We always love seeing car makers use Android tablets in their in-dash system, or infotainment system. With the case of Toyota we’re looking at the ASUS Google Nexus 7 (2013) taking center stage. ASUS has teamed up with Toyota for their new Toyota Intelligent System (TIS). So front and center is the newest Nexus 7, which is about a year old now. It features on-board satellite navigation, which is connected through 4G and offers all kinds of multimedia control along with voice recongition as well as some access to cloud infrastructure. You can also access traffic reports, emergency services, Google Search, Google Calendar, Maps and much more.
This is definitely something we are hoping to see more of. And since it’s a Nexus 7, you’ll likely be able to play Google Play Music, Spotify, Pandora and a slew of other streaming music apps as well, from the new infotainment system. While this isn’t as good as that 17-inch display the Tesla Model S has, this is at least running Android 4.4 KitKat. Now it probably won’t get Android Auto – after all it is just a Nexus 7. But it’ll still be supported for a bit longer, by Google and most likely Toyota.
We should start seeing a lot more car makers bringing Android into the car with Android Auto launching this fall, along with the Open Automotive Alliance, which already has a ton of others on board. It’ll be real interesting to see how well it really works when driving in the real world, as the demos we saw at Google I/O were basically just a dashboard with the Android Auto console there, not a moving car. And since it needs data for a lot of the features it has, it’ll be real interesting to see how well it does. How many of you are interested in Toyota’s new Toyota Intelligent System? Let us know in the comments below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1npxq9Abi8U