Ive says the emphasis on physical buttons, each with a purpose, is to allow the driver to keep their eyes on the road and off the screen. “When you look at it, you don’t think, ‘How many layers do I have to go through to find something to warm my bottom?'” he said.

“You can’t touch anything but aluminum, glass, or leather,” several Ferrari employees said several times at the event. (The only pieces of plastic they have are the two gears on the control panel.)

The result is a truly tactile experience. Everything feels satisfyingly clicky or twisty. The aluminum buttons have, not surprisingly, an incredible feel. The glass knobs are equally smooth. We’re especially taken by the air vents, which have aluminum shields that twist around when you open and close them. We kept turning it down until the Ferrari people had to come telling us it was time to leave the room.

Familiar Friends

Ferrari’s glass partner is Corning, the company whose Gorilla Glass is used in 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 “true material.” Compared to a more common plastic option, the glass definitely feels more premium as a knob or gear shifter. But will it suddenly break when you break down? Hopefully not, as Corning says its technicians have done countless crash tests to make sure this version of Gorilla Glass is safe.

The steering wheel has the signature three-spoke design that Ferrari is famous for. It is almost a circle but has a squished bottom that gives the tire a shape that evokes a dumpling (or a flat tire). The wheel has a leather grip all around, of course, but the clicky aluminum buttons right at your fingertips 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 middle. Convex lenses with a parallax effect enhance the circular OLED screens provided by Samsung, which partners with Ferrari for display tech. Additional icons appear in the upper right corner to show things like road conditions.

Although the binnacle is dominated by screens, the selected pieces are completely analog. Namely, the needles of the speedometer and odometer, made of aluminum and polycarbonates. When the car is turned off, the screens of the dials go dark and the needles seem to float in a black void. When the screens come on, they also illuminate the needles, making them glow.

controlling

To the right of the wheel sits a control panel display, a rectangular screen with smoothly curved edges and almost no bezel. In other words, iPad form. However, the screen is mounted on a ball-and-socket joint and thus can be moved in a way reminiscent of another relic of Ive’s time in Cupertino, the iMac G4.