First came the rumors that Apple was designing an electric car. Those rumors may or may not be true, but that’s not important. What is important are the follow-on rumors that BMW was designing an electric car to be built by Apple. Or that BMW was going to build an Apple-designed electric car. Or something.
It turns out, those rumors were not true. Probably. BMW issued a statement, according to Reuters, saying, "We are in regular talks with companies from the IT and telecommunications sector, including Apple, concerning topics like connected vehicles. Developing or building a car is not a topic of these discussions."
So BMW was talking with Apple, but not about building cars. Probably.
Then came the rumors that Apple was building an operating system for the BMW i3 electric vehicle. If this were true, BMW would have to give Apple unprecedented access to proprietary BMW information on the i3’s inner workings. BMW has a long history of not giving anyone its proprietary information unless forced to by the courts. So the rumor of Apple building an i-car operating system for BMW is not true. Maybe.
What is true and readily acknowledged by Apple is that it gave BMW and other companies early access to its next megaproject: the Apple Watch. This makes sense, since Apple and BMW have been collaborating for years on the integration of Apple products into BMW’s vehicles. The two corporate giants have worked together to offer BMWs with things like iPhone cradles, iPod/iPhone/iPad connectivity and charging, and a bunch of iPhone apps. Search the App Store for BMW and you’ll probably find at least a dozen apps from the BMW Group ranging from laptimers, to i3/i8 charging monitors, to remote locking and unlocking apps.
In addition to BMW, Apple has granted early access to Facebook, Pinterest, United Airlines, Twitter, Instagram, ESPN, and Starwood Hotels among probably others, in order for them to have apps ready for their customers in time for the Apple Watch launch.
Apple is about as tight with its information and BMW is, so all we have now for the Apple Watch is a release date of April 24th. That’s when we’ll find out just what Apple and BMW have been up to. Probably.—Scott Blazey
[Photos courtesy of Apple.]
