Gadgetory

hi I'm x1 Goodwin with cnet.com and I'm behind the wheel of the new mercedes benz glk 350 to take a look at their new command system with the mercedes benz that's integration you'll get to it all right here from this new Mercedes Benz app icon in the command interface we'll just tap on that and you'll notice that one of the first problems with the system is that it's kind of slow every time you select an option you end up sitting and waiting for the data connection to establish itself and to download whatever data that it needs it just kind of takes a long time to get from screen to screen now the first thing that you can do after you hop in here is go into Google local search we're gonna search where we are right now we will pop in here to the popular searches and let's say we're looking for somewhere to eat kind of go to any of these places we'll just grab one and you can pop into the detail screen you can also view options for Google Street View like all Google Street View you get a 360 view just by scrolling around here with a controller if you backup you can also view the panoramio by Google which is basically a database of geotagged photos in the area of the place that you're looking for again the load times really kind of hamper this whole situation and I kind of think it'd be easier maybe to use your smartphone for some of this stuff since you can't do it unless you're parked anyway the next option is news and that basically gives you the latest headline from a number of different topics you can kind of view the latest headlines with photographs assigned to them so we'll pop into the story about the Mars landing and you'll see that the entire story is right here it's not really the kind of situation that you'd want to you know sit in your car and read it on the screen right here so you can pop over into this option and send the article to yourself via email now the next really interesting feature is the Yelp integration and you get the list of the most highly rated pizza places within the area around us so we'll find hey this place looks good we'll go into it and you can see that every one of those reviews has a one to five star yelp rating so the option is also here to download points of interest and routes that you saved online using Mercedes's embrace connectivity service we don't have any definition safe that we're gonna skip right over that and jump into the left bit Facebook so you'll notice that the first option on my facebook is four places and I can pop into there and I can find places where my friends have checked in in the area or I can also find Facebook places near the current location and navigate to them if I go back into the main menu I can also view a list of my friends I'm gonna jump down and find my fellow car tech editor Wayne Cunningham and see what he's up to okay so if Wayne had lifted a phone number I'd be able to see it right here and initiate a phone call I can also see where he is I can see the last place that he checked in and I can also import him into a contacting to the Maine hands-free calling and navigation system I can also view his wall and see his last couple of posts I can view events in the area that I've RSVP to I can view the details of the event here and then I can also navigate to that event if an address is listed you can also change your status from right here in the app it took me about seven to ten minutes to input a simple 100 character method so if I were you I'd skip all of this data input and that pretty much wraps up everything that the Mercedes command app system does well that's been our in-depth first look at the mercedes-benz app system as part of their new command system in the glk350 I've been inch one good one with cnet.com