In 2009, the Volkswagen automobile concern and Apple Corporation began cooperation in the field of creating a concept car that would combine modern technologies from the automotive industry and Hi-Tech. The concept's working title was iCar.
Steve Jobs and Volkswagen CEO Martin Winterkorn's vision was for all new Volkswagen cars to be equipped with Apple Cover Flow-like user interfaces. The iCar pilot project was conceived as a compact minicar for young consumers, combining design ideas and technical innovations from both companies. The fact remains: the concept car has not been shown in full size at any exhibition. And what came out of the plan is unknown.
But Apple hasn't given up on trying to open up new markets for high-tech automotive components. After a while, she signed a contract with BMW to integrate its products into Bavarian cars, and then with Mercedes Benz, according to which she took up the development of a fundamentally new navigation system.
Since then, the term iCar has ceased to be the proper name of a particular car and has come to denote the concept of creating a car as part of the environment in which it is connected to the home entertainment system and to the Internet. In other words, the iCar concept sees the car as a symbiosis of a vehicle and a multi-functional multimedia center.
The idea was gradually implemented by many car manufacturers. It all started with the fact that multimedia car systems became compatible with iPod and iPhone. Technologies are being developed to replace a conventional ignition key with an individual owner's iPhone.
According to this concept, the instrumentation and some controls will be changed. The instrument panel will look like a computer display, and some of the controls will be replaced by a touchscreen display and a human speech recognition system. Individual controls are conveniently located on the steering wheel.
All these technologies, in whole or in part, can be found in the novelties of the global automotive industry. The Japanese corporation Mitsubishi advanced further than the rest in its Mitsubishi i, created under the influence of the ideas of iCar. From domestic manufacturers, elements of the iCar concept have been implemented in a hybrid Yo-mobile.