Autoblog tests Smart's Cross Connect App in the 2016 Smart ForTwo for the 2016 Autoblog Technology of the Year award.
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DAVID GLUCKMAN: Hi. I'm David Gluckman, and we're up north in Petoskey, Michigan, with the finalists for "Autoblog's" 2016 Tech of the Year Awards. Right now, the technology we're looking at is the Smart Cross Connect App which is inside this 2016 Smart ForTwo. Let's check it out.
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So the car comes with this cradle that your phone sits in, and then it has an integrated USB port that actually passes through the cradle into the car so you don't have to have a wire hanging down for the other USB port, which is actually kind of nice. The main screen on the app gives you a few different options. There's this little Smart car that gives you some information about speed limit, where you are, your fuel level, things like that.
The navigation system is kind of a dumbed-down version of Google Maps or the Apple Maps program. It's kind of childish looking, has big buttons. It's kind of easy to look at but not that easy to use.
There's a Music section that lets you play music directly from your phone or through a streaming service. And then there's this Smart Spot section that lets you find things like parking and other nearby points of interest.
My favorite part of this system is actually the cradle itself. It's really nice. You can reposition it back and forth. The app itself, though, it ignores all of the conventions of smartphone design, either iOS or Android, and tries to do things its own way, and it's just not that intuitive. It's hard to figure out how to get from one point to another in the app and how to change the views.
The integration from the phone to the car isn't that seamless. I thought it was going to detect the car better than it does. It seems a little confused at times. It may just be because this is an early version of the app.
I think I would prefer to use this cradle and the normal apps that are on my phone like Maps and Music and things like that that I'm already completely familiar with and that work perfectly every single time.
That's it for the Smart Cross Connect app. For "Autoblog," I'm David Gluckman.
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