Segway’s top tech guy segues to Apple

Venture Beat — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 22:10:16 -0700

Segway, the upright, self-balancing electric scooter, was supposed to revolutionize travel. Instead, it’s a neat piece of technology that not many people use. Perhaps realizing this, Segway’s chief technology officer Doug Field, is moving on to a company that makes products that a lot of people use: Apple.

Field will assume the roll of a vice president of product design at Apple, O’Reilly Radar learned via a post on the Segway Forums. What exactly he’ll do in this capacity is anyone’s guess.

For all of the Segways’ faults, I don’t think anyone is going to accuse it of being technologically unsound. It was simply too expensive and developed a “dorky” stigma that made it the butt of many jokes (although, as we reported a few days ago, Segway sales might finally be on their way up). Many Apple products have just about the opposite public perception, so maybe Field’s expertise alongside Apple’s branding will be a match made in heaven.

Will we see an iScooter? Probably not, but perhaps Field and Apple senior vice president of industrial design, Jonathan Ive (the main designer of the iMac, iPod and iPhone), can come up with some cool new product and blow all our minds.