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Important Things That You Should Know Before Developing Android Car Apps

December 15, 2015 No Comments

Featured article by Luke Adams, senior sales executive at Ideal Auto USA

With an increasing number of auto manufacturers beginning to encourage app development for their models, there has been a renewed interest in the app development community that had perceived the market as being too unimportant. Since 2013, there has been a spate of activities like conferences and training programs on building vehicle connectivity organized by leading car makers that were attended in large numbers by developers. For those who have just woken up to the attraction of this fast-emerging market segment, here are some vital tips:

Only Four Methods of Developing Android Car Apps

Those who are interested in building an infotainment app for cars should know that at the end of the day there are only four ways of car app development. The app can either run on the head unit of the car or on a smartphone or tablet that is connected with the vehicle. If the app is being designed to be operated on the connected mobile device it may be possible for the apps user interface to be mirrored on the screen of the head unit by using APIs such as CarPlay or Mirrorlink. If you app needs to use the car’s data, then you need to use the vehicle data API provided by the car maker or use Bluetooth dongle to access the vehicle’s On-Board Diagnostics (OBD) port for the data.

Only Three Routes Available For Marketing Android Car Apps

You can choose to partner manufacturers of cars so that they will pre-install your app in the car or at least feature it in their app store. Even if you were successful in auditioning the car maker for the right to distribute your app, the process will take anything from a couple of months to six months, and you would need to accommodate much of their ideas in the design of the UI. You can elect to distribute your app on Google Play, however, you would still need the car maker’s approval to use their APIs – typically this involves signing a contract for distribution. The other remaining way is to distribute the app on Google Play through an OBD dongle for accessing vehicle data. The drawback is that users would need to be convinced of the requirement of buying and installing the dongle. Platforms allowing data access through dongles already installed do exist but their user base is at the moment extremely limited.

The Number of Potential Installs Is Still Very Limited

Even if you really aggressively market your app, all you could hope for is an installation base of a few million and that too in a number of years. One of the most popular car apps, Pandora took three years to have a base of four million and that too after executing over 30 agreements for partnership. Even ‘Here’, originally developed by Nokia and now owned by Microsoft managed to sell just 10 million in 2013 – in contrast many of the top apps in other sectors have users running into hundreds of millions, while Facebook and Gmail would count them in billions.

The Advantage of Less Competition

Almost all developer platforms boast of millions of app developers on an individual level and in hundreds of thousands on an organizational level. However, the number of car app developers is still quite miniscule at just about 10,000. Also each sub-category of app has a population of just about 1500, so it is apparent that there is a huge scope for car app developers to get an early-mover advantage; quite like the opportunity in smartphones and tablets just a few years back.

The Hazard of an Unproven Revenue Opportunity

While app development technology has moved at good pace, commercializing it remains a challenge that seems to have no immediate and good answers. The revenue from paid apps is virtually nonexistent as is from display advertising. The propensity of purchases during the process of using the app too remains a contentious topic. So unless you have a revolutionary idea, it is not quite clear how you can make money out of developing car apps.

Importance of Car App Design

The basic difference between Android apps developed for mobiles and for a car is that the apps that are developed for car users need to be extremely practical for usage in motion. If the app presents a hazard to drivers in speeding cars and looks likely to cause accidents, then it is doubtful that you will have many takers. Of course you can choose to focus on apps that are not required to be used in motion like that for fleet management, maintenance scheduling, insurance, car share, or reselling, etc. Though the areas are niche, the opportunities in each are boundless.

Author bio: Luke Adams is a senior sales executive at Ideal Auto USA. A passionate app developer, he also writes extensively on trends in app development.

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