Before he died, Apple co-founder Steve Jobs was dreaming about building an Apple-branded car, an iCar if you will, a Sunday newspaper report has briefly reasserted. Conveniently, Apple’s head of Internet Software and Services, Eddy Cue, is on the board of Ferrari. This isn’t the first time we’ve heard that Apple was considering building a car.
Apple board member Mickey Drexler said at a conference last year that Steve at one point was keen on having Apple build a car, having even reportedly met with German car-maker Volkswagen back in 2007 to discuss the project.
And then there is SVP of Worldwide Marketing Phil Schiller’s testimony during the monster August 2012 Apple v. Samsung trial where he said that Apple, after it had gotten its wind back from conquering the music biz with the iPod, considered all kinds of things it could do, among them “make a car”…
I was just re-reading this New York Times story the other day where Nick Bilton wrote about an Apple smartwatch and noticed this nice excerpt:
In a meeting in his office before he died, Steven P. Jobs, Apple’s co-founder and former chief executive, told John Markoff of The New York Times that if he had more energy, he would have liked to take on Detroit with an Apple car.
Not sure how it originally slipped my attention (welcome to the fast-paced world of bloggin’ for a livin’), but I though it’d be worth a mention.
I’m not so sure about a car, but I’m keeping my fingers crossed for an Apple-branded television, a smartwatch and a digital camera.
Apple cannot rest on its laurels and keep on selling computers, smartphones and tablets. Steve Jobs dropped “Computer” from Apple’s name after the January 2007 iPhone introduction, proclaiming Apple a consumer electronics company.
If that’s the direction, I have no doubt in my mind that Cook & Co. are having regular debates about Apple’s next big thing. Frankly, if Apple wants to become the next Sony, it’s gonna have to lends its magic touch to more product categories.
While everyone’s busy blabbering about an iWatch or iTV, I’m thinking perhaps we’ll see an Apple-branded digital camera next.
It’d make lots of sense.
Because of the iPhone and iPad, Apple knows a lot about mobile photography and they have some nice Kodak patents, the software platform (iOS), the app platform (App Store), world renowned industrial design and a penchant for creating gizmos with the lust factor.
Thoughts?