You never go anywhere without your iPhone. But instead of having it with you (always!) in the car, what if it ran your car?
That future may only be a few months away, when the iOS in the car is expected to go come out of the gate with the release of iOS 7.1. iPhone aficionados have been expecting it since at least last summer, when the first screens were leaked. There are a few ways Apple’s entry into the market will disrupt the industry — leading to a pile-up of failed ventures.
The car industry has increasingly relied on tech to sell vehicles in a saturated market. However, the folks who brought us ABS brakes and the four-wheel drive aren’t always the best people to engineer what drivers want (or need!) when it comes to computers on board. Many of these systems are complicated and distract drivers more than help.
Not one of these systems has become industry standard. Most drivers fiddle a bit with the parking system, then use their phones or maybe a GPS system like Garmin as add-ons. It’s rumored that Apple has made agreements with major car makers to get its system into vehicles — if so a whole segment of the proudly “I’m a PC” market will find itself de facto “Macs.” This will inevitably stall sales of smartphones by Samsung and Google, who will be basically locked out of the place most Americans spend a significant portion of their day.
What about app makers? Here the future is even less clear. There are thousands of apps in iTunes — and thousands of indie developers and startups behind them — targeted to the auto market. Apps to help you find parking, then find your car in parking lots, avoid speed traps and run diagnostics on fuel usage, etc. Apple’s in-car system will make all those apps suddenly last year’s model. For 30 years, Apple’s has focused appeal on early adopters; people with older phones and older cars will feel sorely left behind as app makers scramble to update and integrate with the new system.
The last industry Apple will leave in the dust are GPS products like Garmin and TomTom, though these have already been largely left in the dust by our smartphones. Suburban navigators see no need to spend $200 on map updates when they can easily get from Point A to Point B using smartphones with apps like MapQuest that also update them on traffic conditions and provide peer-to-peer instant updates.
Apple’s entry into the car market will be welcomed by most — drivers, I mean. A clean, simple interface that is easy to use might be one way to curb the deadly distraction that plagues our highways as people try to text, talk or answer emails while stuck in traffic. Reading a manual on the road isn’t conducive to safety, which is what some of the more clunky systems seem to require in their present incarnation.
With Apple at the wheel, we can imagine a time when finding an alternate route in a Friday afternoon snarl is as easy as saying: “Siri, get me outta here!”
