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

The Apple Corp Business Plan: iPhone and iCar (A Luddite's Perspective)

Apple unveils new iPod with Wi-Fi (CNNMoney, by Jon Fortt, Business 2.0)
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September 5, 2007: 3:43 PM EDT

SAN FRANCISCO (Business 2.0) -- Apple announced Wednesday the first major overhaul of its popular iPod music digital players in nearly two years and slashed the price of its new iPhone.
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CEO Steve Jobs unveiled a series of iPod upgrades - including more storage and bigger screens - but the showstopper was a new model dubbed the iPod Touch and fashioned after the iPhone.

CEO Steve Jobs announced major upgrades to its popular music players; cuts iPhone price by $200.
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more...

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It figures. One of the most hyped products known to humankind, the iPhone, gets a price slash, just a mere two months after its major roll out. Could it be that the product sucks so royally that the barbarian fanboys at the Apple door are finally slicing at the rotten Apple Core?

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The Apple Corp. Business Plan:

1. Spend months and millions of dollars over hyping a mediocre product. If you yak up a cute gizmo long enough, the first wave of Apple Zombie Followers (and eBay resellers) will stand in line for three days--maybe even three years--to buy an over-priced and under-equipped product.
2. Stir things up a bit by releasing a trial balloon (touted as a rumor) about the iCar; see how your Apple Zombie Followers react to the possibility of becoming plugged into their cars, their brains fully integrated with the gearshift and GPS.
3. After determining that you have tapped out the Apple Zombie iPhone Followers, slash the price dramatically so that you catch the second wave of Apple customers, not-quite-Zombies or former Zombies who have gotten a bit wiser and have decided to take a wait-and-see stance. Don't worry about fixing the annoying problems; you haven't yet tapped out your primary market. This second wave of buyers either haven't read the problem reports or they don't care. They see that pot of gold at the end of the Apple rainbow--and at a BARGAIN!
4. Six months later: once you have determined that you have thoroughly pissed off your customer base, THEN (and only then) do you tweak the gadget a bit, perhaps developing a version that contains a removable battery or a screen that doesn't break when the gadget hits the pavement (but not both--you're not done bilking the masses). You know that your faithful Zombies will dump their original iPhones and stand in line for three days for IPhone: The Next Generation, and will pay $200 more than they did for #3. Retire the original iPhone model.
5. Two months later: Drop the price by $200.
6. Six months later: HYPE TIME AGAIN! You fix the problem that you didn't fix last time, and, perhaps, add some cheesy memory. Again, the Zombies will dump The Next Generation and stand in line (again, for three days) for iPhone: Deep Space Nine. Retire TNG.
7. A few days later: Announce the coming of the iCar and spend millions of dollars to keep the hype going.
8. Two months later: Drop the price of the Deep Space Nine model.
9. Four months later: Announce a tentative announcement date for the iCar and allow information about some of its features to leak out into the press.
10. Two months later: Tweak the Deep Space Nine model by adding a spot of memory and maybe a screen upgrade. Raise the price.
11. Two months later: Drop the price of DSN.
12. Six months later: Announce the new iPhone: Voyager model. Upgrade the hell out of it (thus creating a bunch of bugs with it), and over hype again. Charge twice the price. Retire DSN.
13. Two months later: Announce the date of the iCar announcement and leak lots of information, some of it true and some of it tentative, about its features to the press.
14. Two days later: Slash the price of Voyager.
15. One month later: Announcement that the official announcement will be by "invitation only," and then send out about 1,000,000 invitations to pro-Apple reporters and bloggers.
16. One month later: Today's the official iCar announcement! Hype the hell out of the media event and announce a tentative release date.
17. Two days later: In yet another media event, proclaim that the Voyager bugs have been addressed and fixed. Slash its price.
18. One month later: Apple announces that a Luddite version of the iPhone will soon be released: the iPhone: Enterprise. Special features: big buttons with a simple and intuitive interface. No music, no TV, no internet. Just a dial tone, direct access to 911, and, perhaps an address book (use not required, however). A reliable cell provider would be nice. (Okay, so I'm kidding here).
19. Six months later: Apple announces its new iPhone: the iPhoneic (pronounced iFon-ik). According to rumors on the MacRumors/iPhone blog, the iPhoneic will (a) Do your homework for you, (b) Snipe for you on eBay, (c) Select your favorite songs and TV shows for you based on some kind of fuzzy logic (TBA), (d) Feed you iMacBurgers and iMacTatorTots 24/7 (an obesity disclaimer will accompany each unit). All tech support, including for the iPhone Voyager, will be phased out, for Apple will now concentrate on over hyping and selling its new iPhoneic model.
20. Continuing basis: Here comes a barrage of Apple iCar hype; the media wonks roll over and allow their bellies to be rubbed by Steve Jobs. Tons of freebie publicity!
21. Four months later: Nationwide, Apple Zombie Followers, a.k.a., AZF's (and eBay resellers) start lining up at Volkswagen dealers, mega bucks and loan approvals in hand!
22. Three days later: Today's the day! Release of the iCar! There will be media reports of stampedes, death, and grim tales of greed and selfishness. The AZF True Believers will blog madly about being "First" to snag their iCars, available only in blue (something about quality control issues at the paint factory). Disgruntled users and cranky non-users will throw up blogs like "iCarSucks.com" (Ha, ha, beat ya to it, and I didn't even have to buy the iCar)! In a honeymoon period, after The Big Event, Apple and the media will suck up to each other.
23. One week later: The honeymoon period between Apple and the media is officially over as it becomes apparent that the iCar contains a lot of annoying glitches, such as the battery that can't be removed at the dealership (must go back to the factory), the windshield that shatters after hitting a corn stalk in an Iowa corn field at 5 mph, and the on-board computer that crashes as you're cruising along at 65 mph on the Washington Beltway, requiring a complete shutdown and reboot.
24. Two months later: Apple announces a $2,000 price slash and a promise to work out those annoying glitches. ;=)
25. And so on...

Have a nice Big Red Apple Day!

No iCar (and proud of it)

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.