A car designer’s impression of how an Apple car could look.

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Monday, May 21, 2012

Former Apple boss Steve Jobs also wanted a slice of the car industry, according to an Apple board member. In 2007, Steve Jobs met with Volkswagen Group head Martin Winterkorn. The companies were reportedly planned to team up to work on a car aimed at the youth market. VW has since introduced a budget-conscious small car aimed at the younger crowd, the Up, that may not have been developed with Apple but does feature an iPad-inspired dash-top tablet display. While Jobs reportedly never penned his ideas for a car, many designers have envisioned what an Apple-branded car could be like, including 22-year-old transport design student Liviu Tudoran. His three-seater iMove plug-in electric concept car features loads of Apple-inspired gadgetry including a "photocromic" exterior that allows the driver to change the colour of the car, a touch-screen display that covers the entire dashboard (charged by solar receptors in the glass), and a convertible roof that can open up and has been designed to resemble the Apple mouse. While it's no iCar, Apple recently filed a patent on a new steering wheel-mounted Bluetooth-based remote controller for its devices that it hopes will reduce driver distraction.