The pursuit of connection: the $120K Lexus app and car combo

The pursuit of connection: the $120K Lexus app and car combo:

You will probably never look better using an app for a car than while sitting in this car.

Andrew Cunningham

There is now a long, somewhat exasperating history of smartphone apps that do little except demonstrate one’s affluence. For instance, the $999.99 I Am Rich app does nothing but display a glowing red gem or some text. The $999.99 iVIP Black app shows the location of VIP venues. But Lexus has now one-upped that: you can’t even log into the car manufacturer’s app unless you own one of its luxury vehicles.
Lexus’s latest fleet—including the 2013 LS 600h L hybrid that we test drove—can now integrate with the company’s Enform smartphone app (available for iOS, BlackBerry, Android, and certain Windows Phone 7.5 handsets). When a phone with a logged-in account is connected to the car, a range of app options open up in the car’s dashboard.

The smartphone interface for Enform.

The Enform interface, front and center in the dashboard.

Andrew Cunningham

Within Enform, there are a number of sub-apps, most of which are location-oriented. A Facebook app only allows users to check-in to Places—no status-reading or photo-posting for safety reasons. OpenTable and Yelp look for nearby restaurants, and a Bing app can find nearby locations based on search terms (a search for “cars” brings up nearby dealerships for instance).

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