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Nokia has introduced Nokia Car Mode, an application optimized for the in-car use of Nokia smartphones. Nokia Car Mode features an optimized user interface simplifying the access and use of Nokia Drive (voice-guided car navigation with Nokia Maps), traffic updates, music and voice calls while driving. Nokia Car Mode, built with Qt, would be available for download from Nokia's Ovi Store in Q4 2011 for Nokia smartphones based on Symbian Belle - such as the recently launched Nokia 600, Nokia 700 and Nokia 701 and Nokia N9 as well.
A press release on company's website claims, "Nokia Car Mode is the first commercially available solution supporting MirrorLink, formerly known as Terminal Mode". MirrorLink is a standard smartphone-to-car connectivity platform driven by over 20 major global brands from across different industries within the Car Connectivity Consortium (CCC), a global standard body and solutions for smartphone and in-vehicle connectivity. With MirrorLink, smartphones can be connected to in-car displays, car controls systems, and car audio systems. Thus consumers can control their smartphones via the car dashboard, as if the device and its apps were integrated into the car itself, added the release.
As a founding member of the Car Connectivity Consortium, Nokia is striving to introduce mobile innovation to the automotive industry. The integration of smartphones and their capabilities into cars is playing an important part in Nokia's Location and Commerce business strategy, extending the existing ecosystem and thus providing benefits and opportunities for consumers, automotive companies, application developers and advertisers alike.
"MirrorLink and Nokia Car Mode are a big leap forward in allowing car drivers to access their favourite smartphone services," said Floris van de Klashorst, Director Automotive Services of Nokia's Location & Commerce business.
He added, "Via MirrorLink users have comfortable and safe access to maps, music and telephony on their phones when they're in their cars even while driving. In the future, MirrorLink will enable plenty of other popular features since we're only at the beginning of what we can do by linking smart devices with vehicles. We expect developers to come up with innovative new applications optimised for use in cars."