Info Laptop

Perhaps one of the most amazing partnership announcements made during WWDC’s keynote yesterday is ZipCar’s exciting story of iPhone app design. It could easily fall through the cracks for a couple reasons: For one, hardware announcements took center stage, and for another, people who don’t live in major urban centers might not be aware of what exactly ZipCar even is. Most people will be familiar with the wacky science fiction future portrayed by The Jetsons, however, and that’s the sort of tech magic the two companies previewed yesterday.

For those who don’t know, ZipCar is a car sharing alternative to vehicle ownership that operates in big cities like New York, London, Chicago, and Toronto, to name a few. The idea is that many urban dwellers don’t need a car so often that it makes financial sense to own one, so instead ZipCar provides an accessible fleet available for use when you need it, where you need, for as long or as little as you need it. It’s almost like a car subscription service, and though I’ve yet to use it myself, friends review it very favorably.

The new app from ZipCar takes advantage of the iPhone’s geolocation and wireless communication capabilities to allow it to help users locate, reserve, and even remotely control cars in their fleet. Before you get excited, this doesn’t mean that you can drive your ZipCar remotely, thereby fooling onlookers into believing that ghost cars are real. But it does mean that you can unlock the car, and/or possibly even honk its horn, so that you can pretend it is recognizing and greeting you, if that’s what suits your fancy.

The app even looks good, displaying good-looking car images for each available model, and featuring a detail view with the rate for and model information for the car of your choice. Two tabs not demoed in the app are the Drive and My Alerts pages, which it’s not a stretch to imagine might provide some kind of maps or navigation app, and maybe a traffic or severe weather alert system.

If you don’t happen to live in one of the cities where ZipCar has a presence, I can understand if you’re stifling a yawn right about now. But think about what this means not just for ZipCars, but for cars in general. Major car manufacturers could conceivably outfit their automobiles with the same kind of tech. It could be the death of the key fob, and the advent of iPhone integration that extends beyond just media and phone functions. Combine ZipCar functionality with Bluetooth stereo/calling connectivity, and turn-by-turn GPS navigation as demoed by Tom Tom, and your road trip just got a whole lot less complicated.

The good news is that Time Warner has “backed away from its controversial efforts to price broadband based on consumption” in the cities where the trials were implemented.

The bad news is that it’s clearly not an admission of failure on their part. In their confirmation they stated this (emphasis mine):

It is clear from the public response over the last two weeks that there is a great deal of misunderstanding about our plans to roll out additional tests on consumption based billing. As a result, we will not proceed with implementation of additional tests until further consultation with our customers and other interested parties, ensuring that community needs are being met.

Ah yes, it’s just a “misunderstanding”. We’re doing the right thing, you just don’t get it.

This isn’t the end of it, they’re simply regrouping. The translation is simple: Our PR group screwed up and wasn’t able to successfully fool enough people into believing the other guy will pay big bucks, not you.

Sometimes don’t you just wanna take a ball bat to the heads of companies like this?

There’s a wave of technologies converging for which broadband will come out of the “luxury” category and move more to the forefront. VOIP, video streaming, etc. Wouldn’t any far-seeing (dare I say it, “visionary”?) company say to themselves, “Wow. All these technologies are going to have lots of new people interested in our bandwidth. We better fatten the pipe and get ready for the onslaught of new customers”?

And not just streaming, more and more file downloads are requiring a larger pipe. In Apple’s case, they recently opened the gates for HD movie sales to Mac users (i.e., HD is not just for Apple TV owners), and could be a large beneficiary of more users having broadband in their homes.

Sadly, TW instead said, “Wow. Here’s the perfect chance for us to grab more money from our base. Why bother with improvements to add more customers when it’s easier just to milk the ones we have”?

This is why people hate the cable companies (and, yes, the phone carriers as well).