The Detroit Free Press reports next year, GM will provide in-car access to Pandora online radio, Stitcher news podcasts and WiFi. Voice-activated Facebook, texting, e-mail and MP3 player control also may come soon.
Consumers already have heard about many of these technologies -- from rival Ford's Sync, which links to cell phones and iPods. Among digital devotees, Sync, first launched in 2007, has left OnStar's blue button in the dust.
But that will change, GM says. "You can argue that we haven't marketed it, we haven't advertised it, we haven't communicated it," said Micky Bly, executive director of GM's hybrids, electric vehicles, batteries and infotainment. "That communication starts today."
Even with better marketing and new technology, OnStar faces hurdles. The safety-and-security brand hopes to convince regulators it can offer voice-activated Facebook and messaging access safely.
Don't expect to see OnStar abandon the blue button or its core safety and driver-assistance services. Once GM catches up in infotainment, executives say, the help provided by OnStar's built-in phone module will distinguish it from automated, cell phone-based Sync.
While GM had dazzled consumers with its OnStar safety advisers in 1996, in the following decade Ford leapfrogged its rival, using Microsoft's Sync system to access smartphones and music players by voice command.
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