Your CAR is the 'ultimate mobile device', reckons Apple COO Apple has admitted to eyeing up the automotive market, with chief operations man Jeff Williams describing cars as "the ultimate mobile device". Responding to a question about industries the mega cash-rich company is looking at, Williams told the Code Conference 2015: “The car is the ultimate mobile device,” adding, “We’re …
the iCarUS. The wings melt.
No but seriously... if they come out with some electric car, how long will the battery last, can you open the finger print sensitive door handle with a Gummy bear, will it only do round corners, will the aerial need repositioning for v2.0 and will it crash unexpectedly?
"Apple boss Tim Cook claimed that Cupertino's Watch will replace car keys."
Must be sunspots or something as the Apple reality distortion field is at maximum strength judging by this remark.
How in hell will that work? Bill Gate's "MS everywhere" is a poor second to the hopes of Cook for total dominance not just of computing but the whole of life. My car has metal keys that don't run out of power, are not susceptible to hijacking and cost a lot less than an iThing and anyway I can see no way to retrofit it to my Mini, even if I wanted to.
The only way Apple's watch would replace my car keys was if they made it small, brass with a funny serrated tongue sticking out the side.
And how is it different from let's say the wonderful geniuses from VW group which sell 4x4s in the UK and void your warranty if you change the tires with non-homologated ones. Makes owning one and having ideas to take it to the continent in winter quite interesting as the list in the UK is different compared to the continent and does not include a single winter tyre type. So you end up with a 4x4 which is not road legal in half of the Eu half of the year and is not fit for one of the main 4x4 purposes - to take you places where normal cars have a difficult getting to.
Not that BMW are much better either.
More and more cars are coming with tons (literally and metaphorically) of mostly unnecessary, expensive, complex, proprietary tech that goes out of date and unsupported by the manufacturer after a couple of years, (long before the car itself is used up), is unmaintainable/unreplaceable by the owner, and more often than not now has compulsory phone-home technology built right in and reporting on you 24/7. I'm calling you out Tesla, Nissan and GM/On-Star, amongst others.
I know we're all meant to blindly trust and enjoy the 'added convenience' of the pretty much pointless features that all this expensive extra non-optional hardware brings, but I am now at a point where I refuse to even consider purchasing any car if it has any of that crap in it. It is getting harder and harder to find any cars without it though, especially new ones. I'll just buy/drive old cars from now on if thats what it takes.
Since nearly all car manufacturers are on thes band wagon, It seems to me there's a real and growing market for a manufacturer of premium cars that don't have any non-optional tech in.
Isn't your bicycle the ultimate mobile device?
You don't need to tax it, fuel it, charge it or wind it up.
You can fix it yourself, or get anyone you want to fix it. You can replace all the parts using components from any manufacturer you choose (including washing manufacturers if your Graeme Obree), or make them yourself with basic machine tools.
You can take it as normal baggage on a 'plane or pedal it from Lisboa to Lavrentia if the fancy takes you.
What could be better?
I know what he is getting at with that statement, but really, he needs better scriptwriters so his soundbite doesn't sound quite so "like, duh!".
For whatever it is worth, I like my car tech to be embedded and completely disconnected from the outside world, to serve a specific purpose such as adjusting the mixture to the driving and the weather so the car can run better with less fuel. The moment one talks about interactivity and connectivity is the moment that I walk away. A device moving at 90kph with soft squishy me inside should only be receiving outside signals on the FM radio. Nothing else and for no other reason. Time and again embedded device security has been proven to be varying degrees of incomprehensible uselessness, so thanks but no thanks. The best firewall my car can have is no need for such a thing in the first place.
Imagine a walled-garden car, because that's what Apple will be selling.
Only works with Apple phones (Android phones will work for calls only, but the car'sscreen will be blank).
Only works with Apple's special square charger.
Only air from an approved Apple air-compressor with an approved Apple nozzle will work on the tires
Quick charge units that work only at 55hz (additional adapter from 50 or 60 to 55hz coming end of year).
Non-replaceable batteries.
Only one door on the drivers side (for design reasons) and no trunk.
Only available in gray or white for the first 5 years.
Made with slave labor from China.
All body panels made from glass (including the bumpers).
No firmware updates for last year's models.
Available in 8gb and 16gb music storage models (sorry no upgrade vector from model to model).
Thanks, but no thanks.
right. that BOFH from way back where the PFY filled all the panels on his mark3 Cortina with concrete is starting to make sense.
time to investigate swapping out the front and back panels for imitations fab'd from 10mm steel filled with concrete and re'bars. at least I'll have some fun waking up noddys staring at their satnav while on the phone.
apple car? OM NOM NOM NOM
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