A half an hour ride from where Tim Cook graduated, in Auburn, Alabama, Kia operates its Georgia based manufacturing plant which is rumoured to be partnering with Apple in creating Apple Car.

A volume auto brand of Hyundai, Kia is said to be among the most reliable car brands out there. And reliability is just what Apple seeks in a partner.

However, rumours are far from confirmed and Hyundai themselves appear to be still uncertain whether to partner with Apple, or not. …

One aspect of the coming mobility revolution that we haven't covered so far is the change in consumption versus non-consumption. Through the lens of Apple, we can observe which industries they have entered and essentially ground the overall market in an industry. They have done that by converting non-consumption: people who previously did not use a product or service have been converted to do so. When this happens on a large scale and covers all age groups and demographics, we call it market expansion.

Horace Dediu recently broke down the industries Apple is in and compared it to the car…

Over the years, Tim Cook repeatedly talked about cars – even when the context of all of those comments was something completely different each time.

I have been collecting all the statements in order to get a feel how the company talks about transportation.

So here is Cook on cars, his own words:

“We talk about the ‘last mile’ of the supply chain — the delivery person who actually brings your product to the door. If that were done with all electric vehicles, that would be a really fantastic thing. That’s going to happen.”

About the personal user experience:

„The…

I have been discussing the importance of the interior design in autonomous vehicles for five years. Part of that was to think up eventual design decisions that come up when consequently applying focus and reduction to the essence of what is needed in a smart room on smart wheels – the term used by Neil Cybart and a few others when describing the closest metaphor to future self-driving cars.

Initially, I followed the pipe dream that an interior could basically consist of anything imaginable – once the square room that I and others envisioned will drive itself, what we can…

To be honest, last week’s rumors on new battery tech making all the difference in Apple Car, caught me off guard. As Reuters reports, claiming sources who saw the battery design, Apple may have groundbreaking new ways to design an EV key component.

It surprised me because I have looked at so many angles of what Apple could bring to the table, focusing of course on design and user experience, but embarrassingly overlooked the energy question – not totally, but I missed the detail, especially when it comes to understanding what Apple could do differently than any other carmaker.

Revisiting…

Five years ago, I started writing this blog. Five days ago, I had a dream about the launch of Apple Car.

It was not what I expected. Tim Cook launched it, sure, but it was in a smaller venue, I was present (again, it was a dream), and it felt more like an internal product presentation than a big Apple event.

The car wasn’t what I expected either. It was a small two-seater in a wedge-shaped design, that looked like it had a ton of leather wrapped around its body. …

We have talked a lot about the place of Apple Car in the company’s ecosystem and about its design both inside and out. Ever new clues we have taken from consumer products you can buy to Apple’s „largest product“ – its retail stores.

And the newly opened Apple Central World in Thailand is adding to the design language we can expect for a car. Some of the materials we know have seen quite significant new applications in this architecture.

What we can take from it is maybe parts of the answer to a overarching interior question: What will the ceiling…

UPDATED

If you take all past and current Apple products, you find that the industrial design follows three simple rules for shaping all of them.

The principle best comes to light looking at all iPod models, which over the years have gone through all stages of the three basic shapes in iPod’s design evolution.

The three main shapes to be found in the image are:

1. Extrusion with rounded corners and a sharp edge (see iPod on the left for vertical extrusion, others for horizontal extrusion).
2. Rounded corners and edge with a sharp front (see iPod on the bottom, today’s iPod touch…