[CEATEC 2012] Clarion announced its Next GATE in-car navigation devices earlier this year, but left out a lot of consumers when they decided to make it iPhone-only. However, it looks like that might not be a limitation anymore. At CEATEC 2012, Clarion showed off a new Next GATE devices that features Android support. While there wasn’t a working model to play around with, it looks like it has all the features of a typical in-car navigation system with MirrorLink connectivity. Android phones will be able to connect to the device via Samsung’s Drive Link app (only for the Galaxy S3 for now). And even though it mirrors the display of your phone, Next GATE won’t be able to run every app that your phone runs: only those that support this feature (i.e. TuneIn Radio etc). While it sounds like a bad thing, I guess this means that drivers won’t be distracted by the myriads of apps they have on their phones since they’ll only be able to access the essential ones.
No word on a release date, but it doesn’t look like it’s going to be too far off. Also, we can expect it to be priced similarly to its iPhone-only Next GATE ($269) – after all, they’re not very different products.
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