issue commands using microphones embedded in the vehicle. Want to use the car’s built-in voice control? A short press on the same button bypasses Siri altogether — a smart implementation we expect other automakers to duplicate.
The integration allows drivers to use Siri to make calls, dictate text messages, play music or podcasts and access nearly everything else the virtual assistant has control over. And just to ensure drivers aren’t taking their eyes off the road, the iPhone’s screen won’t illuminate during the interactions, so don’t expect to see Yelp recommendations or Google search results in your peripheral vision.
For automakers like Honda, which are having a hard time keeping pace with competitors and the consumer electronics world, Siri Eyes Free integration is a voice-controlled lifeline. They can offer the features customers want without having to expend massive resources on on-board or data-connected voice recognition systems. It’s simply a matter of getting the cars’ systems to play nicely with Siri, particularly the embedded microphones, which have to clearly pick up on voice commands while eliminating extraneous background noise.
But in a twist to the natural order of in-car tech, the only vehicles to integrate Siri thus far are at the low end of the automotive spectrum. The first implementation came to the sub-$20k Chevrolet Sonic and Spark ultra-compacts. Mercedes will offer Siri on its entry-level A-Class in Europe. The Acura RLX is the brand’s new flagship, but Siri will also be available on the more pedestrian ILX (a sedan based on the Honda Civic).
“For Apple this is certainly good news as well since it represents an additional automaker that will allow Apple to have consumers interact with its ecosystem even when driving,” says Thilo Koslowski, an auto analyst for Gartner. But it poses a potential long-term problem for automakers who’ve invested heavily in creating their own infotainment ecosystems.
“By bringing in technology leaders’ offerings into the automobile they are also bringing in their subsequent ecosystems — and that could bite automakers’ own efforts to create a leading connectivity platform with applications and services,” says Koslowski. “Once Siri evolves into accessing and controlling applications on the phone, consumers might not show much interest in an automaker’s navigation offering… that’s just fine from a consumer perspective, but in the end it might turn some automakers into simple hardware manufacturers.”
For now, it’s a way for automakers to get the latest cloud-connected voice-control system in their vehicles with minimal outlay, but the long-term implications could be far more dire for automakers relying on an outside company — particularly one as massive as Apple – to provide what’s becoming a checkmark on new car buyer’s shopping lists.
Apple's Automotive Invasion Continues as Honda Embraces Siri
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Apple's Automotive Invasion Continues as Honda Embraces Siri
