Ive says that the emphasis on physical buttons, each with a singular purpose, is to let the driver keep their eyes on the road and off the screen. “When you look at this, you are not wondering, ‘How many layers deep am I going to have to go to find something to make my bottom warm?’” he said.
“You don’t touch anything but aluminum, glass, or leather,” multiple Ferrari employees said multiple times over the event. (The only bits of plastic they owned up to were a couple of gears in the control panel.)
The result is a truly tactile experience. Everything feels satisfyingly clicky or twisty. The aluminum buttons have, unsurprisingly, an incredible feel. The glass knobs were similarly smooth. We were particularly taken with the air vents, which have aluminum shields that flip around when you twist them open and closed. We fiddled with these over and over until the Ferrari people had to come tell us it was time to leave the room.
Familiar Friends
Ferrari’s glass partner is Corning, the company whose Gorilla Glass has been used on every iPhone model. Corning says there are more than 40 glass parts in the Luce, including buttons, screens, and even the casing of the center console and gear-shift knob.
Ive calls glass a “truthful material.” Compared to a more standard plastic option, glass certainly feels more premium as a knob or gear shifter. But will it shatter in an instant if you get in a wreck? Hopefully not, as Corning says its technicians have done countless crash tests to make sure this version of Gorilla Glass is safe enough.
The steering wheel has the signature three-spoke design Ferrari is famous for. It is almost a circle but has a squished bottom that gives the wheel a shape that evokes a dumpling (or a flat tire). The wheel has a leather grip all the way around, of course, but clicky aluminum buttons right by your fingers let you signal or change music tracks and volume.
Behind the steering wheel is the binnacle, the console where the odometer, speedometer, and other indicators are placed. Taken by itself, the screen looks like a large iPhone in landscape mode with three Apple Watches positioned in the center. Convex lenses with a parallax effect magnify the circular OLED screens supplied by Samsung, which Ferrari has partnered with for the display tech. Additional icons appear in the top-right corner to indicate things like road conditions.
Though the binnacle is dominated by screens, very select bits are entirely analog. Namely, the needles of the speedometer and odometer, which are made of aluminum and polycarbonates. When the car is off, the dials’ screens go dark and the needles seem to float in a black void. When the screens come on, they light up the needles as well, making them glow.
Taking Control
To the right of the wheel sits a control panel display, a rectangular screen with smooth curved edges and almost no bezel. In other words, iPad shaped. However, the screen is mounted on a ball-and-socket joint and so can be moved around in a manner that brings to mind another relic of Ive’s tenure in Cupertino, the iMac G4.
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