This is kind of neat. Back in early 2011, Apple patented an idea for a way for drivers to control the tunes playing on their iPhones or iPods without taking their hands off the wheel.
The solution? A tiny little ring that fits on your steeling wheel with an iPod clickwheel on top.
The ring — abut the size and shape of the plastic trinket you might find inside a box of Cracker Jacks — would connect via Bluetooth to your iPhone or iPod, which in turn would be hooked up to your car stereo. It even had a rotatable face plate.
You’d think Siri would kill the need for an accessory like this, since voice is clearly a better way to search for and play tracks than a remote control is, but even with Siri, you still need to take one hand off the wheel to trigger the voice control.
I think it’s doubtful we’ll ever see something like this as a real product, but it’s still a cute little patent when it comes to being a simple, elegant solution to a common problem.
Source: Patently Apple
Image: Patently Apple
John Brownlee is a writer for Fast Company, and a contributing writer here at CoM. He has also written for Wired, Playboy, Boing Boing, Popular Mechanics, VentureBeat, and Gizmodo. He lives in Boston with his wife and two parakeets. You can follow him here on Twitter.
4 responses to “Apple Wants An iPod Clickwheel On Every Car Steering Wheel”
“but even with Siri, you still need to take one hand off the wheel to trigger the voice control.”
OR, instead of using the wheel just a button to “call” Siri would be nice.
Apple should work with Ford, they already have a good SYNC setup. Works ok for me. It would be amazing if they would put in Siri and allow me to just dock my iPhone/iPad in the dash board…
Kind of useless with a 2005+ vehicle. Almost every vehicle produced since then included controls on the car. Even their own version of a clickwheel or Siri version like Ford Sync.