Great. You can use your apps via an ugly, low-res monochrome screen. I really don't know why none of these companies are using the iPhone or iPad as the car screen.
I think you're misunderstanding or misrepresenting the point of the in-car information technologies. The first priority of these systems is safety: they're focused on performing communication and entertainment in a way that does not distract the driver. Keep in mind that the first version of Ford's system, Microsoft SYNC, was entirely voice-controlled.
An iPhone is a great UI in your hand, but it's not so hot in a car -- the precision needed for touches is much finer than the coarse gestures needed to operate the car, and there's a mental context shift between the two that is distracting, and therefore dangerous. The idea of AppLink is to adapt the functionality of your apps to the UI provided by the car, one that is specifically optimized for use while driving.
I've developed an app for finding gas, food, and lodging at exits while you're driving on US limited-access freeways (here's your
link). I started work on this after my kids demanded Taco Bell when we were on an unfamiliar highway and I foolishly tried to use the built-in Maps app. Steering and pinch-zooming don't mix, and I'll never do something so foolish again.
So I built my app to be highly "glanceable", to limit its display to what you could read with a 1 or 2 second glance, and to only require a single thumb to operate. I can use this while holding the phone in my right hand with my thumb and index finger, using the other three fingers to hold the wheel. So it's OK for that, though it's still a little distracting to hold the phone while driving at all -- just the same it's safer to talk on a hands-free headset than to hold the phone while you drive. I've had poor sales and pretty bad reviews compared to similar "find stuff at exit" apps, but those apps employ a much more complex GUI, using pinch-zoomable maps for example. How do they get around the distraction and safety problem? One of them does so by presenting an end-user license agreement that specifically prohibits its use while driving
which to me seems unenforceable, as it's the whole point of this kind of app.
So I respect what Ford is trying to do by building a UI that is comprehensive and yet still safe to use while driving. That the Fiesta's MyFordTouch screen is monochrome shouldn't be that surprising, since the Fiesta is an entry-level car. The displays on the Edge are much nicer (
demo here).
How serious is the safety stuff? One of my CocoaHeads friends in the Detroit area used to work with Sun on getting JavaME into cars. As of just a few years ago, the legal department at Ford told their group "as soon as you have arbitrary code running in this vehicle, it can never be driven again." So their demo car had to be trucked to events, as even Ford employees were not allowed to drive it, such was the fear of liability ("every time a bumper dings, a lawyer's telephone rings"). That to me answered the question of why Ford isn't putting out an SDK for apps that run on the onboard computers: they could never review third-party apps to a sufficient degree to satisfy the lawyers.
I should also mention that AppLink apparently lets developers use the SYNC voice stuff too, by sending it text to speak or prompts to listen for. If I ever get the SDK, I'm sorely tempted to abandon the screen UI altogether and do a SYNC-only version of my app that would call out the upcoming exits over the speaker and let you select them with speech commands. I had originally hoped to add this through an iOS speech API, but there isn't one, and working with the vehicle's built in speaker and mic is less fussy (and therefore safer) than dicking around with a headset or holding the phone anyways.
