Apple (AAPL) has a new car dashboard design that it calls revolutionary. The dashboard design encompasses touch screens, cameras tracking head and eye movements, lasers as light sources, and voice controls. Apple claims that its design will cost less than traditional dashboards, will be more visually appealing, and enhance safety.
The U. S. Patent and Trademark office has granted Apple patent number 8,482,535 titled ‘Programmable tactile touch screen displays and man-machine interfaces for improved vehicle instrumentation and telematics.’ The patent has 23 claims.
Here are the five reasons why Apple’s new car dashboard design will fail.
The Design Is Inelegant
Apple is known for elegant designs. Apparently that tradition did not make its way into this patent. In a car, it is important that the driver does not take his or her eyes off the road. For this reason the present day dashboards use knobs and buttons to provide a tactical touch feel for functions such as climate control, wiper control, lights, and radio.
A typical touch screen does not provide tactile touch feedback. Apple understands this and devotes a substantial part of the design describing how surfaces will be raised on a touch screen to provide tactical feedback to the driver. This approach is simply a kluge and drivers are likely to continue to prefer real knobs and buttons.
Voice Control
Let us start with Apple Siri. It is fun but it is not very good. Voice recognition technology has progressed by leaps and bounds over the last 20 years. However, Siri as well as voice recognition in Google (GOOG) Android are testimonials to the difficulty of achieving the last 2 – 5% towards acceptable reliability. Further progress is likely to be slow and incremental….Read more at Forbes