The first Apple product has arrived that boasts wheels, but how does it compare to the company's Macs and iPhones?
It's 2020 and the new Apple Car finally arrived last night. Long-rumoured, it represents a brave new frontier for the American giant after years of relative failure. After all, shareholders won't let beleaguered Apple CEO Tim Cook forget about the eleven people on earth who point-blank refused to buy an iPhone 8s last summer, and his slip-up in a recent earnings call where he suggested people "probably didn't really need to buy an Apple Watch for every limb".
The new car is, as you'd expect from Apple, a piece of stark and striking design minimalism, once more sparking rumours that Apple design chief Jony Ive is in fact a holographic disc that's been skipping in its player for several years, never quite managing to move on to the next track and therefore reveal the 'next big thing in design'. So the new vehicle's available in any colour you like, as long as it's brushed aluminium, and is the "thinnest car ever", regardless of any practical drawbacks that might create.
Since yesterday's launch event, Apple has revealed in a press release that the company has already sold three million of the Apple Cars, which experts have simultaneously argued proves Apple is doomed due to only securing a relatively small amount of the world's total marketshare in vehicles, and yet gives Apple an estimated 96% of the entire industry's profits — through a single day's sales.
Inevitably, perhaps, there have been hiccups with the new technology, and countless complaints can be found under the trending TwitFace flashtag #cargate. Users have been shocked that the entire Apple Car interface has already been redesigned twice for no obvious functional or practical advantage, managing each time to become increasingly minimal and yet also far more gaudy. Estimates suggest the entire interface for Apple Car will be a single shade of shocking pink by April 2021.
There was also surprise that Apple Car comes with no additional storage of any kind. It was assumed that Apple might relent with its 'closed box' philosophy when working on a motor vehicle, but instead the company reasoned that should you want to transport any goods, you should instead use Apple's iSend delivery service (currently available in the USA, but due for a worldwide rollout at some point in the future).
Judging by early tests, there are some ongoing bugs, with it likely to 'sync' only approximately 98% of your starting items with what you end up with at your destination. In other words, you get dropped packets.
Frustration has also surrounded Apple's security policies, which ape those found within OS X. Presumably because people basically cannot be trusted with the technology they own and try to operate, the car's default settings only 'Allow Apple Car to be driven to Apple approved destinations'. It turns out most of these in the UK are Apple Stores, and even getting to those can be hairy, given that Apple Car finds its way around using Apple Maps, which remains the navigational equivalent of Russian roulette.
Nonetheless, queues several miles long remain at every outlet stocking the vehicle, with eager punters desperate to drive away their own Apple Car, which they can unlock with their Apple Watch, check the charge of with their Apple iPhone, and then realise how little money they have left in the bank when their Apple Pay 'low funds' warning alarm repeatedly goes off. Craig Grannell