Applications for Drivers
T-Systems and AOE media launched a Searchperience-based smartphone app web portal for drivers // App Finder for iPhone and Android Devices
At www.communicar.de, a portal published by T-Systems’ “Connected Car” business area, drivers who want to use their smartphone on the road for navigation, information on traffic jams, or entertainment can find out about all the available apps, for free. The T-Systems’ “Connected Car” business area tapped TYPO3 and AOE media for the concept, design and development work.
T-Systems approached AOE media with the idea of a portal especially for car apps. The portal would also have a journalistic magazine with information on mobile telephony in cars, mobility and the environment, to back up the recommendations of multiple editors. However, there is an impossibly large number of car apps for the iOS and Android operating systems – a total of around 50,000 of them. Accordingly, AOE media extended the original concept to incorporate intelligent, modern search technology for apps.
The core of the new site is the CarApp Finder, which users access with a conventional search field.
AOE media used Searchperience for use, an in-house search function based on Apache Solr. The crawler does not need pre-structured data, and is configured to search the App Store and Android Market and index, filter, and present applications that fit the search terms. After entering the search term, which is made easier by auto-complete, users see a list of results with detailed information from the shop of the respective mobile operating system. The Communicar editors can add to this information at will.
Searchperience makes it possible to filter by price, age limit or developer – functions that go beyond what the App Store and Android Market offer. When users click on Download, Communicar takes them to the specific provider. It also offers an automatically generated QR code as an alternative.
