Starting today, Ford will be rolling out the Ford Developer Program, which will let developers anywhere specialise their apps for use with Ford’s Sync functionality using Ford AppLink. And it’s all licence and royalty free.
All prospective developers have to do is visit Ford’s site, where they can find examples of code as well as terms and licences. While anyone can put something up for approval, Ford plans on filtering the accepted apps heavily. They’re looking for things that involve music, productivity, health and networking, but will instantly smack down anything involving video or rich imagery, extensive text and games. To that non-distracting end, all apps cleared to work with Ford Sync will be required to blank out the phone’s screen during use, a clever way to keep eyes off screens and on roads.
Along with the roll-out of the Developer Program, Ford also announced a few new apps that will utilise the kind of functionality developers will soon be able to get their hands on. New releases include Amazon Cloud Player, Rhapsody and Kaliki. Aside from entertainment, Ford is also focusing on location and productivity apps including Glimpse, which shares location data from and with drivers. It’s easy to see how this could be put to great use if the right developers come out of the woodwork.
Ideally, if this thing really takes off, it will theoretically allow Ford Sync user to operate a wide variety of their favourite phone apps by shouting at their dashboard, instead of running the risk of running someone over while trying to peck out a funny tweet. That’s a future we can all agree on.