You guys are freaking hilarious. Apple is not making a car. The idea is laughable, I bet the folks down in Cupertino read this thread everyday to have a good laugh, even adding comments to wind you up even more. They are testing out CarPlay and navigation , that is all folks rofl. The posters who are serious about this have a special room up in Napa reserved for ya
What would have been the best is if Apple could have done this without anyone finding out. It would have been the most spectacular 'And one more thing...' ever.
You say that as though they’re actually making a car.
Exactly. And the same may be true of a computer company that steps into transportation.
Apple has always been a transportation company: bicycles for the mind. : )
The car and the computer merged in 1968 (N.B.!) with the first electronic fuel injection system, based on Bendix patents, redone by Bosch, and introduced on the US versions of the VW Squareback and Fastback, later used by Volvo, Datsun, Mercedes, etc.
it was analog, using transistor-transistor logic, but still it was the first electronic engine management for emissions control. More power and fuel economy were side benefits. We would not be able to do hybrid, electric or even low-emissions cars without computers.
If Elon Musk could do it, Apple could do it. It might actually help that they have no fossil-burning heavyweight machine experience. The first order of business is to rethink everything.
I think I can shed some light on the SixtyEight name they are using.
It is a reference to "The Mother of all Demos" which happened on December 9th, 1968.
In case you are not familiar with it, here is a brief description from YouTube:
<iframe width="640" height="385" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/yJDv-zdhzMY" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
The folks in Apple R&D use the number 68 to remind themselves of the high bar that has been set by men such as Douglas Engelbart and the team at SRI. The iPhone project used the codename M68.
Thanks for posting this. Engelbart was maybe THE most important founder of the augmented-intelligence slant on computer development, as opposed to the artificial-intelligence slant. This according to John Markoff in his introduction to What the Dormouse Said, my favorite history of a technology of all time. It was stories from Engelbart and his friends that inspired Markoff to write the book as a countercultural history.
Steve Jobs was clearly in the augmented-intelligence camp, and Apple seems to have maintained this stance.
Apple is not making a car. The idea is laughable, I bet the folks down in Cupertino read this thread everyday to have a good laugh, even adding comments to wind you up even more. They are testing out CarPlay and navigation, that is all folks rofl.
That's what they want you to think. It's the old double bluff. It's to make you feel like you're so smart you won't be fooled into thinking what they're working on is actually what they're working on. They work on things that no rational person would expect them to work on like an MP3 player when they make computers, like a phone when they make computers and MP3 players, like a watch when they make computers, MP3 players and phones. Nobody would ever expect a computer, watch, MP3 player, phone manufacturer to make a car but you laugh and laugh it off until BOOOM... revolutionary car. Then who's laughing? Other people at you.
The folks in Apple R&D use the number 68 to remind themselves of the high bar that has been set by men such as Douglas Engelbart and the team at SRI.
Engelbart only died in 2013 so he was able to see how those things progressed from that early stage all the way to iOS devices. Someone implemented his minimal keyboard for iOS here:
If Apple actually is making a car then I can hardly wait until we start discussing version naming. Har!
Obviously it’ll be the Apple Car (four door family vehicle), Apple Car Sport (screaming two seater), and Apple Car Edition (the design taking over Rolls Royce’s as an icon of luxury), the latter having a body of 18 karat gold and selling for $10,000.
Thanks for posting this. Engelbart was maybe THE most important founder of the augmented-intelligence slant on computer development, as opposed to the artificial-intelligence slant. This according to John Markoff in his introduction to What the Dormouse Said, my favorite history of a technology of all time. It was stories from Engelbart and his friends that inspired Markoff to write the book as a countercultural history.
Steve Jobs was clearly in the augmented-intelligence camp, and Apple seems to have maintained this stance.
At some later date Apple will divulge a secret about Steve Job's greatest achievement... Tim Cook... he's actually an Android... oh... wait...
They can price it like a Fiat if they want. It wouldn't hurt to put a TV with gaming in the back either.
That's what they want you to think. It's the old double bluff. It's to make you feel like you're so smart you won't be fooled into thinking what they're working on is actually what they're working on. They work on things that no rational person would expect them to work on like an MP3 player when they make computers, like a phone when they make computers and MP3 players, like a watch when they make computers, MP3 players and phones. Nobody would ever expect a computer, watch, MP3 player, phone manufacturer to make a car but you laugh and laugh it off until BOOOM... revolutionary car. Then who's laughing? Other people at you.
Geez, Marvin, you're coming in on the wrong runway here, I think.
The Fiat is a fairly popular car here in LA, despite its compromises as a road machine. The reason? Because it has charm, a quality almost totally lacking in the automotive field for many years, since the 70s actually.
The two other cars you cite as favorable examples not only lack charm, they embody aggression in a screamingly obvious way that I feel Apple would shun.
Your last point about the double bluff I agree with.
One small detail I noticed: the note in the last picture seems to be written in Cambria, which is a Microsoft font and included in Office, but not iWork.
This would seem to suggest the note was written in Word, not Pages, which of course doesn't mean it's not made on a Mac, but it does seem odd not to use Pages if you are working for Apple...
Not entirely needless. That large front crumple zone, without an engine in it, is one of the things that makes the Model S so safe. Plus there is a frunk for storage.
Thanks, I'd add cooling and aerodynamics to that as well...
The Fiat is a fairly popular car here in LA, despite its compromises as a road machine. The reason? Because it has charm, a quality almost totally lacking in the automotive field for many years, since the 70s actually.
The two other cars you cite as favorable examples not only lack charm, they embody aggression in a screamingly obvious way that I feel Apple would shun.
The Fiat is popular because it's cheap and practical. The Aston martin gets 13mpg and costs ~$300k, the Fiat 500 gets 55mpg and costs under $20k. That's all to do with the engine and selling the prestige. Electric changes the whole thing because you can get the power of a supercar in a fraction of the size of engine. Look at the electric Fisker Karma, designed by the same guy that designed the Vanquish:
So much room it can have 4 full doors. You could price that car at whatever you wanted, it can have the same engine as as base model electric car and perform the same but look amazing at the same time. It would be just as practical around town as a Fiat, more so due to the 4 doors and it can be cheap but it would have the style of a high-end car.
Yes there's a Fiat 500 in there but that's the first car he owned. First cars are always embarrassments that you have to put up with as a student because you have no money.
Making affordable electric supercars is the way to go. Forget Switzerland and their stupid watches, they need to destroy the high-end car industry that is out of the reach of most buyers. The iCar for the rest of us.
Not sure why the article mentions SixtyEight importing a 1957 Fiat Multipla 600 but doesn't include a picture of that model.
This is probably why they are said to be working on a mini van, not because of the mapping project using Dodge Caravans.
Beautiful car. As in humane and charming, something that's completely missing from the design language these days.
Where did I see, just yesterday I think, that Steve Jobs felt that the Segway scooter lacked "anthropomorphic" design.
Interesting word to use. I know what he means. It had surfaces and angles that are alienating to the senses, none that are attracting. Most car designs now express aggression, penetration, predation, unreasonable speed, and so on, all projections of damaged egos. Sixty years ago, most postwar car designs embodied contentment and nonaggression.
Quite a shift. Apple would be expected to go back to the 40s and 50s era of sympathetic curves rather than today's threatening swoops and angles.
My favorite picture of humane machine love, an early Porsche version of the 356 Speedster line, with the rumpled engineer himself, his son Ferry, and the designer, who's name escapes me right now:
Most car designs now express aggression, penetration, predation, unreasonable speed, and so on, all projections of damaged egos.
But what caused the damaged ego? Driving around in a Fiat.
There's aerodynamics to think about. You can't punch a hole in space-time with something that looks like a bus.
Modern high-end supercars project a sense of seduction, determination, efficiency and class all while staying within the same speed limits as the octogenarian-oriented vehicles.
As for penetration, Fiat's trying to get in on this too, they have a special sporty model:
They'd be just as well designing them all to look cool from the outset.
Beautiful car. As in humane and charming, something that's completely missing from the design language these days.
Where did I see, just yesterday I think, that Steve Jobs felt that the Segway scooter lacked "anthropomorphic" design.
Interesting word to use. I know what he means. It had surfaces and angles that are alienating to the senses, none that are attracting. Most car designs now express aggression, penetration, predation, unreasonable speed, and so on, all projections of damaged egos. Sixty years ago, most postwar car designs embodied contentment and nonaggression.
This is perhaps the most asinine statement I've seen in years on this forum. Most of modern car design is about hitting government regulations dealing with fuel efficiency and driver surviability. This leads to a whole bunch of look a like designs because aerodynamics only leaves you with so many options especially when combined with designs that allow the driver to survive front end collisions.
Quite a shift. Apple would be expected to go back to the 40s and 50s era of sympathetic curves rather than today's threatening swoops and angles.
I wouldn't expect Apple to settle on anything until they can prove that it realistically meets the parameters they have to meet to sell a car in the USA. I'd honestly be interested in a van like vehicle more so than a sedan, however if Apple offered up something like you pictured I'd walk away mainly because I can see how such a vehicle would be safe to drive. The driver looks like he would have his feet on the bumper in that Fiat.
Beyond that what is with the swoops and angles? Agian the issue with design cars today is fuel economy and that is reached with good aerodynamic design as a important element to a successful design. As such you don't throw a lot of swoops and angles into a design. Instead you have designs that blend surfaces to allow unimpedded air flow. Modern aerodynamic cars actually have a very appealing look to me.
My favorite picture of humane machine love, an early Porsche version of the 356 Speedster line, with the rumpled engineer himself, his son Ferry, and the designer, who's name escapes me right now:
I have to agree with the idea that Porsche has some nice looking cars and still does frankly. However I don't see Apple competing with them. Rather I see them trying to build something with a far wider appeal, at least in the first vehicle shipped.
In a nut shell I don't see your opinion of modern car design as having any weight at all. Form follows function and that has driven us to the current situation with the sedan marketplace. Even commercial vans have had to adopt aerodynamics into their designs. A commercial van use to be nothing more than a box on wheels, these days though rounded and flowing designs are an important design element to eek out all the fuel economy possible.
But what caused the damaged ego? Driving around in a Fiat.
There's aerodynamics to think about. You can't punch a hole in space-time with something that looks like a bus.
Modern high-end supercars project a sense of seduction, determination, efficiency and class all while staying within the same speed limits as the octogenarian-oriented vehicles.
As for penetration, Fiat's trying to get in on this too, they have a special sporty model:
They'd be just as well designing them all to look cool from the outset.
Driving around in a Fiat damaged the ego, very funny. Really. Might as well throw in the VW bug, which captured ~10% of the US market in the 60s, and major share around the world to become the best selling car ever.
No, I lived through the change in the 50s and 60s when Plymouth dropped the lovable, lumpen Cranbrook and came out with the Fury. DeSoto brought the Firedome out, we got the Barracuda, the Marlin, the Sting Ray.
It all had more to do with selling Space Age prowess during the missile-gap years of the Cold War . Chrysler sold their early jet-age tailfins as "The Forward Look." The Rocket 88 was frankly phallic. The Jaguar XKE, with the long schlong bonnet accommodating a V-12 became the favorite car of hairdressers a few years after it came out.
The James Bond franchise took over the merchandising of Anglo-Saxon potency props, and that manufactured fantasy "worldview" still holds sway today.
I agree that aerodynamics has had a big influence on profile, but there's a way to do it adequately without being sinister. The Porsche 356 was well along in drag reduction while still being one of the most voluptuous and seductive cars ever. This is why there are a lot of smitten collectors of that car like Jerry Seinfeld. No aggression whatever expressed in that design. Note that the 1965 911 was another story.
Oh, and putting carp lips on the Fiat 500 does destroy its charm, but I don't think it makes it "cool." The little Fiat van from 1968 could be more aerodynamic and a bit safer in a head-on if you just turned it around.
But what caused the damaged ego? Driving around in a Fiat.
There's aerodynamics to think about. You can't punch a hole in space-time with something that looks like a bus.
Exactly! This is why designs tend to look so much alike these days, flat panels are just not suitable for vehicles expected to run at speed on the highways.
Modern high-end supercars project a sense of seduction, determination, efficiency and class all while staying within the same speed limits as the octogenarian-oriented vehicles.
Even the more sedate sedans though have considerable effort put into their aerodynamics. At least in my case this leads to often having to look at a name plate or icon to tell whom has manufactured a specific car.
As for penetration, Fiat's trying to get in on this too, they have a special sporty model:
Obviously some bodies mind has been in the gutter, as I'm pretty certain if you take the girl out of the picture you wouldn't be thinking penetration at all. In fact you would probably dismiss the vehicle as a chick car. Which brings us to another point, half the market for automobiles these days is for females. If anything those smooth well rounded contours are more feminine and actually suggest the opposite of aggression.
They'd be just as well designing them all to look cool from the outset.
Cool of course depends upon the beholder. The interesting thing here is which way will Apple go with its initial design? Will it be yet another electric sedan all of which look the same. Maybe a van like Flaneur suggested, updated so it doesn't look like crap and is safe to drive. Maybe a cross over type car/van/station wagon hybrid.
One thing is for certian in my mind is that if Apple did a van right it could have a huge following with everybody from surfers to soccer moms.
Comments
You say that as though they’re actually making a car.
You say that as though they’re actually making a car.
If Apple actually is making a car then I can hardly wait until we start discussing version naming. Har!
Apple has always been a transportation company: bicycles for the mind. : )
The car and the computer merged in 1968 (N.B.!) with the first electronic fuel injection system, based on Bendix patents, redone by Bosch, and introduced on the US versions of the VW Squareback and Fastback, later used by Volvo, Datsun, Mercedes, etc.
it was analog, using transistor-transistor logic, but still it was the first electronic engine management for emissions control. More power and fuel economy were side benefits. We would not be able to do hybrid, electric or even low-emissions cars without computers.
If Elon Musk could do it, Apple could do it. It might actually help that they have no fossil-burning heavyweight machine experience. The first order of business is to rethink everything.
Thanks for posting this. Engelbart was maybe THE most important founder of the augmented-intelligence slant on computer development, as opposed to the artificial-intelligence slant. This according to John Markoff in his introduction to What the Dormouse Said, my favorite history of a technology of all time. It was stories from Engelbart and his friends that inspired Markoff to write the book as a countercultural history.
Steve Jobs was clearly in the augmented-intelligence camp, and Apple seems to have maintained this stance.
Whatever it is they're working on, one thing's for absolute certain - it better look nothing like a Fiat.
http://www.fiat.co.uk/fiat-500/gallery
http://www.fiat.co.uk/uk/showroom
It ought to be like the Aston Martin:
http://www.astonmartin.com/cars/the-new-vanquish
Fisker even designed another version:
http://www.autoblog.com/2015/03/14/fisker-thunderbolt-aston-martin-vanquish-amelia-island-official/
They can price it like a Fiat if they want. It wouldn't hurt to put a TV with gaming in the back either.
That's what they want you to think. It's the old double bluff. It's to make you feel like you're so smart you won't be fooled into thinking what they're working on is actually what they're working on. They work on things that no rational person would expect them to work on like an MP3 player when they make computers, like a phone when they make computers and MP3 players, like a watch when they make computers, MP3 players and phones. Nobody would ever expect a computer, watch, MP3 player, phone manufacturer to make a car but you laugh and laugh it off until BOOOM... revolutionary car. Then who's laughing? Other people at you.
Engelbart only died in 2013 so he was able to see how those things progressed from that early stage all the way to iOS devices. Someone implemented his minimal keyboard for iOS here:
[VIDEO]
As long as they logically go from 10.9 to 11, I’ll be happy.
If Apple actually is making a car then I can hardly wait until we start discussing version naming. Har!
Obviously it’ll be the Apple Car (four door family vehicle), Apple Car Sport (screaming two seater), and Apple Car Edition (the design taking over Rolls Royce’s as an icon of luxury), the latter having a body of 18 karat gold and selling for $10,000.
Wait…
Thanks for posting this. Engelbart was maybe THE most important founder of the augmented-intelligence slant on computer development, as opposed to the artificial-intelligence slant. This according to John Markoff in his introduction to What the Dormouse Said, my favorite history of a technology of all time. It was stories from Engelbart and his friends that inspired Markoff to write the book as a countercultural history.
Steve Jobs was clearly in the augmented-intelligence camp, and Apple seems to have maintained this stance.
At some later date Apple will divulge a secret about Steve Job's greatest achievement... Tim Cook... he's actually an Android... oh... wait...
Geez, Marvin, you're coming in on the wrong runway here, I think.
The Fiat is a fairly popular car here in LA, despite its compromises as a road machine. The reason? Because it has charm, a quality almost totally lacking in the automotive field for many years, since the 70s actually.
The two other cars you cite as favorable examples not only lack charm, they embody aggression in a screamingly obvious way that I feel Apple would shun.
Your last point about the double bluff I agree with.
[IMG]http://www.carpictures.com/pics/full/08E4G310325903A/Fiat-600-Multipla-Deluxe-1957-08E4G310325903A.jpeg[/IMG]
This is probably why they are said to be working on a mini van, not because of the mapping project using Dodge Caravans.
This would seem to suggest the note was written in Word, not Pages, which of course doesn't mean it's not made on a Mac, but it does seem odd not to use Pages if you are working for Apple...
Not entirely needless. That large front crumple zone, without an engine in it, is one of the things that makes the Model S so safe. Plus there is a frunk for storage.
Thanks, I'd add cooling and aerodynamics to that as well...
The Fiat is popular because it's cheap and practical. The Aston martin gets 13mpg and costs ~$300k, the Fiat 500 gets 55mpg and costs under $20k. That's all to do with the engine and selling the prestige. Electric changes the whole thing because you can get the power of a supercar in a fraction of the size of engine. Look at the electric Fisker Karma, designed by the same guy that designed the Vanquish:
So much room it can have 4 full doors. You could price that car at whatever you wanted, it can have the same engine as as base model electric car and perform the same but look amazing at the same time. It would be just as practical around town as a Fiat, more so due to the 4 doors and it can be cheap but it would have the style of a high-end car.
Steve Jobs drove a Mercedes:
and before that Porche:
http://www.cultofmac.com/216676/in-1980-apple-made-a-porsche-into-an-actual-icar/
Jony Ive owned a DB9 and a Vanquish and now has a chauffeur driven Bentley:
http://www.cultofmac.com/254380/jony-ives-cars/
Yes there's a Fiat 500 in there but that's the first car he owned. First cars are always embarrassments that you have to put up with as a student because you have no money.
Making affordable electric supercars is the way to go. Forget Switzerland and their stupid watches, they need to destroy the high-end car industry that is out of the reach of most buyers. The iCar for the rest of us.
Beautiful car. As in humane and charming, something that's completely missing from the design language these days.
Where did I see, just yesterday I think, that Steve Jobs felt that the Segway scooter lacked "anthropomorphic" design.
Interesting word to use. I know what he means. It had surfaces and angles that are alienating to the senses, none that are attracting. Most car designs now express aggression, penetration, predation, unreasonable speed, and so on, all projections of damaged egos. Sixty years ago, most postwar car designs embodied contentment and nonaggression.
Quite a shift. Apple would be expected to go back to the 40s and 50s era of sympathetic curves rather than today's threatening swoops and angles.
My favorite picture of humane machine love, an early Porsche version of the 356 Speedster line, with the rumpled engineer himself, his son Ferry, and the designer, who's name escapes me right now:
But what caused the damaged ego? Driving around in a Fiat.
There's aerodynamics to think about. You can't punch a hole in space-time with something that looks like a bus.
Modern high-end supercars project a sense of seduction, determination, efficiency and class all while staying within the same speed limits as the octogenarian-oriented vehicles.
As for penetration, Fiat's trying to get in on this too, they have a special sporty model:
They'd be just as well designing them all to look cool from the outset.
Beyond that what is with the swoops and angles? Agian the issue with design cars today is fuel economy and that is reached with good aerodynamic design as a important element to a successful design. As such you don't throw a lot of swoops and angles into a design. Instead you have designs that blend surfaces to allow unimpedded air flow. Modern aerodynamic cars actually have a very appealing look to me.
I have to agree with the idea that Porsche has some nice looking cars and still does frankly. However I don't see Apple competing with them. Rather I see them trying to build something with a far wider appeal, at least in the first vehicle shipped.
In a nut shell I don't see your opinion of modern car design as having any weight at all. Form follows function and that has driven us to the current situation with the sedan marketplace. Even commercial vans have had to adopt aerodynamics into their designs. A commercial van use to be nothing more than a box on wheels, these days though rounded and flowing designs are an important design element to eek out all the fuel economy possible.
Driving around in a Fiat damaged the ego, very funny. Really. Might as well throw in the VW bug, which captured ~10% of the US market in the 60s, and major share around the world to become the best selling car ever.
No, I lived through the change in the 50s and 60s when Plymouth dropped the lovable, lumpen Cranbrook and came out with the Fury. DeSoto brought the Firedome out, we got the Barracuda, the Marlin, the Sting Ray.
It all had more to do with selling Space Age prowess during the missile-gap years of the Cold War . Chrysler sold their early jet-age tailfins as "The Forward Look." The Rocket 88 was frankly phallic. The Jaguar XKE, with the long schlong bonnet accommodating a V-12 became the favorite car of hairdressers a few years after it came out.
The James Bond franchise took over the merchandising of Anglo-Saxon potency props, and that manufactured fantasy "worldview" still holds sway today.
I agree that aerodynamics has had a big influence on profile, but there's a way to do it adequately without being sinister. The Porsche 356 was well along in drag reduction while still being one of the most voluptuous and seductive cars ever. This is why there are a lot of smitten collectors of that car like Jerry Seinfeld. No aggression whatever expressed in that design. Note that the 1965 911 was another story.
Oh, and putting carp lips on the Fiat 500 does destroy its charm, but I don't think it makes it "cool." The little Fiat van from 1968 could be more aerodynamic and a bit safer in a head-on if you just turned it around.
Cool of course depends upon the beholder. The interesting thing here is which way will Apple go with its initial design? Will it be yet another electric sedan all of which look the same. Maybe a van like Flaneur suggested, updated so it doesn't look like crap and is safe to drive. Maybe a cross over type car/van/station wagon hybrid.
One thing is for certian in my mind is that if Apple did a van right it could have a huge following with everybody from surfers to soccer moms.