German carmakers face their ‘iPhone moment’

By Patrick McGee in Frankfurt

The significance of the iPhone when it was launched in 2007 was not that it was a better phone, a superior camera or an improved MP3 player. Nor was it the touch screen, wide display or range of apps. It was all of these things in one device — “a converged technology”, as author Mario Herger puts it.
The “iPhone moment” for cars has not happened yet, but it is easy to imagine what it will look like: an electric, self- driving “living room on wheels”, connected to the web and more often shared among users rather than bought.