What would be in an Apple iCar?

By Wayne Cunningham on 12 October 2007

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.

Topics: vw, apple, icar, car, touch screen, gauge, dashboard, want, finger, minimise

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Comments (20)

  • Cspec commented on 02/11/2008 12:15 Report abuse

    Wayne, you're an iIdiot. Way to contribute to journalism ...

  • Rolloxan commented on 29/10/2008 15:52 Report abuse

    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.

  • Ryan commented on 14/02/2008 15:50 Report abuse

    Then Microsoft would make the zune car with social car ntworking to avoid crashes. :-)

  • AdzBlewman commented on 29/01/2008 22:16 Report abuse

    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

  • Phoo commented on 14/12/2007 16:31 Report abuse

    When will Apple copyright and trademark the letter i (obviously only the lowercase).

  • ialf commented on 12/12/2007 17:11 Report abuse

    iCar. costs $400 and is obsolete in 2 years. Fuel can only be bought from Apple stores.

  • Camo Boy commented on 03/12/2007 17:49 Report abuse

    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.

  • archie commented on 03/12/2007 12:09 Report abuse

    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......"

  • M@ commented on 06/11/2007 16:15 Report abuse

    Wow, the iHaters really jumped on this article!

  • Random commented on 30/10/2007 14:20 Report abuse

    I think bm might have to give up the name Idrive

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