Don’t get your imaginary hopes up for an imaginary Apple car, because its success is virtually unimaginable because of the imagined failure of another imaginary Apple device. Yes, it’s just another walk in the park of Apple rumors, featuring a trip over the tied shoelaces of imagination and a fall into the koi pond of absurdity.
Writing for the Boy Genius Report, Yoni Heisler is here to tell us “What Apple’s failed HDTV plans tell us about an Apple Car.” (Tip o’ the antlers to @JonyIveParody.)
Oh, sure, that whaaaaaat?
Next up: “What Bob Mansfield’s Thai curry-induced fever dreams tell us about social mores in Narnia.” You know that parable about the blind men trying to describe an elephant? Well, now imagine that instead of part of an elephant each man is actually touching the animals they describe. While wearing oven mitts. Also, the men have all been dead for forty years. Now you’re getting closer to what we can learn about Apple’s supposed plans to build a car from their supposed plans to sell a television set.
If the first and only word of this article isn’t “Nothing.”, the Macalope’s going to be flipping some tables.
For anyone who thinks that Apple releasing a car is all but a sure thing…
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Who thinks that? Is it you, Carl? Because we’ve had this talk before. You’ve had this talk with the doctors, your therapist and the authorities. If you’re still writing your Apple Car erotic fan fiction, you’re in violation of both your probation and the restraining order.
Now, OK, hang on. Maybe the Macalope is overreacting because there is one possible answer to this question: Gene Munster. Poor Gene has recently had to come to terms with his entire world view being shattered, so it’s quite possible that he’s on the Apple rumor rebound and looking for love in all the wrong places… looking for love in too many… parking spaces.
Thank you. Thank you. Enjoy the buffet. San Dimas Rotary audiences are the best audiences.
So, OK, yes, there are some fringe cases — highly paid Wall Street analysts, probably — who think Apple is totally definitely 100 percent for sure making a car and why would you even consider buying a car now when the Apple Car is probably going to be out any minute now, ugh, where is my Apple Car?!
But, come on, is any real person thinking this?
For his part, Heisler is skeptical, which is healthy.
Bloomberg’s assertion that Apple car production might begin in 2020 is about as spurious, if not downright laughable, as the innumerable research notes from Gene Munster who, for years on end, incessantly proclaimed that an Apple HDTV was imminent.
Sounds like someone doesn’t think one man can make a difference in this world. Sounds like someone doesn’t believe in being the change you want to see. Hmm.
But there really isn’t that fine a line between thinking something is possible and going off the deep end of the Piper Jaffray pool and making it your personal mission. Just because Gene went nuts doesn’t mean we have to. Apple’s car efforts may simply be about improving and extending CarPlay, which could really do with some improving and extending. They don’t have to be redesigning the wheel.
Although think about how chamfered the edges would be on an Apple Wheel. Oh, baby.
OK, OK, focus.
…I believe Apple’s car project…
The Macalope would have accepted “alleged car project” or “imaginary car project” here, otherwise you might as well write “Apple’s unicorn fairy warp field fancy Glaive“.
…will suffer from the same problem that plagued Apple’s HDTV initiative — the lack of a sufficiently compelling and differentiating feature set.
Which, if Apple is doing anything car-related, is probably exactly what they’re trying to figure out right now. Car console systems, for example, universally suck. Suck 2006 smartphone kind of suck. Don’t make the Macalope find that “the computer companies aren’t just going to figure this out” quote.
The Macalope would just say that there is a middle ground here. We don’t need to go full Munster to realize that sometimes our failures of imagination are just ours, not Cupertino’s.