View Single Post
Xaqtly
Veteran Member
 
Join Date: May 2004
 
2012-03-02, 19:11

Yeah, good point - there was a time when I never thought in a million years that Apple would be making a cell phone. I can't even wrap my head around the idea of Apple getting into the car making business, but... as much as I hate to say it, after thinking about it some more, it makes sense. What has Apple's philosophy been all along, from the very beginning? When you make the entire widget, you have full control over the user experience.

Can you imagine a car built by Apple? And I don't mean the easy jokes about an Apple car only being able to run on Apple-owned roads, I'm talking about Apple's ruthless attention to detail and drive towards perfection. Ergonomically speaking, Apple has the potential to make the best looking and best-functioning car interior we've ever seen. Everything would be important, down to the way each material feels to your fingers.

And with Apple's already existent infrastructure, the possibilities for in-car entertainment and technology integration are almost limitless. Siri, for example. It would be so relatively easy for Apple to leverage Siri in a car, and tie it into the car's navigation system. Like Apple's insistence that AT&T provide an unlimited data plan with every iPhone sold, Apple would make sure you would have minimum of 3G connectivity in the car at all times, in addition to GPS, for flawless integration between what you say to Siri, and Siri's ability to get results and display them on your nav screen.

And as a side bonus, Apple would make sure the in-car mic and audio system were superb, not just mediocre. It's just how Apple works, they would make sure every component of this system would be better than what we've experienced in a car so far.

It's great to think about, I'm not convinced Apple will want to build their own car, but I sort of see this working out as a deal between auto makers and Apple. Apple would provide the entire infotainment and control infrastructure for the car, i.e. the touch screens, the control layouts, buttons, everything that involves human interface, while the auto maker would design and build the mechanical parts of the car. That's the level of involvement Apple would demand, because otherwise you get something like the Motorola ROKR, the first iTunes phone.

And that's really where the problem is with most cars today, right? The cars are fine for the most part, but none of them can figure out a good way to do the navigation and infotainment stuff. Ford's Sync is the exception because that's actually pretty good - but Sync is made by Microsoft. There is a HUGE opportunity for Apple there, if they're motivated enough to do it. I can even imagine The Steve being annoyed with his expensive Mercedes because nothing inside it would be up to his standards of human interface perfection.
  quote