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Cars touting full integration with the iPod and iPhone are nothing new — but so far, the experiences have been pretty terrible. The head unit (otherwise known as the “deck”) is tasked with pulling your music library from the iPhone, displaying all that data in a custom (and generally awful) interface. Everyone from JVC to BMW has taken it upon themselves to invent the wheel for themselves, and no one seems to have really nailed it.
Apple, it seems, wants to do away with these greatly varying interfaces once and for all. Lurking deep in the underpinnings of iPhone OS 4 is a feature that went almost entirely unnoticed until now, with BMW announcing support for it in their namesake and Mini series cars: a brand new, standardized iPod interface for use with in-car displays.
The idea isn’t too crazy: your iPhone/iPod Touch obviously already has access to your music library and knows how to handle it, so why not let it do the heavy lifting? The user interface is all rendered on the device, and then it’s piped out (along with your tunes) to the head unit via a standard docking cable. Car manufacturers have the ability to send control commands through external controllers like steering wheel buttons and separate control wheels.
Check out the rest: MobileCrunch
BMW is the first automobile maker to integrate the iPod Out functionality of the iOS 4. This means that you’ll be able to view your iPod’s screens and menus right on your car’s built-in display. More »
Check out the rest: Gizmodo
Electric car maker Tesla Motors has long likened its retail approach to Apple’s stores — after all, what company wouldn’t rather be grouped with posh, fanboi-attracting beacons of Mac love than the struggling dealerships on auto rows around the country? Well on Thursday Tesla, fresh off its IPO and years away from profitability, said it has gone and hired Apple’s former real estate chief George Blankenship to head up development of its retail strategy and network.
Blankenship, who spent much of his career at Gap, joined Apple in 2000 — the year before Apple opened its first store. As TheAppleBlog has explained, Blankenship was responsible for “shaping the way Apple chose to place its inaugural retail locations, along high traffic routes in places with extremely high property values.” Microsoft has also turned to Blankenship for part of its retail strategy.
The retail road ahead may be a bumpy one for Tesla. In its S-1 Tesla states that laws in many states may block the company from selling its vehicles directly to consumers at stores (rather than through franchised dealerships) and over the Internet in certain markets.
But Blankenship thinks Tesla will be as much of a game-changer as Apple has been and told us in an interview today, “I think Apple changed the world in numerous ways. I think Tesla’s going to do the same.” Here’s lightly edited excerpts from our Q&A with Blankenship about his strategy for making that happen.
Q. How are you getting started on your first Tesla projects, the stores in Tokyo, Toronto and Washington, D.C.?
I’m actually going to be in Japan next week, working on the design of the store, finalizing that. I’m working on some locations in Toronto and Washington, D.C. as we speak.
Q. What will you be looking for in future locations for Tesla stores? What’s ideal, what are some potential deal breakers?
The ability to create a very interesting customer experience and tell the Tesla story in an environment that may not be like a traditional car dealership that’s out on auto row somewhere. I’m looking for opportunities to do that in a more intimate way than a traditional car dealer.
For the future, I think you’re going to see a lot of locations like Boulder, where people are already there doing activities that they enjoy doing: shopping, having dinner. I want to be in locations like that and invite them to come and learn the Tesla story.
Q. One similarity I see between what Apple and Tesla both want to accomplish with these stores is the idea of converting customers — in Apple’s case, converting them from PC to Mac, and in Tesla’s case from gas to electric. What other similarities do you see?
Anytime someone has a game changing technology or invention, people need to learn about it, get comfortable with it. The iPod was different. Most music players at that time were basically 10 songs. Well, out came the iPod — a thousand songs in your pocket. When you have Apple stores that have natural traffic through them on a day in, day out basis, and you show them this thing called an iPod and a thousand songs in your pocket, people got interested. If there wasn’t someone there who could show what it could do, and that it wasn’t just another music player that was two to four times more expensive, it might not have become a game changer.
Q. What lessons do you expect to apply at Tesla from your experiences working on Apple and Microsoft stores?
When I started at Apple, we wanted to become the best place to buy a computer. After a couple years, we learned from our customers that there was another element: Apple was the best place to own a computer. If you treat a customer as a one-time sale, will you really take care of them? If you entice them with new things and treat them in a very special way, they become evangelists. I want to approach this as the best place to own a car.
Q. How will your approach be different this time around?
At Apple the mission was to get in front of as many capable, inclined customers as possible, and treat them royally. I don’t know that I’ll do much different than that here.
Q. So far Tesla’s stores have been showing the Roadster. Will you be working on a unique strategy for the Model S and any future models?
What I am focused on is a strategic plan around the world that will roll out just slightly ahead of need so that we can give customers a little taste of what’s coming and intrigue them so that by the time it gets there it’s the only thing they’re going to want. I’m already having meetings about 2015 and 2016.
Q. When Apple opened its first store back in 2001, part of the goal was to eventually put an Apple store within driving distance of 85 percent of consumers in the U.S. What’s your goal for Tesla stores — is there something similar?
I haven’t identified at this point what the metric is that will give us the visibility that we want to have to be able to tell the incredible story that we want to tell.
Q. What are some of the factors you’re considering?
I’m looking at everything from population to what magazines they read to where they like to shop to what is available to them currently in terms of technology and how much they’re embracing it. A lot of companies will just do demographics and say, “there’s this number of people with this income in a ring around this location — that makes them customers.” I think it’s much bigger than that. It’s not only about the black and white data that somebody can pull out of a computer. It’s how you put it together and look at it that makes a difference.
Q. What’s your timeline for crafting this strategy?
I’m working on it now, going to Japan next week, and I’ll probably be in Europe sometime in August or September. I’ll be putting this together each place I go, so as far as a final strategy probably not until fall, but on a regional basis it will be developing in pieces.
Q. What unique challenges are you anticipating for different regional markets?
When you get to some countries, they are accustomed to paying a lot more than we are for gasoline than we are. The thought process is a little bit different when you start talking about, here’s a car that doesn’t even use gasoline. There’s an invitation to tell them more right away because they want a piece of it now.
Image credits: Tesla store courtesy of Flickr user mil8; Apple store courtesy of Flickr user S_Baker; George Blankenship photo courtesy of Tesla Motors.
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Check out the rest: GigaOM
UK retailer John Lewis has told the media it expects a refreshed iPod Touch to launch this September, which will bring many of the hardware features found in iPhone 4 to the iPod range. More »
iPod – Apple – IPhone – iPhone 4 – IPod Touch
Check out the rest: Gizmodo
Today we finally got to officially download iOS 4 and update our iPhone and iPod touch devices. There was a catch though: iPhone 3G users don’t get to use all the new features—like backgrounds or multitasking. Here’s why. More »
iPhone – Apple – Handhelds – Smartphones – IPhone OS
Check out the rest: Gizmodo
iOS 4 is here for iPhone and iPod touch. You’re probably downloading right now. Here’s what you need to know to get the most out of iOS 4. More »
iPhone – Apple – Handhelds – Smartphones – iTunes
Check out the rest: Gizmodo
iPhone 3GS and 3G owners, plus iPod Touch-users, time to plug in to your computer and download iOS4. It’s here. More »
IPhone – Apple – IPod Touch – Smartphone – iPhone 3G
Check out the rest: Gizmodo
“After almost four years, the standalone Zune player has something like 2 percent of the MP3 player market. Ballmer should face it: the iPod is unstoppable. But Microsoft already has a mobile-phone business–even if Windows Mobile is the Atari 2600 of mobile platforms, it still shipped on more than 15 million phones in 2008 and 2009, and the vastly improved Windows Phone 7 could help Microsoft double that number in 2011. Every Windows Phone 7 will have the full Zune HD interface built into it. Microsoft should market the heck out of this feature: the Zune HD is a better MP3 player than the iPod in many ways–wireless sync, the “now playing” queue and Quickplay feature, the Zune Pass all-you-can-eat subscription service, cool rolling displays of album and artist art, and better PC software. I’m willing to bet that phones running Windows Phone 7 will be better MP3 players than the iPhone, too.“
As a longtime Zune owner, it pains me to admit that the product hasn’t sold as well as it probably should have. With the single-function form factor on the way out, will a strong integration with Windows Phone 7 be enough to stave off tough competition from Apple? There’s no doubt that the Zune HD interface is both beautiful and perfectly optimized for touch, and in a way it has served as a testing ground for some of the UI conventions within Windows Phone 7. With wireless syncing, the “pins” metaphor, and of course the Zune Pass, the Zune HD is in many ways a stronger media player than the iPod Touch. Putting this combination into every WP7 device will certainly shake up expectations of cell phone media players, but will people be willing to fork over another $10 or $15 for a Zune Pass on top of their monthly cell bill? Rosoff brings up the old “sure you could pay $3000 for 3000 songs, or just $15 a month” as a possible marketing tactic, but Zune has gone there before to no effect. There’s little doubt that Zune on WP7 can be a winner, the question is whether they can execute on it and if this will be enough to save Zune.
Check out the rest: Windows Mobile News copy
Apple is once again throwing its annual free-iPod-with-a-Mac, starting from today and running through until September 7th. Anyone who buys a new Mac on their education-discount scheme gets a free 8GB iPod Touch model. [Apple] More »
Apple – iPod – IPhone – Peripherals – Hardware
Check out the rest: Gizmodo
