“As rumors that Apple is making a self-driving car rev up, a peek under the hood of the company’s famed Industrial Design studio reveals a crew of talented automobile designers,” Leander Kahney writes for Cult of Mac. “An interest in futuristic cars is embedded deep within the DNA of Apple’s vaunted design team. Working under Jony Ive, Apple employs designers who worked on several fantastic concept cars, including a fabric-covered BMW that shifts shape depending on speed.”
“Ive has long been obsessed by cars. (He has quite a stable.) As a teenager, Ive wanted to be a car designer,” Kahney writes. “Apple’s possible interest in automotive innovation comes at a time of accelerating change for the transportation industry. From electric cars and high-mileage hybrids to autonomous vehicles and ride-sharing ventures, the way we move around the planet is undergoing rapid and radical transformation.”
Read more in the full article here.
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Apple and Volkswagen working on iCar? – August 29, 2007
RUMOR: Apple prepping vehicle navigation system – June 18, 2007
Business writer begs Apple CEO Steve Jobs to start a car company – November 02, 2006
A redo of a 1957 Chevy please. Make mine black with a white convertible top and a continental kit.
Oh, yeeeaaaahhhh!!! 😘
The WSJ article (below) says a car has over 10,000 parts. But Liquidmetal is intended to offer the strength of metal with the liquid injection ability of plastic. This could be the lqmt Holy Grail!
With a moniker like silverhawk figure you’d want a Studebaker Silver Hawk. It was a beauty.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CAcQjRw&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.mecum.com%2Flot-detail.cfm%3Flot_id%3DIA0709-82145&ei=a2LeVLOMJ8aZNunMgsAK&bvm=bv.85970519,d.eXY&psig=AFQjCNHf0GRdnKeHVJ7DlgbsZkosKY1wDw&ust=1423946722996997
Ah, a fellow Raymond Loewy fan. He was a truly design genius!
56 Nomad: Iconic form. Not aerodynamic, but cool.
If Apple makes a car, it will be the car of cars and shame all others.
Watch…( No pun ntended)
I hope the auto designers are working on a heads-up display for automobiles. Old eyes don’t change focus very fast, and having the instrument panel displayed in the in the far field in the windshield field of view would be a big help.
There are many cars that have heads up displays already.
Never happen so we should just end all of this nonsense right now. Cult of Mac is full of it.
Why do you think Apple Campus 2 is a circle?
Now that’s funny!
The question for me to answer as to why a car at Apple would be what key goal is sought? It is not just another car or another Tesla.
Simplified structure and safer? Easier to update and fix? Transform from auto to SUV quickly?
What would be the goal of doing what everyone else is doing?
The goal of the car is to park.
Probably not gonna happen, but it sure is fun to fantasize about how big a dent in the universe it could make.
Perhaps it has to do with placement and integration of various sensors and displays, with iPhone, (Apple Watch?) and iPad. 😀
Sounds more likely to me
Up to a few days ago I thought this idea was absurd, but evidence from many sources has changed my mind. Here are some thoughts about why this actually might make sense.
Apple’s relevant strengths:
– Brand value and Brand loyalty like none other in the world.
– Absolute World Leading Industrial Design (I would trust Jony Ive over anyone else to hire the best car designers, and choose the best final designs)
– World Class Software Skills
– Unmatched skills in managing operations and manufacturing (Very few other company are likely to have been able to ramp up and ship 74 million high end phones in one quarter)
– Ridiculous quantities of cash in the bank
Here are some factors that effect car buying decisions and greatly benefit from these strengths:
– Beauty and Sex appeal in design (Sex sells cars)
– Infotainment and Phone Connectivity (more significant now than ever, and will be much more so in the future)
– Brand confidence
Yes apple has zero experience in automotive mechanics, but apple can partner with other companies, buy great companies, and hire great talent.
What OTHER potential industries exist that offer total sales dollars on a similar scale and benefit so greatly from apples known strengths. None that I can think of. This could be one of the very few directions apple might go to that could provide heavy growth from here.
“Ridiculous quantities of cash in the bank”
As it happens, the market cap of Ford, Chrysler and GM combined comes to $143 billion. Apple’s cash on hand is around $178 billion.
-jcr
Siri, I want to get out of the house. Take me there…
Ok, RoaringMac. Give me a second to get the EV out of the garage. Its a bit chilly out today, so I will warm it up first. Where would you like to go?
A few years back Tim was watching HBO
and ‘Tucker’ comes on.
“hmm…”
Sooner/later: “And from the design team who brought you Steve’s yacht…”
oh no
I had to dig this out of the archive. Hadn’t read this in years but most of old timers will chuckle.
DOS Airlines
Everybody pushes the airplane until it glides, then they jump on and let the plane coast until it hits the ground again. Then they push again, jump on again, and so on.
Windows Air
The terminal is pretty and colourful, with friendly stewards, easy baggage check and boarding, and a smooth take-off. After about 10 minutes in the air, the plane explodes with no warning whatsoever.
Windows NT Air
Just like Windows Air, but costs more, uses much bigger planes, and takes out all the other aircraft within a 40-mile radius when it explodes.
UNIX Airways
Everyone brings one piece of the plane along when they come to the airport. They all go out on the runway and put the plane together piece by piece, arguing non-stop about what kind of plane they are supposed to be building.
Mac Airlines
All the stewards, stewardesses, captains, baggage handlers, and ticket agents look the same, act the same, and talk the same. Every time you ask questions about details, you are told you don’t need to know, don’t want to know, and would you please return to your seat and watch the movie.
“Siri, this doesn’t look like the right road. Perhpas we should stop to get directions?”
“I’m sorry Dave, I’m afraid I can’t do that.”
If Apple is making a car–which I am not sure that I believe–why not just gobble up Tesla and be done with it, as opposed to working from scratch, which is significantly more expensive.
As it stands, I suspect Apple is working on technologies that can go into vehicles, as opposed to a vehicle in and of itself.
Apple does not ‘gobble up’ companies. Not their DNA IMHO.
It would be counter productive unless Elon Musk agrees to it.
Gobbling up / hostile take over just creates a non-workable atmosphere..
You’re reading into the phrase “gobble up” meaning that isn’t there. Apple “gobbles up,” purchases, absorbs, companies all the time.
And as to whether Elon Musk agrees or not, who knows?
I want one, but it needs to include Siri, Touch ID, and a flux capacitor.
Actually we aren’t fundamentally moving around this planet any differently to the way we did this past 20 years or more. Yes things are changing though modifying might be a better description but it’s certainly no revolution as things stand or look likely in the foreseeable future. I’m just grateful that St least we have started to make one progress in the right direction mostly thanks to Tesla but a long way to having real significance for the ordinary human.
According to the WSJ (a very credible outlet), Apple IS working on a car;
http://9to5mac.com/2015/02/13/wsj-tim-cook-approved-apple-electric-car-project-a-year-ago-hundreds-of-employees-working-on-it/
Well that does it then!
Here’s how these rumors start:
1) Some chowderhead blogger still living in his parents basement gets a weird bong-induced fantasy and blogs about it.
2) BGR sees the blog and runs with it.
3) 9to5mac.com, not to be outdone, expands on the rumor.
4) BusinessInsider, which is greater than any other website (just ask Henry Blodgett – go ahead, I dare you), boldly breaks the story and heaps piles of steaming BS on top of it
5) Desperate for clicks, the Wall Street Journal anoints the rumor as real and claims and entire division has popped up under the eyes of the public, and that the mothership campus is actually the new auto division headquarters and factory.
“A rumor will travel around the world before the truth has the chance to put its boots on.”
Cook had to approve it just to keep Ive from constantly bugging him about it.
I, for one call BS on this rumor. I don’t care that the Wall Street Journal has even joined in on the fun. This one is up there with the Gene Muenster inspired Apple Television rumors.
Okay, having Apple work on the inside of a car could be plausible. But to engage in full-scale manufacturing of cars would deviate so far from the company’s true mission and what it does best, divert so much cash and strain human resources, this just plain does not make any sense. Unless it’s a flying Corvette convertible like Agent Coulson’s on Agents of Shield, I’m not buying it.
Stop and this all this over. In my experience, the more fantastic the Apple rumor, the more insane it is.
Oh, and if it does happen, I already know the name: The Pink Unicorn.
Steve Jobs created a new assemble line from scratch to build his NeXT Cubes. They’ve done it again for the new Mac Pro.
They have expertise in machining complex high-tolerance parts at extremely high volumes. They have battery expertise. They are masters of AI and OS. They’ve built a mapping platform and a fleet of airplanes to map the surface of the planet in 3D. Marc Newson created the only concept car I ever got excited about. Jonathan Ive wanted to be an automotive designer and is a car nut. Apple board members actually said Apple was interested in cars. They have more money than god.
Perhaps there will be an automotive test track on the roof of Apple Campus 2 when it’s finally topped off (á la fiat headquarters).
Only time will tell : )
One more: before the piPhone came out Apple partnered with a phone company to learn more about the phone business.
Apple has now partnered with most of the car companies (for CarPlay) in order to… ?
If it can’t do warp1 or better, I’m not interested.
I’ll take my semi-transparent iCar in retro Bondi blue, lolz….
…so thin, you’d… …wait, what dimension would a car be thin in…??
…so light, oh hell, I give up….
….such a flat design you can’t see it from certain angles.
I wonder if, rather than working to produce and entire vehicle, whether Apple is exploring what systems cars in the future could benefit from and is doing tests to see what works and how to make those they develop work better?