No iCar Could Not Have Said It Better...

One of the best iCar comments that I have seen yet:

HyperHacker @ Engadget, Sep 2nd 2007 10:22PM

• No steering wheel, no dashboard, no pedals, no gear shift. The windshield is a giant touchscreen. You poke at the object you want to drive toward and use sliders and buttons to control how fast.
• Costs much more than all other cars on the market, has less features, and is generally inferior, but for some reason is by far the most popular car there is.
• Cannot be refuelled. You must bring it to an Apple service station to have it exchanged for a new one when the tank dries up.
• Early versions will crash every few hours. Later versions will be more stable, and have all manner of unnecessary eye candy.
• Music may only be played by plugging in your iPod.
• Nintendo will release a shopping cart that copies its look. Firmware hacking will enable it to function as a car, but capable of reaching only 95km/h and occasionally stalling, because nobody who tries to make a replacement firmware will be able to get it quite right. However, given the total cost and additional features, it will be a much better purchase overall. Nintendo will also release a bike that copies the look, but nobody will even try to hack it, despite how much everyone wants to see it hacked.
• Engadget will post hundreds and hundreds of articles about it.

HyperHacker may not be all that far from the truth.

Oh, the Impact of the Apple/VW iCar

The owner of this company is probably not too thrilled with the rumored iCar.

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Do Apple and Volkswagen have no compassion for the little guy just trying to make a buck???

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No iCar

PC World: What the iCar Could Look Like

Tom Spring at PC World has posted some "concept" representations of the iCar.

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This writer, who now wishes to be known as "No iCar," prefers Chris Riley's representations (one of his images at left) of this seminal product; however, one must be open minded about the future, even an old Luddite.

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As resident Luddite and extreme technophobe, No iCar is astounded at how artists have drawn this not-yet product. Whatever happened to the opulence of the 1970's (before the manufactured oil "crisis"), when automobiles were long and sleek with vinyl tops and opera windows?

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Ahhhh, the good old days...

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But I digress.

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Now it seems as though cars must be designed as minimalist blocks of fibre glass, filled with enough technology to make NASA drool.

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Must everyone be plugged into something? One might as well implant electrodes in every newborn's head, just cutting to the chase, and develop plug-in portals on various locations on the infant's head.

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Why not? It worked on Star Trek: "You will comply" could become our new advertising buzzword slogan.

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No iCar remembers a time when (1) big black telephones, tethered by a cord, had rotary dials and no cellphones existed (2) Apple was just a piece of fruit or a recording company (3) iPod, iMac, and iPhone were unfortunate misspellings, (4) and everyone drove a stick shift--No iCar still does.

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But I digress again.

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This is what reporter Spring found:

Cute! But how does one drive this little iMouse iCar?
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OOOOhhh. The Apple iSchool iBus!

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Hmmmm...The Apple iTube

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No Car's favorite!!! Apple's iApple

The iCar Idea REALLY Sucks!

As a confirmed Luddite, this writer feels that the following post from the MacRumor forums (thanks to Macintel4me) is good enough reason to believe that the iCar will suck:

• Sync contact phone numbers and make calls with steering wheel buttons (Sure, more distracted idiots out there, spilling their and others' blood on the road just because they want to mumble "Whassup?" to another idiot friend).

• Sync contact addresses for the Navigation system (Yeah, so the same idiots can find their way home after an all-night kegger party).

• iPod controls of the iPod via the steering wheel buttons (More distractions and yet another boom box on wheels, annoying entire neighborhoods. Are you ready for double hearing aids by the time you hit 35????).

• View SMS messages, emails, web-browsing when the car is stopped. (Woo, Hoo! You all can't even unplug long enough to get from A-Z. If Apple and Volkwagen place governors on their cute iCars, then this writer will be impressed).

• Use google's maps and traffic for the naviagation system (See kegger comment).

• Integrate the car's GPS system with the iPod's/iPhone's google maps (That's because you spent your college years at frat parties, instead of studying for those Geography classes. You couldn't find London on a map if it rose up and slapped you in the face).

• Sync with iTunes wirelessly while the car is parked in the garage (Where are your parental units? Perhaps they are deaf as well).

Just some food for thought, folks.

The iCar: A Relationship Between Apple and VW?

Until today, this writer had never heard of the iCar, so one can only look upon forward thinkers like Chris O'Riley, who, in 1999, launched a "Drive Different" iCar spoof web page, with admiration and envy.

Unfortunately, Mr. O'Riley may not be all that far from the mark. The "iCar" representation he created looks similar to the Smart Car, a European staple.

Imagine that: a laptop on wheels.

For now, there isn't much to say about the proposed iCar (now in "development," a euphemism for launching a trial balloon and hoping for all the oohs and aahs from gadget-crazy consumers), but this is what is known so far:

• Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs and Volkswagen's chief Martin Winterkorn met several days ago in California and plan to meet for further discussions, according to Hans-Gerd Bode, a spokesman for VW. Read more in Volkswagen, Apple Consider "ICar"...


• If the deal goes through, the two companies will add Apple technology, presumably the iPhone, iPod, iMac, and Apple TV, to Volkswagen compact cars.

So far, the pre-hype of this fusion between car and computer manufacturers has been less than spectacular, although the original announcement took place a few days ago.

The marriage of technology with transportation has already happened, of course, with such products as OnStar and GPS, and what new car or van doesn't already have flat screens, satellite radio, and map programs as options?

The iCar, however, seems destined for the problems that have plagued other Apple, products, most recently the iPhone.

Next post, this writer will offer some comparisons and contrasts that will show how Apple's current problems may spill over to the iCar.