Apple’s iPhone “sits in the pantheon of great inventions alongside the wheel, fire and Sky+,” Jeremy Clarkson writes amidst a car review (Daihatsu Materia) for The Times. “It’s one of those things that come into your life and you think: ‘How in the name of God did I ever manage without it?'”
Clarkson writes, “Sure, the camera, as has been suggested, can’t take pictures if it’s too dark, too bright or something in between, but everything else is brilliant. You type out texts on a proper qwerty keyboard, and even if you make a mistake it uses witchcraft to correct the error. And then there’s the telephone, which comes with big, special-needs numbers that you can’t miss even if you have fingers like burst sausages. And on top of this, it’s an iPod.”
Clarkson writes, “Problems? Honestly, there aren’t any. I’ve had mine hacked so it works on Vodafone, and I’m sorry, but the battery is fine. It lasts for four days. Though this might have something to do with the fact that I’m a man, and therefore only think to use a phone when I’m on a cliff, clinging to a branch, in a howling gale. And only then as a last resort.”
“This brings me on to an interesting idea. Why doesn’t Apple make a car? The fact of the matter is that the established car makers are timid and afraid of change. They think the mini MPV is a revolution and that the Smart car can be mentioned in the same breath as penicillin. This means they never think outside the box,” Clarkson writes.
“Why, for instance, does a car have a steering wheel? Or pedals? Or a dashboard? No, really. As anyone under the age of 15 will tell you, the handset for a PlayStation can be used to steer, accelerate and brake a car. And there are still spare buttons on the handset that can be used to fire machineguns,” Clarkson writes.
“And, of course, without a steering wheel or a dashboard, there’d be a lot more space in the cabin, and no need for expensive, weighty airbags. And that’s just me, thinking off the top of my head,” Clarkson writes.
Clarkson writes, “I feel fairly sure that if Apple were asked to make a car, it would come up with an automotive iPod, and within weeks we’d view the current alternatives in the same way that we now view the cassette tape, the LP and the 8-track.”
The rest of the article, if you care about a review of the Daihatsu Materia, is here.
When auto reviews become more about iPhone than the car, you know – if you didn’t know already – that Apple’s got a major hit on their hands.
Clarkson got one thing right: The fairer sex can really chew up the cell phone minutes.
Typical Clarkson. Top Gear is the best car show on TV. Clarkson has a very low opinion of Americans usually but then Ives is from the UK too.
iKia
‘nuf said.
Woah, I think I’ll take a steering wheel: I’ve seen how I drive with a PS2 joystick and I don’t want to share the road with me when those things are what controls a car…
Seriously, Jobs could really change the world with a new car design.
I think machine guns are more useful than parking lights.
And Apple could get some mileage from this review.
And companies will say “Apple has no experience making cars” but just as they did with the Cell Phone, Computer industry, Portable music players, the entire car industry will be revolutionary.
Maybe it will take a company like Apple to finally put an electric car on the market. GM certainly cannot, and It doesn’t look as if any other company can either. They offer electric “concept” cars but that amounts to nothing more than bait for suckers.
Maybe in ten or twelve years when Jobs is the richest man alive (by far). Then he’ll leave AAPL in capable hands and do something for kids with Aids and build a car and a spaceship and revolutionize pan-oceanic travel.
MW:somewhat
At the local Best Buy, the Apple desktop and notebooks outsold all Windoze based machines combined in the weeks before christmas.
So the Phenomenon at the Big Universities has now moved to the mainstream stores in the US.
Can we move that overseas as well?
This might be amusing if Clarkson wasn’t such a wanker…
If Apple made a car it would be great. It would still be a crappy internal combustion engine, but it would get fantastic mileage. It would be well engineered like the best Germany has to offer.
It would only work on roads built by Apple though. These would be the best roads around, but no one else would be on them, and they would only go to Apple’s front door in Cupertino.
Meanwhile, the Microsoft cars would be everywhere. Crappy they would be, but everyone would be driving them and they’d only work on Microsoft roads, but those horrible roads full of potholes would go everywhere.
With the amount of electronic on engines these days, Apple, could be innovating something. But I wouldn’t expect any car soon.
We are in Post-Computing Times and Apple has stated this.
Yet, if customers want it… who knows?
PS2 Joystick? Ha! That’s so 2005. Now swap my steering wheel out with a Nintendo Wiimote!
Clarkson a wanker hey? No, I don’t think so.
He is erudite and funny, he has no truck with the ‘elf ‘n safety brigade of liberal apparatchik goody goody tree huggers, who generally cause more wars and global warming than they avoid despite their best intentions…
Clarkson is the hero of the common sense man.
Even if he goes OTT on occasions.
Apple please don’t build a car. Just keep building great computers. Instead, retrain some of the automotive CEOs to understand that risk is good and it’s all about customer satisfaction. Everything else is secondary. Simplify the options and make it work for most people. Let the great engineers rise to the top and dictate the design.
Focus groups have some good input, but let the designers design the car. Have them work directly with the engineers and let the engineers work with the manufacturers. Everyone should understand the other’s job. Now that we have a good design and understand how to build it and can manufacture it people will buy it like crazy.
It’s not that easy though. Cars are complicated things and have a huge list of conflicting requirements. When that nasty internal combustion engine is gone lots of new design options open up, but there’s all those safety, range, space and environmental issues.
I think there is one thing we can all agree on: Cars need machine guns.
How about an ode to today’s apple stock crash?
Re: Steering wheel…
Yeah, those PS controllers can drive a car, but you can’t steer with your knee, so that would fail in the US.
And besides, PS gamers who are serious about driving games buy… <a >A Steering Wheel</a>.
Sorry, link.
@Reality Sucks…
your analysis is correct except you forgot one version. For a $79.95 upgrade you can get the Parallels add on edition and drive on both MS and Apple Roads. OR you could just use the BOOTCAMP switch at start up and decide to drive on either MS or Apple roads exclusively.
Either way…. driving a MS car limits you to only driving on MS roads. Using an Apple car allows you to drive on 100% of the available roads in the world.
If Apple designed a car…
(I’m trying to be funny here…
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1: The windshield would be so shiny and reflective that it would block small children and animals from view.
2: The car would come as a “all in one device” requiring a 300 mile trip to the local Apple Store for repair with no “loaner car” given in the meanwhile.
3: There would be a standard one year warranty, two or three more years would be extra.
4: The battery won’t be replaceable, requiring a whole new car if it dies.
5: Some “creative” would decide it would be cool to have “Stacks” appear as a HUD.
6: Any color you like, as long as it was black or white or sometimes Product RED.
7: The company logo would be etched into the headlights to make a pair of Apple’s siloutes on the road as you travel.
8: iTunes visuals would appear on the ceiling whenever one played a iTMS song.
9: Apple would switch the opertaing system, then the processors, then the engine and transmission around at apparantly no notice.
10: About two years after owning the AppleCar, it would suddenly be “uncool” to own it, requiring a purchase of the newer, slimer, AppleCarNano in order to remain “cool”.
Thank, you, I’ll be here all week…
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I’ve seen Clarkson as a participant in the British show QI (Quite interesting), so somehow this doesn’t surprise me.
@ Uh Oh
Can’t handle a 3% drop? Wuss.
Now if only we could interest Daihatsu and Volkswagen to enter into a joint venture to produce a car. I suggest: The Daihatsu Gesundheit.