By We met up with the guys from Cobra at CES to get a look at their new prototype product named the JoyRide. It’s a combination of hardware and software that makes launching applications in your car a thing of immense ease and provides a safe way to navigate through your most used applications.
On the hardware side of things we have a cable that goes from the cigarette lighter in your car into the USB port on your device. In the middle lies a button which we’ll get into a bit later.
On the software front we have an application which you can use to customize which applications open up and how on your device. Upon plugging the JoyRide into your phone it will launch apps in the background and foreground as per your instructions.
A classic example would be launching Google Maps in the foreground while getting some music going in the background. It’s a car mode concept that takes the decision out of the phone’s hands and into yours.
The best feature, though, is that aforementioned button. You can set up three different applications to launch depending on how the button is pressed. A quick press opens one app, a long press opens another, a double tap another and so on and so forth. Which applications it launches is completely customizable.
Unfortunately they only had the prototypical unit on hand at this particular event but we should be getting a look at a working model tomorrow. In the meantime take a look at the video above to get an idea of how all of it will work.
I love this idea. I have Tasker do some of this for me now but the ability to have a physical button that doesn’t take my eye off the road is great.
If it had a fm transmitter via bluetooth also, I would be all over this.
I have a $7 app that does all of this already… it’s called Tasker.