Last month, I had the pleasure to attend my first MirrorLink Summit, which was conveniently held in Chicago for those of us who live in the United States. If you want to develop mobile apps to be used in the vehicle and you did *not* attend this event, then I truly feel sorry for you because you missed an opportunity to get a first-hand experience with the products and platforms that will be coming to the market in the near future. 

Let me give you a little perspective on why I’m excited about MirrorLink and the Car Connectivity Consortium. I’ve lived in the Detroit area for nearly 30 years, and I have worked for all three of the major US automakers. Needless to say, I’ve seen many "good ideas" come and go over the years associated with the automotive industry. I however, was very impressed by the pure momentum coming both from the automotive industry and the smart phone industry regarding the MirrorLink standard. 

The MirrorLink Summit kicked off with a warm introduction from Mika Rytkönen, the President of the Car Connectivity Consortium. Mika showed several slides throughout the day, but the most captivating was the slide below.

Caption 1. Car Connectivity Consortium (CCC) Member Companies

Hundreds of millions of consumers worldwide use the products and services from the member companies within the CCC. I’m not going to give you a play-by-play recap of all the events that transpired during the summit (again, I reiterate, you should have been there) but I really enjoyed the keynote speech and words of wisdom presented by Paul Hochman, the Gear and Technology Editor of the NBC Today Show.

Caption 2. Paul Hochman Addressing the Audience of MirrorLink Summit Attendees

During the course of the event, Paul reminded the developers and decision-makers present to make the MirrorLink standard easy enough to use without a user’s manual, since statistics show that most people don’t read them anyway. I also enjoyed the panel discussion that had experts in various industries who fielded questions from a moderator and answered some questions from the audience. Most of all, I enjoyed the opportunity to meet face to face with various engineers, managers, and executives from the Car Connectivity Consortium and to see the various product demonstrations of MirrorLink for myself.

So, as a developer I strongly urge you to stay tuned to this blog, the Car Connectivity Consortium website, and the Consortium Twitter feed to stay up to date on new product announcements that will be happening with the Car Connectivity Consortium.

- Bruce Hopkins, BT Software and Research Inc, Car Connectivity Consortium Member