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How to drive a car with your Apple iPhone (with video)

Monday, November 16, 2009 · 1:35 pm · 20 Comments

“File this one under Don’t Try This at Home,” Philip Elmer-DeWitt reports for Fortune.

“Some DIY guys in Austin, Texas, with time on their hands and access to free equipment have demonstrated how to use an Apple iPhone to steer, accelerate and brake a jury-rigged car,” Elmer-DeWitt reports.

Check it out via YouTube:

Direct link to video here.

More info and another video offering more details about how they did it in the full article here.

[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader "qka" for the heads up.]

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Comment Feed

20 Comments

Gregg Thurman

Monday, November 16, 2009 - 2:42 pm · Reply

Maybe driving your car with an iPhone is practical, but I’m sure there are any number of other applications for this kind of technology, using an iPhone as the controller.
Gabriel

Monday, November 16, 2009 - 2:55 pm · Reply

Unfortunately, their innovative “iDrive” app was rejected from the App Store due to the unauthorized use of an Apple-created icon image…
Raymond in DC

Monday, November 16, 2009 - 3:06 pm · Reply

… could give a whole new meaning to the phrase “back seat driver”.
Dr. Horrible

Monday, November 16, 2009 - 3:23 pm · Reply

I made one of these iPhone car-controllers ages ago. It’s on my sing-along blog.

Also, “jury rigged”? How illiterate are you? I have a Ph.D. in horribleness.
HMCIV

Monday, November 16, 2009 - 3:36 pm · Reply

I thought jury rigging was something we did in Psystar trials.
James Bond Movie

Monday, November 16, 2009 - 3:52 pm · Reply

There was a James Bond movie a few years ago- he was controlling the car with his phone… “Tomorrow Never Dies” I think….

Life Imitates Art??
Apple Cider

Monday, November 16, 2009 - 3:53 pm · Reply

Chick in white lab coat: “As we turn the knob…”
Place that on a loop. Om om om
Big Al

Monday, November 16, 2009 - 3:58 pm · Reply

That’s not real roof surfing when you have control of the f’n car.

Pussies.
lurker

Monday, November 16, 2009 - 4:45 pm · Reply

Jury rigging refers to makeshift repairs or temporary contrivances, made with only the tools and materials that happen to be on hand. Originally a nautical term, on sailing ships a jury rig is a replacement mast and yards improvised in case of damage or loss of the original mast.
Luke

Monday, November 16, 2009 - 5:09 pm · Reply

It should be “gerry-rigged” for the love of Christ.
Luke

Monday, November 16, 2009 - 5:11 pm · Reply

Named after Elbridge Gerry.

Alternatively, “jerry-rigged” would have been acceptable.
MacDust

Monday, November 16, 2009 - 5:21 pm · Reply

With no ability to run this app in the background, I’d hate to be in the car when you get a phone call.
Wha

Monday, November 16, 2009 - 5:28 pm · Reply

Jerry-rigged if you mean Jerry from the Facts of Life
leodavinci

Monday, November 16, 2009 - 5:50 pm · Reply

Jury-rigged refers to illegally influence a jury.

Jerry-rigged means make-shift. It refers to the “spit and bailing wire”, make-shift repair work done towards the end of WW2 by German military personnel (Jerrys) to keep military vehicles and weapons working. Due to lack of materials, repairs were done with whatever was at hand, even if parts weren’t made for the particular purposes they were being used for.

Two different concepts.

And, yes, the car was jerry-rigged.
igads

Monday, November 16, 2009 - 6:10 pm · Reply

Give these folks a job, this is funny as hell.

I can see it now, “Why no ocifer, I wasn’t drinking and driving. I called my wife to drive me home with her phone”.

No way they convict you, no way.
sherman

Monday, November 16, 2009 - 7:16 pm · Reply

and the winner is…. leodavinci

(crowd roars)

The encyclopedia is only a few clicks away these days.
Forrest, Forrest Gump

Monday, November 16, 2009 - 8:35 pm · Reply

In Germany there is a serious attempt to do the same, with help from artificial intelligence, at the Freie Universität of Berlin:

Berlin Racing Team

Peace
Dave

Monday, November 16, 2009 - 11:11 pm · Reply

well I liked it–and semantics aside (I only have 1 B.A. and 3 mastered after all) I thought the jury-rigged use of electric car windows motors was pretty good and the thing did drive well. Unlike Bond’s movie (we all knew it was fake)
DX

Tuesday, November 17, 2009 - 6:21 am · Reply

Guys… you might “rig a jury”, but jury-rigging is the same as jerry-rigging. In fact, it’s the original and correct spelling. Why fucktards with a limited command of English think they need to correct professional writers who obviously have the ability to *gasp* crack a dictionary occasionally rather than rely on their over-inflated ego for everything is beyond me.

Look it up.
Odd Job

Wednesday, November 18, 2009 - 3:12 am · Reply

Da da da da, da da daaaa, da da, da da da *

*(sung to the tune of the James Bond theme)