Did Steve Jobs Want To Create An Apple iCar?

In a piece about the development of an Apple iWatch, the New York Times' Nick Bilton noted Jobs was keenly interested in creating and designing an Apple iCar.

“In a meeting in his office before he died, Stephen P. Jobs, Apple’s co-founder and former chief executive, told John Markoff of The New York Times that if he had more energy, he would have liked to take on Detroit with an Apple car,” Bilton wrote Sunday. 

And Bilton isn’t the first to mention Jobs’ idea of creating an Apple car. Apple director Millard “Mickey” S. Drexler has said Jobs dreamed of the idea for a long time.

“Steve’s dream before he died was to design an iCar, and it would have been probably 50 percent of the market. He never did design it,” Drexler said at a Fast Company conference last year, according to VentureBeat.

Of course, it might sound outlandish now, but consider the fact that Google is currently working on -- and succeeding! -- in the creation of the world’s first self-driving car. Historically, Google has arguably had its hands in more-diverse projects than has Apple, but, with that in mind, it doesn’t seem quite so far-fetched that Jobs would be interested in an Apple iCar.

And there are other reasons it might work out as well. Business Insider pointed out two of Apple’s most important employees are keenly interested in cars. Eddy Cue, the company's senior vice president of Internet software and services, sits on the board of Ferarri, while Phil Schiller, its senior vice president of worldwide marketing, is a well-known automobile aficionado.

So how would an Apple car even work? VentureBeat speculated Apple could install iPads or iPad-like devices as control consoles in the iCar’s dashboard. Many new-car models include touch screens, so having a sleek interface running the company's iOS installed could be a game changer.

So will Steve Jobs’ successor as CEO, Tim Cook, pursue the iCar idea? Only time will tell.