Oliver Haslam on June 30, 2019, 7:23 am

Jony Ive Wanted To Build An Apple Car Without A Steering Wheel

Apple design chief Sir Jony Ive is leaving Apple, and while the dust is starting to settle after that announcement, there are still lots of questions and concerns. While it’s going to be some time before the real fallout of this move is apparent, a new report by The Information explains that Ive had some pretty radical ideas for the unannounced Apple Car, including removing its steering wheel entirely.

Apple has been working on some form of autonomous car for years and even recently picked up a new company to help its efforts. Ive has been involved in designing the car, or at least aspects of it, and he had the outlandish idea of removing its steering whole and having all inputs handled via Siri.

If you’ve ever fought with Siri to try and set a cohesive reminder or set a timer, you’ll no doubt be appalled at the idea of using it to drive a car, but that apparently wasn’t enough to stop Ive from having his idea. He got as far as pitching it to CEO Tim Cook, too, with an actor playing the role of Siri during a demonstration.

While the Apple Car may never see the light of day, or the project will morph into something else, it’s clear that Ive had big ideas for what the product might entail. Tesla has been working on reducing the clutter of a standard car dashboard and the Model 3 is a great example of that.

Ive wanted to take things a step further and while it may happen one day, we can’t help but think the idea of using Siri to drive a car and having no steering wheel to speak of is a tad optimistic right now.

(Source: The Information)