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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.""
You can kill someone by just focusing on the stereo display instead of the road, too. This guy was just more Darwinian than most.
Perhaps car stereos need to be rubber-padded to accomodate the lowest common denominator, like so many other consumer products. Something to prevent you from changing discs, tracks or stations unless the transmission is in park.
John
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.""
Jesus, is it April already?
You missed the joke - go get your morning cup of coffee, then reread. Repeat until it's at least slightly humorous.
Please ignore any obvious problems in this post.
Obviously they've never had somebody 'borrow' their music player of choice and load it down with eight hours of 'Therapeutic Gong'.
Turn the steering wheel, and your get the scroll function. Horn selects.
It's beyond darwinian. He's prepared to take out smart people in other cars.
Developers: We can use your help.
And we could tie the accelerator to Volume control, and the brake could be the Pause button. Oh, and we could have the engine make funny clicking noises to provide sensory feedback and we would be all set.
We'd have to ban Brittany Spears though, because mayhem would quite likely ensue as thousands of drivers struggled to hit pause, turn down the volume and change tracks simultaneously.
We could call it the iPod MEGA. An iPod you can drive around in.
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
Mopar (Dodge/Chrysler/Jeep/etc) has a system that gives iPod control to most of their vehicle's radios over the last five or so years.
The problem is, it doesn't work. They claim it works with all Dock iPods, and explicitly list all of them, but it just plain doesn't work with any 3G iPods. The radio comes up and says to update the firmware on the iPod. Of course 3G iPods haven't gotten any updates in a LONG time.
My girlfriends Mini (4G?) works with it... sort of. Only half the albums, artists or playlists show up... even if those songs play just fine in a playlist that references them.
It remains to be seen if later iPods actually work as advertised. The problem is, these products are not well supported (or supported at all). An iPod cable is a different beast from most car accessories or features. A quick search through various car support forums makes it sound like the problem is pretty common -- these non-Apple integrations sometimes work great, sometimes work some, and sometimes just don't work.
Caveat Emptor.
Unfortunately, I don't think even a Heads Up Display (HUD) + controls integrated into the steering wheel would really solve the fundamental problem that people can't focus their eyes on two things at once.
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.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
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.
Now that I don't have to worry about changing songs on my iPod, I can free up my hands to read a magazine while talking on my cellphone and eating a Cheeseburger.
I swear! I once saw a guy do that! I wasn't driving at the time...
Seriously, when people invent stuff like this and say it's 'Fool-Proof', they're basicly just sticking their tounges out at God, says "Lord, not even you could make a human so stupid, that they could screw this up!" God disagrees, and proves them wrong with horific, yet hillarious ease.
Driver distractions in general are the problem. "Eyeballs off the road" or "fishing around in the footwell for my stray iPod" are extreme (and extremely stupid) cases. But just the thought process of "hmm...which CD has my Led Zeppelin and which CD has my Devo?" is enough distraction to take my focus off the road.
Another example is thinking I'm "safer" with my handsfree car phone than I am fumbling about with a handheld. Sure, that's a bit safer than not fumbling with it, but I guarantee that if you're on a hands-free phone call and get into a heated argument with your spouse (or any other emotionally upsetting phone call) that your concentration isn't going to remain fully on the road.
If car stereos were locked down while the cars are in motion, the temptation to change tracks would be gone, and so would the distraction.
John
I don't own a car or an ipod, do I really have to die?