According to FOCUS-Information, Mercedes will equip its vehicles exclusively with a Navigation System from Apple’s design-laboratories starting in 2009. After six months other car manufacturers shall follow.

At first, we questioned the rumor, however, just a few moments ago the author of the article, Alexander von Streit, confirmed via email that the “Focus” has indeed acquired real evidence for Apple’s Navigation system.

There haven’t been any official announcements from Apple. However, FOCUS has information on hand form a very reliable and authentic source.

I’d like to reiterate that the Focus, Germany’s second largest newsmagazine, is a very serious and highly respected magazine in Europe [Wikipedia Entry]. If the article’s author goes as far as confirming this rumor, chances are that they do have some hard evidence at hand to back up their claim.

For Apple this strategy marks a logical-next step. The company has already invaded our living rooms, will try to invade the cell phone market this month, and is now supposedly set to conquer its last untouched fortress: Your Car.

Would you purchase a navigation system from Apple? Let us know in the comments.

Apple’s announcement to produce a navigation system for cars didn’t come as a surprise. With its product world, the U.S. company now occupies more and more areas in our digital life.

According to FOCUS-Information, Mercedes will equip its vehicles exclusively with the high-tech from Apple’s design-laboratories starting in 2009. After six months other car manufacturers shall follow.

Since I was born and raised in Germany, I can assure you that Focus is a highly respected magazine that, usually, doesn’t involve itself in gossip. It is unclear, however, when this Apple “announcement” was supposed to have happened. Further, it is curious why Focus would have been the only news outlet to acquire such information.

We have contacted the author of the article and will let you know as soon as we get new information. Until then, please take this information with a grain of salt.

Update 6-18-2007: We’ve received an email from the author of the Focus article. Please take a look at this post for more information.

Congratulations Apple and TBWA. Great Job.

Oh yeah? Sounds great. Too bad then, that LA Fitness hates Mac Users. Why? Read on.

LA Fitness currently offers a free 3-day pass, which potential customers can conveniently print out at home and bring into the gym for validation. Unfortunately, LA Fitness appears to be a Windows-Users-Exclusive Gym. How else can you explain that Safari users receive the following error message when trying to access the pass:

Bad HTML coding? No, that couldn’t possibly be the case. With almost 10% market share in the U.S. the web-designers of LA Fitness have surely tried this feature on a Mac. No, they simply don’t want us there.

Now, rest assured, that this computer is running the latest and greatest version of Flash and can access all other Flash websites out there on the Internets. How about Firefox you ask? I tried. Same result: Update Flash.

Again, LA Fitness simply doesn’t want Mac users to come and join their prestigious little club. Maybe we’re too hip or too outspoken or who knows what else. One thing is for sure: Boot up Windows in Paralells and you too can print out your very own 3-day trial pass.

But by the time Windows was up and running I had already printed out a free trial from 24 Hour Fitness instead. They seem to like us Mac users, and that one is good for 7 days anyways…

Does it piss you off, when websites are Windows only? Which ones have you come across lately? Feel free to rant in the comments bellow.

PS: I don’t REALLY think that LA Fitness hates Mac users… or do I?