Wayne Cunningham
commentary If it's true that VW and Apple are hopping into bed to make an iCar, what will their progeny look like?
The rumoured collusion between Apple and Volkswagen on an iCar leaves me baffled. What would an iCar do that cars with iPod adapters don't? For example, the 2008 Scion range from Toyota in the U.S. comes standard with an excellent iPod interface, giving you full access to your entire music library. Why isn't the Scion an iCar?
Throwing Apple's signature "i" in front of "Car" has got to be a marketing dream. The term iCar has the same simplicity as iPod and iPhone. And it mimics the iPhone treatment by putting the "i" in front of a common word. It makes me want to live in an iWorld. Imagine waking up in an iBed, taking your iCar to work, doing your iJob all day, then having a couple of iBeers at the end of the day.
There aren't any details on what an iCar might be, but I've got a few ideas. First, forget about mechanical controls, such as steering wheels, shifters, and pedals. You control the iCar with touch surfaces and gestures. When you want to turn right, drag your finger across the dashboard-mounted touch screen toward the right. If you want to speed up, drag your finger forward on the touch screen (although on BMW iCars, you would drag your finger back to increase speed). Of course, there is one mechanical control -- a subtle switch mounted unobtrusively under the dashboard to turn the car on or off.
Image credit: Volkswagen Australia and Derek Fung
The touch screen also displays your speedometer, tachometer, and other gauges, all of which you can minimise so they don't clutter your view. Of course, when you minimise a gauge, it graphically rolls up and gets sucked down to the bottom of the screen. And the time is always displayed in the upper right of the screen. Apple extends its Widgets architecture to the touch screen, letting you easily install new gauges or other information, many developed by iCar users.
The navigation system in the iCar is much simpler to use than in most other cars, where you have to enter in a street address or choose a point of interest. In iCar, you just touch the button labelled Groceries, and the car drives you to the nearest Coles or Woolies. If you need to go computer shopping, iCar takes you to an Apple store. If you want to go out to the movies, iCar doesn't drive anywhere, merely showing the movie on its dashboard screen.
You can't really tune up an iCar. There aren't any performance mods available, although there are a lot of accessories from third parties. Unfortunately, most of these accessories are neoprene or rubber skins you can wrap around the iCar, to keep it from getting scratched or damaged.
Of course, the best thing about iCar is that it doesn't crash. Or, at least that's what its marketing claims.
If Apple collaborate in making an iCar, what would you want in it? Leave your thoughts below.
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chris
12/10/2007 05:09 PM
the gps would not be gps- it would be like google maps, you need to tell the gps where you are and when you are ready for the next direction...
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matt
12/10/2007 11:55 PM
it would be purely battery powered and when the battery reached the end of its life cycle you would have to get it replaced, like a service but more expensive,inconvenient, frequent and costly. Furthermore the battery would last for 30 hours of music and applications or 4 hours of driving time. The icar would come with a usb charger and would take 3 days to charge, a mains charger would be available as a cost option.
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dan_rox77
13/10/2007 09:28 AM
Lol, Matt. Sounds like it has an iPod's characteristics morphed into a car.
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WazFromOz
14/10/2007 11:21 AM
omg -- does that mean if you touch the iTransform section of the screen it will do that cool Transformer sound and compact down into an iPod :D
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wardiew
14/10/2007 06:08 PM
I would want an i-Brator in the driver's seat to minimize driver fatigue- of course it would be interfaced with the iPod and iBoombox to keep the driver jumpin'.
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ellmondo
15/10/2007 12:45 AM
google maps supports gps now
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wardiew
15/10/2007 08:30 AM
An iPark feature would be handy too, where the car could move sideways into tight parking spots automatically.
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bizeem
15/10/2007 02:51 PM
iThink it would be great! After the iBeer or three at the end of the iDay, you could get really iDrunk and catch an iCab iHome! iCould login from my iCar to my iWorkplace and do my iWork from iAnywhere! iThen could take iLeave and go on an iHoliday with my iFamily to some distant iSland for some iR-and-R! iT iJust iGoes iOn and iOn...
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m477
15/10/2007 03:58 PM
Wow an entire article padded out with pointless drivel and speculation, I hope CNET is paying you well.
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momo
24/10/2007 02:52 PM
iWow!!! imagine if an icar was developed?? I think that the world would be a iperfect world. if this were to happen, i think that everything else around us would turn to an i infront of every word. imagine if the icar had itoilet? your just driving to a far off land and decide to use the itoilet? then iflush it with a push of a button and then dumb it out on the street where a idumb will pick it up right after? i could see iAmerica becoming lazyer and everyone being over couple hundred pounds!!
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Random
30/10/2007 02:20 PM
I think bm might have to give up the name Idrive
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M@
06/11/2007 04:15 PM
Wow, the iHaters really jumped on this article!
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archie
03/12/2007 12:09 PM
Bill.."where are we, and what's with this baby music?" Steve.."this is the iWorld and I am a God here.......death to conventional thinking"..."finder" "YES, MY LORD"..."find Bill Gates and delete him!"..."HA! With PLEASURE......"
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Camo Boy
03/12/2007 05:49 PM
Thank archie, I think we get the idea. If anyone one was interested, that was part of the dialogue of a SuperNews video clip, which can be viewed by searching "SuperNews Bill Gates vs Steve Jobs" at your favourite Google-owned self-broadcasting website.
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ialf
12/12/2007 05:11 PM
iCar. costs $400 and is obsolete in 2 years. Fuel can only be bought from Apple stores.
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Phoo
14/12/2007 04:31 PM
When will Apple copyright and trademark the letter i (obviously only the lowercase).
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AdzBlewman
29/01/2008 10:16 PM
I would beinterested in how many people who have bagged out apple in this article actually own an iPod, because from the bad comments about the iPod I have heard all come from people who haven't owned one. Besides if u get a problem with ur iPod a few times they give u the latest replacement normally worth a bit of extra cash, whats wrong with that. Back on the car, it will have an inbuilt iPhone, most likely an iCoffee for the mornings and long drives and prob turn into an iBed with iPilot to get you to your destionation quicker
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Ryan
14/02/2008 03:50 PM
Then Microsoft would make the zune car with social car ntworking to avoid crashes. :-)
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Rolloxan
29/10/2008 03:52 PM
It would be white, approximately 30% more expensive than it's competitors, lack most of the features you would expect to find in other cars (such as an FM radio, bluetooth, and a replaceable car battery) and the steering wheel would click when you turned it. I'd by a Sony car.
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Cspec
02/11/2008 12:15 PM
Wayne, you're an iIdiot. Way to contribute to journalism ...
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