MyCityWay: Context is King!

Last week, I synced up with MyCityWay’s CEO and cofounder Puneet Mehta. To refresh your memory, MyCityWay is a former winner of the NYC Big Apps competition, incubated its mobile app software at BMW’s offices in Lower Manhattan, and is now a force in the connected car space. On the last point, they’ve partnered with BMW–who was an initial investor–to provide software for their DriveNow car-sharing program in San Francisco.

We chatted for about 20 minutes about the state of connected car software interfaces. Two points resonated with me during our brief conversations. First, at CE Week NY I experienced first hand a major car audio maker’s experiment in giving some engineers an assignment to add email, Twiter, and location software to an in-dash stereo receiver. After seeing the results, you really appreciate the design sense of mobile software pros. By the way, check out the console (above) that MyCitWay worked out for BMW’s DriveNow.

The second key point that I learned from Mehta is that the connected car platform will have to evolve differently than its smartphone cousin. According to Mehta, in a car environment you’ll need more than just a collection of apps, which is what the aforementioned audio vendor was providing. For a smartphone, an app-focus will do fine–for now. For Mehta, though, the goal is “a cross-functional experience that is consumer focused” for MyCityWay’s auto as well as smartphone initiatives.

What does he mean by this? It all boils down seeing the driver in a larger context or as Mehta says, having “situational awareness. So, for example, the embedded car software knows your route in the morning, knows the gas is low, and so automatically suggests a gas station that’s on the way. His vision is focused on a total experience, rather than expecting drivers to fumble with apps as they’re speeding along.

Context is a powerful way to organize functions. And no doubt this model will eventually makes its way into smartphone software, where the app is currently king. But in an auto environment, the important driver—couldn’t resist– is limited user attention, which forces a more complete solution for accessing the connected car’s capabilities.

Anyway, it was great chatting with Mehta, and he says that MyCityWay should have some significant news in the coming months. We will keep you posted.