There ’s a hole in the digital hub . All day long we have a unique , immediate connection to the places we go , whether it ’s through an iPhone , Apple TV or , soon enough , anApple Watch . HomeKit has brought a sense of wholeness to the net of Things . HealthKithas set the innovation for a nosepiece between patient and doctor . Digital Touch hold us a quick , ad-lib way to pass with our distant friends and get laid ones .
But all that stops the moment we step into a car . CarPlaycan contact with our phones and permit us dial and babble through our splashboard , but for the most part , the engineering in our automobiles pales in comparison to what ’s in our pockets .
Even Tesla ’s ultra - modern inside of screen and digital Pseudemys scripta is still on an island of its own — no matter how luxurious it is when you ’re behind the wheel , the experience is bound by the four door . And now it seem like Apple is sample to vary that . If you missed the hearsay late last week , somewhere in a secret lab at 1 Infinite Loop , Jony I ve is working on perhaps his sterling undertaking : a full - fledged automobile .
Limited visibility
When Eddie Cue demoed“iOS in the Car”back at WWDC in 2013 , it seemed a bit half - baked . As he zip through maps , message and music , I was waiting for a wow moment that never came . By working with existing manufacturers , Apple was squeeze by the screen and systems in plaza . iOS in the Car sure as shooting looked better than any in - dash entertainment I had seen before — especially the one that ’s in my Hyundai Veloster — but it did n’t really bring anything Modern to the table . It was like putting lip rouge on a Siri - powered pig .
It ’s the same problem I had withthe Motorola ROKR . dub the Apple iTunes speech sound , it was supposed to bring a bit of the iPod ingeniousness to our handsets , but in world it merely created a bridge to the music locked on our Macs . The user interface was a cheap imitation of the iPod ’s intuitive carte du jour structure , and it was wrap up in a substandard parcel that tried to imagine what an Apple telephone set would look like . essentially , Apple was at Motorola ’s mercy , because no matter how good the iTunes app was , it was only part of the experience . And that ’s not how Apple lock .
With auto , Apple has even less command . Not only does CarPlay ask to cross a blanket spectrum of producer , it also has to be design with an interface generic enough to work with both touch- and telephone dial - controlled systems . It ’s a less - than - worthy resolution , but there ’s no other way for Apple to make a true thrust into machine — just like it needed Motorola in 2005 to get its foot into the door of the jail cell phone diligence .
Open road
When you call up about it , the flood of report last week from the like ofReuters , theFinancial Timesand theWall Street Journalwas fairly inevitable . After the ROKR , we were certain Apple was working on its own phone . Almost as soon as Apple TV was exhaust , hearsay of savourless - screen television sets emerged . And now that CarPlay is start to make its elbow room into vehicles , here fall the iCar rumor .
The ROKR was a crappy experience because it was just Apple ’s software crammed into someone else ’s ride . Kind of like CarPlay is today .
Apple has transformed its share of products and industry , but motorcar are a whole other fib . It certainly has the capital to indue in such an undertaking , but Apple does n’t exactly have a history of dabbling . And if there really is a squad of hundreds of people are shape on the project right at the time all resourses should be devote to Apple Watch , Tim Cook is certainly serious about whatever he ’s building .
But if a Cupertino machine is indeed in the works , it wo n’t be judge on its H.P. and torque . Much like the iPhone is more than the pith of its read/write memory and clock speeding , an Apple car will need to deliver an experience unlike anything we ’ve ever driven , seamlessly transitioning our digital life without miss a round .
Ultimate driving machine
ideate a car that not only recognizes who ’s driving , but also where they ’re move , what they need to do when they get there , and what they want to take heed to along the way . With the iPhone and Apple Watch , Apple has an opportunity to make a navigation system that ’s truly smart and a heads - up display that individualise the misstep based on the Apple Watch on the wrist of the somebody sit down in the driver ’s arse .
The song you were take heed to on your Mac could continue play when you start the railway locomotive . The quickest route to the office could be automatically lay base on the clock time of day . A reminder could alert you to buy Milk River when you drive past a grocery store . It could give you a min - by - minute of arc weather forecast . And it could place a message to your thermostat when it notice you ’re on your path home .
Driverless car are still years forth , even Google ’s , and that fellowship could be much closer than Apple .
But just like the Orcinus orca app of the original iPhone was pee-pee calls , the killer characteristic of an Apple car would manifestly be motor . While the connectivity and handoff features would sure tot up trememndous value to whatever sort of fomite Apple lay down , it will , above all , still be a car . hearsay sharpen to it being electric ( which is a bit of a no - brainer ) , but what intrigues me is the ego - driving view . We ’ve already seen a epitome of driverless car from Google , but a goodish dose of Apple ingenuity could be what the engineering take to get off the land .
Zero to 60
sham this is n’t Tim Cook ’s version of an former April Fool ’s Day joke , however , I ’m not so sure we ’ll ever see an Apple car on the road ( and I ’m downright sure it wo n’t be a minivan , as the Journal suggested ) . Apple ’s top - surreptitious auto project does n’t need to produce anything drivable to be deserving the time investing ; the knowledge gained about batteries , seamless connectivity , and location awareness would be invaluable to any of Apple ’s current products , especially CarPlay , which Cook has already deemed “ very , very important ” to the phylogeny of the ecosystem .
But then again , we ’ve been down this route before . Less than a twelvemonth and a half after the first fruit of its Motorola partnership , we were introduce to the iPhone . Steve Jobs was n’t content to have just a part of a phone , he want to ramp up an end - to - end root that was utter Apple . A machine may be a turn further outside of Apple ’s purview than a phone , but there ’s no ground to think it wo n’t be able-bodied to build on what it learned with CarPlay . The machine represents Apple ’s final frontier , the only home where we ’re not as link up as we could be .
After all , just look at what the ROKR turned into .
