Mazda and Toyota Announce Further Collaboration with Infotainment
Mazda and Toyota have been getting pretty friendly as of late. Well, that’s not exactly true—the two companies have helped each other out for some time, and entered into a long-term collaborative agreement all the way back in May 2015, bringing a promise of shared technology.
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Now, though, in the wake of the announcement that the two companies are looking to build a new manufacturing plant together in the US, we are hearing about another fruit of the two’s collaboration: a next-gen infotainment system platform. Reportedly, the platform was first developed by Toyota based on its Entune infotainment system, but brought in Mazda developers for streamlining.
Apparently, this infotainment platform should appear first in the 2018 Toyota Camry, to be followed in the Mazda lineup by the redesigned Mazda3. Also, both systems should look quite different, as the joint product is only the underpinning platform, and each company would develop the features of their own version.
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One similarity, though, would be the ability to use Toyota’s new Wi-Fi hotspot, which uses cellular connections to deliver updates and new apps without requiring the owner to provide a connection.
Worryingly, the infotainment system on the 2018 Toyota Camry doesn’t support either Apple CarPlay or Android Auto. If that carries over to the Mazda, this would be a reversal of a recent announcement that the Zoom Zoom brand would be providing both in its vehicles, although it didn’t announce a timeline for integration.
News Sources: Nikkei Asian Review, CNET
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