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Apple courtroom testimony reveals it once considered making a car

Apple courtroom testimony reveals it once considered making a car
Image used with permission by copyright holder

Apple’s ongoing legal battle with Samsung is well underway with both electronics giants battling over copyright and patent infringements. But for those less interested in the litigation and courtroom drama — maybe even a spouting of “You can’t handle the truth” here and there — there have been some rather tasty morsels of information coming out of the California courtroom.

The Unofficial Apple Weblog reports that during his testimony last week — and aside from claims that the Korean electronics maker copied and stole Apple’s designs in creating their own smartphones — Apple’s senior vice president of worldwide marketing, Phil Schiller, revealed that prior to the company’s successful push into the smartphone and tablet industry, Apple had considered developing a camera or a car.

Specifics and details were not elaborated upon, but this isn’t the first we’ve heard of a possible “iCar.” Speaking a few months back at Fast Company’s Innovation Uncensored conference, J. Crew CEO and Apple board member Mickey Drexler hinted that the long-held rumors of the company’s possible foray into the automotive industry were true when he revealed that Steve Job’s “dream before he died was to design an iCar.”

As it stands any notion of an iCar, or iCamera for that matter, is pure speculation. We may never know exactly what an Apple car would look like or what technology or innovation it would have featured. Still, with recent comments from Schiller, and past comments from board members like Drexler, it appears that the iCar was at the very least a possibility and less of a myth than previously believed.

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Amir Iliaifar
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Associate Automotive Section Editor for Digital Trends, Amir Iliaifar covers the ever increasing cross-section between tech…
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