Integrate iPod with Car or Risk Death

An anonymous reader writes "CNET has talked to Apple about its big plans for the car. Apple say they're keen to save the lives of anyone who risks death by "reaching into the footwell of his car to retrieve an iPod nano at around 90mph" and anyone who "considered skipping tracks on his iPod more important than the lives of multiple humans". Apple are also said to be "delighted by the efforts of Mac users who retrofit the Mac Mini into cars" and are "keeping an eye on what these hackers are up to with their Macs." The writer also pitched his own design ideas to Apple's director of global product marketing, Bob Borchers: "We suggested to Borchers that Apple should allow drivers to use their car steering wheel as a giant Clickwheel interface, so that you can change tracks by changing lanes. Borchers foresaw certain safety problems with such a device and rejected the concept.""

Re:You sure this isn't April 1?

[chphilli]

You missed the joke - go get your morning cup of coffee, then reread. Repeat until it's at least slightly humorous.

BMW/Mini

[dr00g911]

Most of the cars coming out of BMW plants over the last several years have had supposed iPod "integration" -- including my Mini.

For a collaboration between two companies known for their design elegance, the BMW iPod dock is an abomination.

Basically, it fools your car into thinking that the iPod is a 6-disc CD changer, and yes, the stereo controls on the steering wheel do control it. Sort of.

You have to create 6 playlists called BMW1,BMW2 or MINI1,MINI2 etc and you're basically limited to using only those playlists unless you want to go through your entire 60gb library in alphabetical order. The model I own doesn't show text on the head-unit either, although I've been told that newer ones do this.

Top it off with the fact that the 'dock' is just a cable floating loose in the glove box allowing your 'pod to bounce around all over the place and you've got basically a hack that reduces your iPod to a stack of MP3 CDs because you can't find anything and the interface is completely crippled. Seriously, why would you create an iPod dock and then rob every trace of iPod-ness from the user experience?

I loathed this solution so much that I went back to the dealer and had an Aux jack installed in the glove box and just ran a cable down to my cupholder through the console.

Here's hoping that Apple comes up with a truly elegant solution.

Re: rubber-padded for the lowest common denominato

[syousef]

Most people can't even be expected to react quickly to outside events if they're talking on the phone while driving. Why would we expect anything more if they're not even focusing their eyes on the road, much less their brains.

Have you ever seen the workload a beginner pilot takes on. He's constantly on the radio to ground, has one hand on the yoke or stick, both feet at rudder pedals and his other hand controls throttle and every other instrument that has to be regulated (mixture, prop) and to tune radios and transponder etc. All while flying a small aircraft which if it gets too slow will happily stall and if you're not high enough to recover fall out of the sky, and keeping an eye out for traffic.

Granted this is one reason why flying a plane is harder than driving a car, however what we need is better training so that drivers can cope with distractions, rather than assuming that everyone is a moron who can't multitask. The bottom line is something's always going to be there to distract you. Whether its a cell phone, a radio, the spouse and kids or stuff shifting in the back that you thought you'd secured.