In today’s App Industry Roundup, we preview the app-enabled 2011 Ford (F) Fiesta that can be guided by the sound of your voice. We also toast Apple (AAPL) engineer Gray Powell – the guy who left his 4G iPhone prototype in a bar – and reveal why Steve Jobs is obsessed with Android porn.
Ford turns on app ignition
The great conundrum with digital media and driving is that each new convenience like navigation systems and Internet-enabled radio comes with potential peril. Driving and texting is dangerous enough. We need less visual distractions behind the wheel, not more.
To that end, Ford is introducing a series of voice-enabled mobile applications to its 2011 Fiesta model designed to help keep drivers on the road. As detailed by All Things Digital, services like Pandora and Stitcher Radio will be operated by voice commands.
Interestingly, the Fiesta voice-enabled functions at the onset will only work with apps developed for Google’s (GOOG) Android Market as well as others that work for BlackBerry’s (RIMM). Expect the Fiesta to be compatible with iPhone apps later in the year.
Dude, where’s my no longer secret 4G iPhone?
Not too many punch lines are set it with the line, “an engineer walks into a bar.” Thanks to a 27-year-old German Beer loving developer, the joke is now on Apple’s famously secretive marketing department.
Images and descriptions of the 4G iPhone by tech blog Gizmodo come courtesy, and accidentally, by Apple Software Engineer Gray Powell. Before leaving his new multi-tasking-enabled device at a Redwood City bar called the Gourmet Haus Staudt, Powell allegedly updated his Facebook profile with the new device noting how he “underestimated how good German beer is.”
Now that his profile and exploits are in the hands of every tech and gadget scribe on the planet, perhaps Powell should turn to something stronger?
Android bares all, says Jobs
The brewing conflict between Apple and Google apparently is no longer skin deep. With the two companies now competing head-to-head for all mobile attention, Jobs is now defending the merits of Apple’s closed (or buttoned-up) developer platform versus Google’s anything goes environment. Exhibit A, says Jobs, is a store devoted entirely to porn on the Android.
“We do believe we have a moral responsibility to keep porn off the iPhone,” Jobs apparently emailed Tech Crunch. “Folks who want porn can buy and [sic] Android phone.“By that same logic, does this mean people should abandon using Google’s open search engine to find things on the web?
