Is it time to get excited about the possibility of an Apple Car? Probably not, given that substantive rumors are currently thinner than a Rhode Island-style clam chowder.
The July 24 issue of German business and finance magazine Manager Magazin offered up the rumor that Apple is considering basing its car on the body of the BMW i3. It sounds pretty neat until you read further and note that they're just claiming Apple CEO Tim Cook talked about it with BMW late last year, and nothing came of it.
Related: Should You Use the Apple Watch in Your Car?
But, hey! This follows a July 1 Reuters report of a Q&A panel in which BMW's Head of Production Oliver Zipse was asked about BMW partnering with a company such as Apple or Google someday. He said that the company was certainly open to the idea. Automotive and tech blogs had barely finished ripping off Reuters' original story before Zipse sent a clarification, claiming that BMW regularly talks with telecommunications and IT companies, but "car development and production are not the subject of these talks."
That said, it's impossible to ignore signs that Apple is serious about selling cars alongside white plastic earbuds and Lightning cables. Apple is on a high-profile hiring binge that we haven't seen since Apple Watch rumors started heating up a few years ago. Former Fiat Chrysler Automobiles exec Doug Betts is only the latest. But even he's not a smoking gun: Apple hired away Burberry CEO Angela Ahrendts in 2013, and it wasn't because Apple was developing a line of high-end street ponchos.
It makes sense that Apple would leave the engineering of the boring frame, suspension and braking components to an experienced automaker and focus on what drives the company's creativity: user experience and delightful design. In one of the few in-depth interviews Apple's chief design officer Jony Ive has ever given, he revealed his almost painful distaste for many modern cars. His reaction to an Apple senior vice president's Toyota Camry: "Oh, God."
Andy Ihnatko is a nationally known tech writer.
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