The age of the smart car is almost upon us

Smart. For the last few years, that adjective has been placed in front of an increasing number of nouns in order to describe an old product that has been modernized and loaded with features. The biggest example of this would be phones. Few people use phones nowadays, but billions of them use smart phones. What makes these phones “smart” is the fact that they’ve been imbued with an advanced operating system that allows them to provide users with a plethora of features that “dumb” phones simply can’t.

The “smart” revolution is especially popular in the consumer electronics industry, where things like smart watches and smart televisions are starting to pick up steam, and one of biggest forces that’s helping to drive this revolution is Google. The majority of the smart phones that’re on the market today are powered by the Android operating system, which is owned by Google, and this year has been one of aggressive expansion for Android, as Google has brought the operating system to wearable devices with Android Wear, and to televisions with Android TV.

The other major force that’s driving this revolution is Apple, which serves as the only real rival to Google when it comes to providing the operating system that powers these smart devices. The two companies have been competing in the smart phone market for years, with Google leading in sales and Apple leading in profits. That competition has since expanded to include wearable devices and televisions, but 2015 is where things when things are going to get really interesting, because that’s when the two companies will expand outside of consumer electronics into more unexplored territory: vehicles.

Numerous automakers have attempted to smarten up their vehicles with built-in entertainment and navigation features, and most of them have failed, often times horrendously (I’m looking at you MyFord Touch). You can’t really blame the automakers that much. Despite their efforts, this simply isn’t a field that they have much experience in. That’s why its so exciting to see the likes of Google and Apple taking an interest in smart vehicles.

Technically the two companies have already released their vehicle-centric operating systems, Android Auto for Google and CarPlay for Apple, but next year is when we can really expect to see smart cars hitting the market. Even so, Apple has already taken the lead with a completely independent vehicle-centric operating system. Google’s current offering is severely limited by the fact that you have to plug an Android smart phone into the built-in screen of a compatible vehicle in order to use Android Auto.  This is something that Google wants to remedy in 2015.

According to a report from Reuters, Google is currently working on a completely standalone version of Android Auto that will be built into vehicles directly. The publication’s sources within the company claim that users will be able to access things like Google Maps, streaming music services, and various other apps without needing to plug their phone into the built-in display.

The company has already reached agreements with a number of automakers to include Android Auto in their future vehicles, the first of which are expected to be displayed at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas next month. This is excellent for Google, as implementing its own operating system in people’s vehicles would grant the company access to a treasure trove of data that’s generated by drivers, data which it uses to fuel its advertising-based business model.

With Google and Apple looking to integrate their operating systems into vehicles, not to mention Microsoft with Windows Embedded Automotive, it looks like the smart revolution has finally hit the automotive market. Considering how this is fresh territory for all three companies, you can expect the competition to relentless, which is great news for consumers.