Toyota Introduces Entune

With the Consumer Electronic Show coming later this week, Toyota is introducing it's version of Ford's Sync in-car multimedia system.  According to the press release (read the full release here) it comes with the largest number of mobile apps.  The system links with your smartphone through a Bluetooth connection and uses your phone's data plan to access the internet.


Most intriguing to me are the music apps - Pandora & iheartradio.  This may very well herald the end of terrestrial radio as we have known it.  The ability to integrate internet radio easily into your vehicle's entertainment system opens up a whole new world of music sources.  While satellite radio has been available for a number of years, internet radio seems to be the future.  Even Howard Stern has said that SiriusXm, the only sat radio company, will be moving towards more of an internet radio service.


Hopefully Entune will be embraced by the various app developers so that new apps are quickly developed.  The apps must be easily installed by the average user for Entune to be successfull.


While Toyota has indicated limited initial availability, I fully expect it will make it's way to Scion.  This type of development is squarely aimed at a younger audience - the audience Scion is targetting.  I just hope the cost of adding the Entune option is kept reasonable.


Some of the other features include:

• Bing
• MovieTickets.com
• OpenTable.com
• Location-based services, such as personalized traffic, gas prices, weather and sports
• Also includes read-back and replay of text messages

Autoblog.com has a video that shows off some of the features.  Have a look at it:

[Sources: Autoblog.com, Toyota]