Category: Uncategorized

Ferrari Luce Exterior “Radical”?

Another article on the Ferrari Luce this time from Autocar:

“The Ferrari Luce will be “big” in its proportions and sport an exterior design that’s just as radical as its interior, designer Jony Ive has said – but the man famous for penning the iPhone admitted to Autocar that he is “anxious” about showing the new EV to the world.”

According to multiple articles and some highly camouflaged Luce mules testing in and around Maranello, it seems the Luce will be a 2+2 large GT model similar to the Purosangue. Look, this is the internet where every whiney internet pundit(WIP’s) has an opinion, myself included. It’s a world where nobody likes anything and complaining is a full time profession. I fully expect the Luce to be different and unique. A lot of WIP’s didn’t like the Purosangue, I did & still do. Ferrari makes 2 kinds of vehicles, collector cars and daily drivers. The Purosangue is the latter. Before Sir Jony Ive left Apple, he was working on Project Titan(AppleCar), there were some leaks as to what the car might look like, all renders of course. It was unique, if I can find the photos I saved I will post them at the end of this post. Ferrari sells cars to 1-2 percent of the global population. Its mystique is rivaled by no other company not even Apple. As much as the WIP’s complain and hate it, there will be actual customers who love it. Mark my words Ferrari will sell plenty. Collector’s & drivers both will want a Ferrari electric and a car designed by LoveFrom.

Render of cancelled AppleCar: image uncredited

 

Ferrari Luce’s LoveFrom Designed Interior

Today Ferrari showcased in San Francisco the partial interior of the new Ferrari Luce EV. Designed in collaboration with Jony Ive, Marc Newson and LoveFrom. 

The Name Luce meaning “Light” or “Illumination” in Italian is quite apropos. From the insertion of the Luce’s glass key fob into the center consoles magnetic cradle the yellow e-ink from the key fob transfers to the shifter and interior displays clearly and dramatically bringing the car to life. The light transfer is quite spectacular as you can see in the photos below:*

FERRARI-LUCE SHIFTER EVENT PHOTO sRGB 4K 72DPI 5x4 b1c82dda-9d98-4754-9ec7-3b9cd1adb51e.

FERRARI-LUCE SHIFTER HERO sRGB 6K 72DPI 1X1 527591f6-1b81-46cf-8b28-ad3651b0fd65.

*Photos courtesy of Ferrari

The Luce has three displays as described by Ferrari below:

DISPLAYS 

The three displays in the Ferrari Luce – driver binnacle, control panel and rear control panel – have been meticulously designed for clarity and purpose. The team spent significant time considering the organisation of inputs (controls) and outputs (displays), making the user experience intuitive and easy to navigate. An understated, new custom typeface gives the interface and identity a coherent typographic voice, informed by historic Ferrari type and Italian engineering lettering. 

Brushed aluminum, glass and leather dominate the interior. From what I can tell of the photos and videos, it really is an extension of Sir Jony’s design aesthetic from Apple. Every Apple device we know and love seems to evoke that same feeling of familiarity when comparing the Luce to our collective muscle memory. I can only imagine how similar it will undoubtedly be. I for one am looking very forward to the Ferrari Luce complete reveal in May. I can only hope that they will showcase the Ferrari Luce in Bianco Avus or a similar white paint evoking the brilliant white Apple devices of Sir Jony’s past accomplishments. If not I will most certainly be playing around with the Ferrari “Tailor Made” configurator.

CarPlay will be available, but no mention of CarPlay Ultra

Below is a quote from Jony Ive in the wired article discussing the unveiling of the Ferrari Luce EV interior.

“Part of my grumpy belligerence now is I’m done working with assholes,” Ive said in his introduction. The line drew a laugh from the audience around him. “I’m so happy that we can just place creative excellence right at the center of what we’re doing.”

“Ive may wax self-deprecatingly about his salty nature, but when he started explaining the details of all the machined aluminum buttons he had ordered and approved over the course of five years, he was positively chipper. As we wandered through the exhibit, Ive happily responded to WIRED’s questions on how things were working with Ferrari.”

“It’s an important brand,” Ive said. “I like the fact that they weren’t lazy, like some other companies I know who just roll around in their success printing money.”

I guess that’s a direct dig at Apple. OUCH!!! Not sure that was completely warranted, but we can now see there was evidently some animosity leading up to his 2019 departure.

Ferrari Luce Interior

More details on the Jony Ive designed OpenAI device

According to the Wall St. Journal: “The product will be capable of being fully aware of a user’s surroundings and life, will be unobtrusive, able to rest in one’s pocket or on one’s desk, and will be a third core device a person would put on a desk after a MacBook Pro and an iPhone.” Like I said in yesterday’s post. No issues for Apple short term. But I’m curious to see if they actually take this seriously and pivot accordingly. But who knows. I haven’t seen many pivots from them lately.

OpenAI/io & WWDC

Just a quick observation on the Jony Ive/io announcement from earlier today. I think the timing was on purpose. WWDC is less than 3 weeks away. That WHITE ELEPHANT is definitely going to be walking around Apple Park.

LoveFrom, io & OpenAI

We all knew this was coming. What we didn’t know and still don’t is what the product is. But we now have an idea on the structure of what the people building it will look like. Jony Ive’s io will merge with OpenAI. That’s a separate company from LoveFrom. Evans Hankey and Tang Tan previously at Apple with Jony are also cofounders of io. LoveFrom is handling the design and I assume materials design. I believe the software is under io. You can watch the announcement here. I absolutely love Jony, I still think the biggest mistake Apple made was letting him leave. I don’t think we will ever know the real story of what transpired. However I don’t like Sam. Never have and I don’t think I ever will. Maybe I’m too old for AI. I really don’t use it for anything important. I use mostly Grok for search and information, nothing more than that. The big WHITE ELEPHANT in the room is how this will ultimately affect Apple. Short term not so much. But I will go out on a limb and say that the fuse is lit and long term this might be what starts the end for Apple. Yes I know that’s a big statement. But aside from the whiny Apple pundits who bitched and complained about Jony’s later designs. He is still the best designer of the last 20 years. Maybe of all time. Bet against him at your own peril.

UPDATE: according to Bloomberg LoveFrom will “take over design for all of OpenAI, including its software,”

Bring back Jony!

At this point I truly believe that Jony Ive needs to return to Apple. Either Apple re-ups LoveFrom‘s original consultant/customer gig or Apple purchases LoveFrom outright, like they did Beats and let Jony do what he does best. Plus it turns out from the most recent court docs that Tim is a hypocrite and cares more for the almighty dollar than he does about doing what’s right.

Apple & Porsche

Macan Turbo , 2024, Porsche AG

I kind of figured there was something a little more going on when Porsche appeared in 2 Apple videos with Tim Cook himself appearing last spring in the Porsche Taycan Turbo GT reveal(see previous post below this one). According to German language publication Derstandard(translation from Safari web translate below), 

 “In fact, Porsche strives for an even closer cooperation with Apple to enable its customers to seamlessly connect to their usual digital environment such as iPhones and iPads. This initially makes Porsche a particularly important customer for Apple’s new car software Carplay Plus, which should enable a deeper interlocking of Apple devices with the vehicle software and thus promises to significantly improve the user experience.”

Also from the same Derstandard article a link to another German language article from Manager Magazin(full article behind paywall, also translated via Safari web translate) that the electric Cayenne planned for 2026 will be the first such collaboration.

Porsche and Apple have been partners in various apps and Apple services for some time now. It seems that this is the next natural progression for both companies. Apple Fellow Phil Schiller and SVP Eddie Cue are notable car enthusiasts and this is probably the next best thing moving on from the cancelled Project Titan Apple car project. 

If this all does come to fruition I’m sure we will see some unique marketing strategies, maybe the 2026 iPhone colors matching with the available Porsche paint colors, interior upgrades etc. Honestly they could go very deep.  Seems like a brilliant opportunity to bring back Jony Ive in some capacity. His material design skills are top notch. I’m sure it will come in white!