[HN Gopher] Apple Car: Bad Idea After All ___________________________________________________________________ Apple Car: Bad Idea After All Author : spking Score : 125 points Date : 2022-09-27 14:40 UTC (8 hours ago) (HTM) web link (mondaynote.com) (TXT) w3m dump (mondaynote.com) | jedberg wrote: | Apple doesn't get into low margin businesses. They get into an | adjacent business. A prime example is TVs. There is no Apple TV | set. There is AppleTV, a high margin add on for any TV with HDMI | that makes it "just work". | | They had the chance to buy a cellular carrier, but chose not to, | because it's low margin. Instead they make a phone that works on | any carrier. | | Cars are a low margin business. But a car add-on could be a high | margin business. They already have CarPlay, but I can see them | making a hardware add-on for cars. | Melatonic wrote: | I always liked OSX but an Apple Car is literally something I | would never buy. Their walled garden manipulative BS is the exact | opposite of what I want in a vehicle. | scarface74 wrote: | Yes because you can install anything you want on other cars... | jononomo wrote: | I wish Toyota would partner with Apple for their internal maps, | screen, controls, etc. Toyota seems to have a major problem with | intuitive usability (especially for my parents who are in their | 80s). | | Toyota is the largest car company in the world and makes the most | reliable vehicles in the world, but they need that extra touch to | take them to the next level. | | Just as I would never by a phone that is not an iPhone, or a | laptop that is not a MacBook, I would never buy a car that is not | a Toyota. But Toyota does have some room for improvement. | | Also, an Apple-Toyota partnership would make Teslas look pathetic | in comparison. | jononomo wrote: | How much would it cost for Apple to take a 10% stake in Toyota? | Doesn't Apple have a couple hundred billion dollars just lying | around in cash? | smileysteve wrote: | why buy 10% of Toyota when they could buy 100% of Ford | (49.7bn market cap) with 90% cash on hand. | restore_creole_ wrote: | That would be around $19 billion and Apple has around $40 | billion on hand. Although I think the culture of Japan would | cause more difficulties other than having enough money to | afford it. | eande wrote: | Toyota is heavily investing and committed to launch their own | groundbreaking Arene OS solution through the Toyota's Woven | Planet Group starting in 2025. | | https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/toyota... | AlotOfReading wrote: | Apple has already publicly torpedoed their relationship with | one major manufacturer (Hyundai/Kia). It's suspected that the | same thing has happened less publicly with others like Nissan. | They've supposedly been talking with Toyota for a bit, but | that's always been a weird choice because Toyota leadership has | never fully bought into the idea of electric vehicles and SV | development styles, nor are they likely to enjoy being treated | the way Apple tends to treat "suppliers". They also have their | own development units for this, like GM and most of the German | manufacturers. | _JamesA_ wrote: | Adding wireless CarPlay would be a great start. | Animats wrote: | Oh, no new news. At first it seemed this was going to be "Apple | cancels car project". But no. | pmontra wrote: | Anything can happen so these could also be wildly successful | items in our future | | <fun>A phone from Mercedes</fun> | | <fun>A CPU from Ferrari</fun> | drewzero1 wrote: | Maybe not quite the same thing, but OnePlus did a McLaren | edition of one of their phones a few years back. It doesn't | seem like it took the market by storm but it's still popular in | some circles. (The improved specs certainly helped as well.) | tiffanyh wrote: | I think did an "Apple TV" to their car efforts. | | Originally, Apple desired to make the Apple TV (hardware) the | complete replacement for all your TV viewing needs. And for all | the streaming services to just be dumb content pipes connected | through a common / consistent Apple TV (app/software) UI. | | Then Apple realized the Netflix's of the world are not going to | give up the user experience, let alone the direct relationship | with the user. | | So Apple then pivots by making Apple TV just the platform for | some other company to deliver their stream service through (like | the Apple CarPlay). | | They then refine their strategy to come around to realizing, they | need to make their own content (the new Apple CarPlay HUD / | instrumentation). | Ftuuky wrote: | Apple should buy comma.ai and turn iPhones into autonomous | drivers. | dtagames wrote: | Does anyone really think Apple is building a car? I don't and I | never did. It makes no sense. It's not an industry one can just | "switch into." The capital requirements for owning a car factory | are ridiculous and it's not something you can outsource. There is | zero crossover between consumer entertainment devices and the car | business, as evidenced by the poor state of tech in cars! This is | not something Apple can fix by making cars. | Someone wrote: | > There is zero crossover between consumer entertainment | devices and the car business, as evidenced by the poor state of | tech in cars! | | That looks similar to the state of MP3 players before the iPod, | or smartphones before the iPhone. I think a self-driving car | with a car-width display and hifi stereo (or better) could be a | huge success, even if the self-driving only works on highways, | as with the latest Mercedes. | | > It's not an industry one can just "switch into." | | Reminds me of https://www.marketwatch.com/story/apple-should- | pull-the-plug...: | | _"Now compare that effort and overlay the mobile handset | business. This is not an emerging business. In fact it 's gone | so far that it's in the process of consolidation with probably | two players dominating everything, Nokia Corp. NOK, -0.68% and | Motorola Inc. MOT | | During this phase of a market margins are incredibly thin so | that the small fry cannot compete without losing a lot of | money. | | As for advertising and expensive marketing this is nothing like | Apple has ever stepped into. It's a buzz saw waiting to chop up | newbies | | The problem here is that while Apple can play the fashion game | as well as any company, there is no evidence that it can play | it fast enough. These phones go in and out of style so fast | that unless Apple has half a dozen variants in the pipeline, | its phone, even if immediately successful, will be passe within | 3 months. | | There is no likelihood that Apple can be successful in a | business this competitive."_ | | Of course, that doesn't imply the car industry is similar or | that Apple can find the magic that cracks open the market, but | they may think making a side bet of a few billion (Apple's | problem is that their MVP is larger than what the CEOs of most | startups can only dream of) to see whether they can is a good | idea. | tobyjsullivan wrote: | I think people focus too much on the actual car in this | speculation. What about the service? Apple is really, really good | at finding industries full of bullshit (computers in the 80's, | mobile phones in the early 2000's) and saying, "okay, here's a | slightly better looking product, with fewer features, and no more | bullshit." | | The vehicle market is full of bullshit. Tesla took the same | tactic and has knocked it down considerably, but there's still | the rest of the market. | mijamo wrote: | I don't think you can say Tesla is "no more bullshit". If | anything they are the one adding shiny useless feature for the | buzz, and having a terrible all touch UI that makes no sense | for driving. | | The only car manufacturer that is "no more bullshit" would be | Dacia and that's not the same segment. But they are indeed | doing really well! | cruano wrote: | I mean, it's different bullshit at least no ? | | Not having to deal with dealerships, actual software updates | instead of just abandoning software (BlueLink anyone?), | pushing maintenance from every 6 months to ~2 years | | I don't own or want a Tesla, but its certainly different from | the rest of the industry | Joeri wrote: | Off topic, I am really digging the artwork at the top of this | article. | | The bondi blue iMac, on wheels so snug in their wells they | couldn't turn more than a few degrees, standing on a white | polished surface that it couldn't drive on without unsightly | black streaks, with a clearance so low it needs that polished | surface to drive on. The most impractical car design, but | quintessentially Apple. | | It is part homage and part diss at the same time. I love it. | kalimanzaro wrote: | What if Apple made a 1500 dollar electric Mini (car)? | | Might just work. | | I have seen some comments here saying that all the money in the | world can't buy you a better mobile phone. If Apple is able to | generalize that to another product class, the world might really | change for the better. | dirheist wrote: | I think a mini car would tank Apple's brand value | significantly, especially if you think about the type of die | hard apple fanboys who would be the first flock to hit the | streets in these things. All it takes is a couple of people | getting into some pretty dumb accidents to make people turn | against them (the same way people judge BMW and Tesla drivers | but probably to an even greater extent tbh). | meltyness wrote: | If it's something they officially give up on: Good. There's no | sense in trying to further extend mega caps. If there were really | a litany of issues with how vehicles were made, one would expect | investment to appear in research and development that addresses | those specific issues, not vehicles appearing out of capital | groundswells from disasters. | | It's alarming that the media doesn't call this what it is: a sell | signal, and a clear sign that stock buybacks, collusion, and | scared FTC beauraucrats who aren't willing to throw down the | antitrust flag are making a sick economy sicker. | rektide wrote: | Disney said no to buying Teitter because it would be a bad look, | is a chaotic & messy property to acquire. It would be hard to | manage & sully their clean image. | | Associating yourself with automobiles doesnt feel exactly the | same, but there's a similar jist to me. Cars have some very | obvious bad impact on this world. Supporting & selling them is a | pain. Trying to keep yourself as a loved respected treasured | company would be much more difficult, quite likely impossible. | olliej wrote: | Sure it crashes all the time, but it looks really sleek while | doing so :D | taylodl wrote: | What if Apple moved sideways and got into the electric motor | scooter market instead and displacing the likes of Vespa? If they | keep the power low enough (no freeway driving here!) then most | states wouldn't require a special endorsement to ride it. It | would be the ultimate cafe runner! | | Hipsters, college students, high school students, and suburban | folks needing to drive everywhere would love it - and it would be | reducing the amount of dino fuel burning vehicles on the road. | The battery could be easily removable and carried in to charge in | your house/apartment/dorm without any special equipment. Apple | could absolutely _kill_ this market. | ghaff wrote: | Possible CarPlay expansion aside--I can't even summon up a good | devil's advocate argument for this. | | I was having a discussion over the weekend over where Apple goes | next with respect to hardware. I think my money is on AR _if_ the | many technical limitations can be overcome. There are also the | social issues but as with many other things, I suspect a lot of | people would be willing to put up with even more ubiquitous | cameras in exchange for convenience whether you like it or not. | germinalphrase wrote: | Setting aside technicals issues as a huge caveat, the promise | of AR is massive. I'm actually somewhat surprised that we're | not seeing more AR focused media to prime people to the | possibilities (but maybe we're just too early). | ghaff wrote: | Probably too early although we've seen some attempts with AR | apps on phones. | | As you say, technical is a huge caveat. But it's pretty easy | to see that IF we could have glasses that could | overlay/enhance/record/etc. there are so many possibilities | in a way there aren't with VR for example--for both consumer | and commercial uses. By contrast, VR seems pretty limited; | immersive gaming and virtual tourism just aren't that | interesting for most people. And people don't want immersion | in a lot of circumstances. | | When you can envision a clear market based on "just" | relatively straightforward (if significant) extrapolations of | technology that seems something worth paying attention to. | germinalphrase wrote: | Absolutely. I would absolutely love to work in the AR space | at some point. | | That said, I can just as easily identify any number of | social/cognitive/cultural "diseases" or abuses of that | world. Should the transition happen (and all signs point at | the big players /trying/ to make it happen), we will have | some gnarly traps to avoid - and I'm not very confident | that we will do so with grace. | Tiktaalik wrote: | A mild problem that Apple has is that they seem to spend a lot of | time solving the sort of problems that a highly paid VP from | California would have. | | Being frustrated by the driving experience and trying to solve | that problem is in that category, being focused on the sort of | annoyances that people spending huge amounts of time driving to | Cupertino would have. | | Meanwhile city governments around the US and the world are trying | very hard to _reduce_ the amount of cars on the road. | | Would be nice if Apple were thinking ahead and not contributing | to the entrenchment of this 20th century technology. | alexyz12 wrote: | Theres no money in reducing the amount of cars on the road. | There's no money in solving societies problems in general - who | would pay for it? | skhameneh wrote: | This is a disappointing read, zero insight into objectives beyond | an EV for end consumers. | | There is so much more to consider - progressing Carplay | integration, demand for processing/sensing, partnerships, | building knowledge, etc. Take the Sony Vision S for example, that | was never intended to be a produced vehicle. | WalterBright wrote: | There have been a _lot_ of failed new car company startups. Like | the Tucker, the Bricklin, the DeLorean. It 's really, really, | really hard to create a new car company. The usual problem is | way, way underestimating the amount of capital it will take. | | Tesla is an amazing company because they achieved it. | | Apple's expertise is in making software and tiny electrical | gadgets. How they thought that would translate into expertise in | making cars is beyond me. It makes about as much sense as | diversifying into making jet engines. | B1FF_PSUVM wrote: | > How they thought that would translate into expertise in | making | | The "PC guys are not going to just figure this out. They're not | going to just walk in." line aged poorly extremely fast. | | But you know that, everybody knows that. And Apple has the | capital and the Tesla blueprint. | | So, why really not? (genuine question, I'd like to pick your | brains on that) | [deleted] | detaro wrote: | > _How they thought that would translate into expertise in | making cars is beyond me_ | | Is there any concrete statement/"evidence" that they ever | seriously intended to "make cars"? Media reports always talk | about "Apple cars", but the concrete visible bits I've seen | also fit a software/computer-angle. But "Apple is dabbling in | self-driving tech like any other large company with lots of | money and an AI/ML-department" isn't as catchy a story. | bombcar wrote: | I've always thought Apple's play is to try to build a self- | driving setup that can be sold/integrated with other | manufacturers. | SV_BubbleTime wrote: | Automotive EE here... any article that talks about Tesla's | financials even indirectly and it does not immediately mention | how much money they make by selling carbon credits back to GM | Ford and Stellantis can pay immediately be disregarded. | | A casual look at the numbers doesn't explain much. But if you | look at that 7% margin, and realize that Tesla is nearly doubling | that with carbon credit sales which are 100% margin. It changes | the picture. | | Anyone else has a car they make 7% minus buying credits to be | able to sell more in California. Tesla sells a car they make | more. Without the carbon program Tesla would drastically have to | change its model, which will be interesting because everyone is | selling their own EVs and won't need to buy as many credits soon. | | It makes no sense for Apple to get into vehicles for 20 reasons, | this is just one. They're way too late. | martythemaniak wrote: | Those credits aren't particularly relevant any more. Several | years ago they were essential and made up practically the | entirety of their profits, but today they're just a side-gig. | In Q2'2022: $300m credits, $16 billion in total revenue, 2.3B | in profit. | aclatuts wrote: | I was just going to say this. The credits definitely do not | double their margins, it adds 2% to their 11% base margin for | a total of 13% | SV_BubbleTime wrote: | Q2 was 300m hmm? Ok, do the rest of the math at 5% likely- | actual or 7% industry average on sales. | bushbaba wrote: | Wouldn't people have said the same with mp3 players back in the | day. | | Honestly the biggest challenge will be manufacturing. Apple | likes to surprise folks, how do you surprise them when you've | got to build massive new factories | kkaske wrote: | Wouldn't people have said the same thing with cell phones | back in the day? In fact I had a discussion with an Apple | store employee asking what they thought about the rumor that | Apple was going to be releasing a phone. He said that there | was no way Apple would even want to be in that space. I'm not | saying they will get into cars, but you just never know. | bushbaba wrote: | They can make the mp3 players in enough quantity in a | single place. You can air freight mp3 players to do JIT | delivery. | | With cars that's not possible. | kkaske wrote: | This is true. I would say, however, getting into phones | meant dealing with carriers and such. That is still not | to the same level of complexity of a car, but I could see | Apple partnering with an existing maker to help fill in | areas that they don't have skills in. They did that when | they partnered with Google for webservices during the | iPhone initial release. | lisper wrote: | > the biggest challenge will be manufacturing | | Don't underestimate the challenge here. Making an MP3 player | is not that different from making a computer. Making a car is | very, very different. | SV_BubbleTime wrote: | It took Tesla a decade to learn this. And they're just | getting around to the ideas that the industry had 100 years | to develop and refine. | ProAm wrote: | > They're way too late. | | I agree but Apple is never first to the table, they always take | others inventions and improve them. Apple also charges an | insanely high profit margin so they might get by with or | without the credits.... | | But I agree this is dumb for Apple to pursue. | terminatornet wrote: | only apple car i wanna hear about is the one lowly worm from | busytown drives | _ph_ wrote: | I found the announced enhancements to car play very interesting. | To my understanding, it aims for replacing most of the user- | facing software in cars. This is very tempting for car | manufacturers, not to compete with car play, but just embrace it. | It almost looks as if car play is to become the Windows of the | car industry - instead of trying to come up with your own | solution, just install the most widely used software available on | the market. That could be a big step for Apple and hugely | profitable, in the same way Windows made Microsoft into the giant | it is. | | It just could be that. But that would depend on the car | manufacturers giving up on their own software so easily and it | would be a completely new strategy for Apple. They love to | control the whole stack. Even in cases, where they entered a | market with a collaboration - the early iPod Phones come to my | mind - they later switched to their own product. | | Also, the rumor about an Apple car does keep coming back. And | they spend a lot of money on what ever they are doing. So while | the play on just Car Play might be strong, they do have something | brewing in case car manufacturers don't just jump onto it. My | favorite theory though is: they are building something which will | be a "car" but as different from current cars as the iPhone was | from mobile phones of its day and age. I would be really curious | to see that. | taffronaut wrote: | Margins in the auto industry are tight and manufacturers are | seeing software as their saviour. Hence we see software | features allowing you to 'subscribe' to e.g. heated seats. | There's hope in auto manufacturers for the "Smart TV play" | where owner/driver analytics (anonymous and otherwise) can be | sold on. Then there are hoped-for kickbacks from in-car | infomercials advising drivers to replace consumables like tyres | via a manufacturer-linked outlet. This is why car manufacturers | fixate on their own software and yet car software will become | more and more dysfunctional for the end user as they're the | 'mark' not the customer. It could be hugely profitable for | Apple to take over the space, but that would be at the expense | of the car manufacturers' dreams of software-driven increase in | margins, so I wouldn't bet on them signing up soon. | nixpulvis wrote: | "(nearly)" | bottlepalm wrote: | It's funny how Apple CarPlay is basically the Android of the car | world. While Tesla is more like IOS/iPhone, controlling both the | hardware and software. | scarface74 wrote: | Tesla is more like Samsung. Decent hardware and subpar software | and user interfaces. | beloch wrote: | The iBug will probably be good for some people but horrible for | others. | | "It just works" is a fine motto, but a lie. Devices often need | intervention to work properly or to work at all. Laptops and | phones generally require a _lot_ less intervention than cars. | Some of us are happy to outsource that labour to others. Some of | us are fascinated with how things work and prefer to at least | _try_ fixing things ourselves. I have learned from personal | experience that Apple is outright hostile to the latter form of | folk. | | I fully expect an Apple car will have all manner of non-standard | screws, fasteners, and parts. It will be technically possible for | third party mechanics to deal with, but letting one breathe on | your iBug will void the warranty. Just opening the hood will, no | doubt, require special tools and break multiple tamper-proof | warranty-voiding seals. | | If you're happy taking your iBug into an Apple store every time | you hear a new noise, you'll be fine with an iBug. If you're the | sort who wants to pop the hood and try to track down the problem | yourself, then beware! | scarface74 wrote: | As opposed to Teslas and where the rest of the car industry is | going? | pram wrote: | The Polestar 2 feels like what an 'Apple car' would be like, to | me. It seems to have a giant Android tablet in the middle | console. Looks pretty smooth and tasteful overall but I can't | summon up any excitement for it. | dabeeeenster wrote: | I own a relatively early Polestar 2 in the UK. It has been | plagued with software problems, including a software update | failing and bricking the car, requiring 3 different volvo techs | to come and unbrick it. | | Even with Google helping on the software! | | Even now I'm stuck on 2.0 for some reason (2.2 is the latest in | the UK). No idea why. Cant face the call to Polestar support | and the inevitable reply of "Take it to a vovlo dealer". | | The car itself is an absolutel monster. Love it to bits. The | software not so much. | hangonhn wrote: | Given the relative simplicity of an electric drivetrain | compared to ICE, is all that software absolutely necessary? | I'm a bit shocked (pun intended?) to hear that your car got | bricked by a software update. | SomeCallMeTim wrote: | Given the number of times I've seen a reported, verified bug in | OS X be "fixed" by hiding the bug from the public tracker and | marking it "will not fix," I would have a hard time ever trusting | a car made by Apple. | | Apple also makes their products to be disposable, seemingly as | part of the culture, while a well-made electric car can run to a | million miles over 50+ years. That's a very different build | philosophy. | | The key to me is that Apple presents the _image_ of perfect fit | and finish--beyond that their products are not problematic in a | lot of ways (ability to modify them, or expand them, or extend | them in ways that Apple doesn 't approve of...). Some of their | tech is cool, don't get me wrong. But it's far from perfect. | | I would imagine an Apple car that only supports Apple Maps, Apple | Music/Podcasts, and Siri and will only connect to iOS | devices...and that costs twice as much as the Tesla for the base | model, and more if you want a reasonable range. Pandora? Spotify? | Waze? Meh. Sorry. Oh, and don't forget monthly fees for | navigation; probably more like the $36/month of the Audi EV than | the free navigation for the Tesla. | | I'm sure there's a market for it. There are a lot of people who | love Apple and who have money. | runlevel1 wrote: | > a well-made electric car can run to a million miles over 50+ | years. | | That remains to be seen. | | You mention Tesla as an alternative, but they're well-known for | their fit and finish and repairability issues.[1][2] | | Apple's software fit and finish has taken a dive. My Tesla | isn't much better. (ex: I couldn't move my headrest for a | month.) Poke around teslamotorsclub.com and you'll find all | kinds of silly bugs that drag on. | | > free navigation for the Tesla | | Tesla builds 8 years of connectivity into the initial sticker | cost, after that they will be charging.[3] Apple will probably | charge too if it also includes network connectivity. | | > Pandora? Spotify? Waze? Meh. Sorry. | | Apple _is_ especially bad about lock-in. I understand Pandora, | Spotify, and Waze are installable on CarPlay (I haven 't tried | them), but there's still plenty of walled garden stuff going on | elsewhere. | | [1]: https://www.thedrive.com/news/34144/the-tesla-model-y-is- | alr... [2]: | https://www.thedrive.com/news/41493/teslas-16000-quote-for-a... | [3]: https://www.theverge.com/2022/7/27/23281022/tesla- | standard-d... | | EDIT: Add bit about software quality. | lucasmullens wrote: | The latest iPhone reversed course on the disposability piece a | little bit, making it arguably the most repairable iPhone ever. | simonh wrote: | The disposability allegation was always bullcrap. iPhones | have lead in terms of service lifetime, second hand value | retention, and manufacturer software support for so long now | and by such a huge margin I wonder at the motives of anyone | still saying this. | gatonegro wrote: | Yes, and then went and serialised the parts. | pulvinar wrote: | That's to make the phones less of a theft target (for | parting out). It's a tradeoff, but one most people prefer. | gatonegro wrote: | If the manufacturer makes parts easily available, | wouldn't the incentive to steal devices to sell for parts | more or less disappear? Same thing with counterfeit | parts. The market for stolen/fake parts exists because | OEM parts are essentially impossible to acquire legally. | | Serialisation is simply another way for Apple to maintain | control. You can now repair a device, but _only_ with | Apple 's blessing and knowledge. The privacy/safety | stories they sell are just that. | lotsofpulp wrote: | The part would have to be easily available and cheap. | dylan604 wrote: | >while a well-made electric car can run to a million miles over | 50+ years. That's a very different build philosophy. | | I'm trying to decide if this is something you actually think or | is incredibly thick hyperbole. Why would you say a well-made | electric car could run that many miles rather than the 200k+ | mile cars that actually exist? | olyjohn wrote: | Well made ICE vehicle could do that too. But the costs are | not worth it for consumers. Big ass diesel semi trucks go | over 1 million miles, then they are rebuilt and put back into | service. Reliability doesn't just come because your car has | an electric motor in it. | cronix wrote: | Because there are Tesla's that have gone over a million | miles. | olyjohn wrote: | There's tons of ICE cars that have done it too. | Aperocky wrote: | That would not sell. | | I didn't buy a macbook because it had Apple logo on it, I | bought it because of the M1 chip that was 1 generation ahead of | anybody else. Similarly, I bought an iPhone mini because its | form factor worked very well for me. | | If Apple introduced a VR headset I can already tell you that I | won't buy it. If their car is inferior to others on the market | then I won't buy it. I think most Apple consumer falls in the | same camp as me. | zimpenfish wrote: | > If Apple introduced a VR headset I can already tell you | that I won't buy it. | | I might if it worked with existing VR games, etc. because the | Oculus software on Windows is a shambles. Lost count of the | number of times it just plain won't start because it thinks | I'm N Windows updates behind (even though I'm not.) Also had | to completely wipe and reinstall a few times. Then when it | does agree that I have a headset and it recognises that I'm | wearing it, sometimes it'll just ... not show anything for a | few minutes. Or a game will crash (not always Oculus' fault) | and the software will insist I can't start anything else | because the other game is still running... | | macOS might have its glitches but software just works 99.9% | of the time. | scarface74 wrote: | Why would you "imagine that" when CarPlay already supports | third party app? Every Apple platform supports third party | apps. | dilap wrote: | Fit and finish has absolutely collapsed in recent Apple | software. Glitches and bugs all over the place. It's almost | enough to tempt one to see if this really is, finally, the year | of Linux of the desktop. Almost. | | I would disagree about Apple making products to be disposable, | though! I've found Apple hardware to be incredibly long | lasting. Their phones, ipads, and iphones all last years and | years and years in my experience. | logicalmonster wrote: | > Fit and finish has absolutely collapsed in recent Apple | software. | | Bugginess abounds more than ever in Apple's software, and I'd | love for them to take a cycle off and just work on fit and | finish and bugs rather than features. But to be fair, if | you're judging against the experience of using Windows, well | let's just say that's a low bar to beat. | | As far as Linux desktops go, I think the way they run very | solidly these days is phenomenal, but I don't think they | solve everyday problems (things that watches and phones and | other devices can do) as well as Apple. If you embrace Apple | devices and services, you have a whole bunch of tools that | work phenomenally together in smart ways. I don't think Linux | really can match that whole package anytime soon. | zamalek wrote: | > judging against the experience of using Windows, well | let's just say that's a low bar to beat. | | Honestly, even with all the bullshit that Microsoft has | been pulling, this isn't really true. I have used all three | extensively in the past year (Windows since I was a | teenager, switched to Linux only for 1 year, work has had | me on an Apple device for 6 months). Linux just works. | Windows usually just works, if you can ignore their asinine | "features" such as adverts and Edge nags. Apple is by far | the worst of the bunch, it feels like the entire platform | is teetering on the edge of absolute chaos, held together | only by the thankless work of the community (Brew, Co/lima, | etc.). A fresh install of MacOS is completely and utterly | incompetent. | pineconewarrior wrote: | Apple did just move to an entire new architecture so I am | hoping the bugs will start to calm down soon. | lotsofpulp wrote: | >a well-made electric car can run to a million miles over 50+ | years. That's a very different build philosophy. | | Source? Apple currently makes the longest lasting consumer | devices with the longest lasting software support, so not sure | how one can conclude longevity is not in their build | "philosophy". | | >I would imagine an Apple car that only supports Apple Maps, | Apple Music/Podcasts, and Siri and will only connect to iOS | devices...and that costs twice as much as the Tesla for the | base model, and more if you want a reasonable range. Pandora? | Spotify? Waze? Meh. Sorry. Oh, and don't forget monthly fees | for navigation; probably more like the $36/month of the Audi EV | than the free navigation for the Tesla. | | Why? All of those apps are usable in every Apple device's OS | today, including Carplay. And Apple Maps has had free | navigation since inception. | | Also, I can get into almost any recent car and plug in my | iPhone or Android phone and have access to CarPlay and Android | Auto, and get access to a ton of apps, except in a Tesla. Seems | like Tesla is being the more restrictive party here. | rootusrootus wrote: | > while a well-made electric car can run to a million miles | over 50+ years | | That is a big claim, which is completely unsupported by | reality. ICEVs do not get recycled because the engine died. | Body rot, repairs that cost more than the value of the car, | etc, this is why cars are taken off the road. | | If anything, the current batch of early generation EVs are | probably going to have shorter than average lifespans compared | to established ICEVs, not longer. | VBprogrammer wrote: | There is a someone on YouTube who works driving HGVs for a | large vehicle recycling company in the UK. I'm often | surprised by the cars that are considered end of life. Cars | which I still think of as recent models. | | It would be great to see some statistics but to me most of | the cars he picks up require some kind of major repair work | making it uneconomical to fix. Often not the engine | admittedly, the vast majority can drag themselves onto the | back of the truck under their own power (and it's so much | faster to do that than get out the winch cable that there is | a big incentive for him to try). Usually though they aren't | running correctly or have obvious issues with the clutch or | gearbox. Almost none of the modern cars suffer any | appreciable rot. | | On the other hand I've been watching the price of 1st | generation Nissan Leafs as I want one as a run around and | over the last couple of years there prices appear to have | increased. There are a couple of companies who will swap a | 40kwh battery pack into a 24kwh leaf making it a very usable | vehicle indeed, though the people doing this seem to be doing | it for sentimental reason as you can buy a 5 year newer car | with a 40kwh battery pack for the same net cost. | | The price for a full 24kwh battery appears to be in the | PS2-4k range as even with 20% degradation it's still a huge | amount of stationary storage. | greedo wrote: | I live in the Midwest (US) and all I see is cars rotting. | Cars under 5 years where the owner doesn't take care of the | paint (wash/wax etc) and the wheel wells start to rust off. | I even play a game with my kids where we watch for | "Pavement Princess" trucks that have rust. | restore_creole_ wrote: | For the million mile mark there is at least one example. | | https://insideevs.com/news/559261/tesla- | models-p85-1500000-k... | VBprogrammer wrote: | With multiple battery and drive unit replacements we may as | well call it Triggers Tesla! | | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus | restore_creole_ wrote: | It is normal for a car with that many miles to need to | have some replacement parts. There are users who have | reported going over 500,000 km on original battery (20% | degradation). | | https://twitter.com/IovePianoBlack/status/155158555774626 | 201... | VBprogrammer wrote: | There is a big difference between some replacement parts | and having all of the major components replaced multiple | times. | samatman wrote: | I think you read the engine part wrong. | | The battery pack was recalled and its replacement has | logged 1,000,000 km. | | Similarly, three of the four motors were all recalled at | the same time, the fourth one wasn't and made it to | 1,000,000 km, possibly 1,500,000 as well, the article | says they don't know. | | Parts which are recalled and replaced by the manufacturer | say something about reliability, but nothing about | durability: reliability tends to improve. | | Regardless, my point is the engines were 3/4 replaced | once, not replaced three different times. The battery was | also replaced twice, but that's because the interim was a | loaner, not because it failed twice. | tialaramex wrote: | HN seems like the sort of audience who can tell me. This is a | serious question: Why would anybody listen to Jean-Louis Gassee? | | What I see is a career of failures, at Apple, at Be, at Palm, JLG | was dealt good hands and some bad hands but played each | indifferently. Did I miss something important ? | abrichr wrote: | This is not uncommon amongst executives. It's often described | as "failing forward". | MBCook wrote: | That never stopped John C. Davorak. | | JLG is known and was at Apple. That makes him incredibly | qualified. Somehow. | | I don't know. He doesn't seem worse than many other random | columnists. | B1FF_PSUVM wrote: | A critic, ou analyst, does not need to be a good practitioner | to provide the public with interesting insights. | | The "you can't cook/compose/etc, how dare you criticize the | food/music/etc" line is rather crass. | yalogin wrote: | What is the point of this article? I guess it had good engagement | here but ultimately doesn't provide anything of value. Apple will | get into the car business if it can offer something better. | Either way the product will be wonderful if they do, and we know | they won't abandon it too. So if they get in we can see | iteratively improving product that is baseline better than | many/most. Does it happen? Who knows? | SoftTalker wrote: | I don't even think about buying cars less than 10 years old or | so. I have actually had better luck doing this than when I used | to buy cars new or nearly-new. It weeds out the lemons and the | owners who don't take care of their cars. | | Let someone else take the depreciation and find out how they hold | up in the long term. Does Apple have any history of supporting | its hardware for that long? | jononomo wrote: | I have a 2009 Toyota Prius and it has never once had a | mechanical problem. Literally the only issue it has ever had is | an inaccurate tire pressure indicator light on the dashboard. | s0rce wrote: | I was trying to do this and the market seems terrible. I can | buy a 10-12yr old car with 150k miles for >$10k (at least in | models that I was looking at). Or stuff that is hard to | maintain for $5k (which is what I'm already driving). Newer | used cars are almost as much or even more than new! Ended up | putting a deposit on a new one. | SoftTalker wrote: | True enough that used car prices have kind of gone nuts in | the past year or two. | | I look for local private sales, not dealer cars. You have to | be both patient and ready to pounce when a good deal comes | up. | drewzero1 wrote: | This is something that really worries me about current | automotive trends. Carmakers tend to assume a 10-year lifespan | for their vehicles, though last I saw the average age of cars | on the road in the US is slightly higher than that[0]. My | current car is approaching 30 and I'm planning to replace it | with something closer to 10-15 in the near future, old enough | to avoid touchscreens and new enough to not be destroyed by | rust (yet). | | With vehicles incorporating more technology, I'm concerned they | might stop lasting long enough for rust to be an issue. Tech | companies have already perfected a model of planned | obsolescence. If cars start becoming obsolete and unusable as | fast as tech products do, they won't have a chance to | depreciate enough for me to afford one. | | 0: https://ihsmarkit.com/research-analysis/average-age-of- | vehic... | bumby wrote: | I forgot where it was exactly, but I remember a discussion on | a podcast about how auto manufacturers deliberately price | their replacement electronics to force planned obsolescence. | The example brought up was an SUV that has a large display | that controls everything from HVAC to the radio. The screen | had an expected service life of something like 7 years, but a | replacement price of something like $7k. The thought was that | when people are faced with a price tag like that on a | depreciated asset, they'll be more likely to trade it in for | a new model. | | Maybe I'm just a curmudgeon but that would all but guarantee | my new model wasn't bought from the same manufacturer. | drewzero1 wrote: | Could that have been 2.5 Admins episode 78? They were | discussing the incident where a radio station broadcast a | corrupted image file that bricked Mazda radios that | received it. | bumby wrote: | I don't think so, I'm not familiar with that particular | podcast. | ARandumGuy wrote: | A full Apple Car has always seemed unrealistic to me. Cars are a | fundamentally different industry then consumer electronics and | software. Apple would be starting from scratch, and facing a lot | of entrenched competition with huge budgets and infrastructure. | | And for what? What could Apple do that GM, Toyota, or Tesla | couldn't? Maybe a better UX for the dashboard. And while many car | UXs are absolutely terrible, improving them isn't some | insurmountable challenge for existing manufacturers. And besides, | Apple could just expand carplay and partner with car | manufacturers, which seems like it would work better for everyone | involved. | agumonkey wrote: | I guess smartphones were also outside of their main field, they | were the underdog and rapidly took over. They're probably | seeking domains to replicate because phones won't sell forever. | munk-a wrote: | Personally, I'm waffling. "Gosh this is totally new hardware" | could equally well be applied to the iPod launch or a dozen | other devices - my personal doubt (that while we'll always have | some cars the number of them is going to take a real nose dive | sometime in the next two decades) is also kinda disproven by | apple. Watches were on death's doorstop except for as weird | wealthy status symbols - nobody was chomping at the bit asking | Apple to make a watch but they made one and, while it isn't | doing extremely well, it's certainly a market presence. | | So I feel like they probably could throw enough money at the | problem to come up with a solution of some kind but it also | just feels like a waste to me. | waboremo wrote: | As if Apple is just a tiny little startup looking for VC funds | to get into the automotive industry and couldn't possibly | compete with Ford. | | >And for what? | | Control over the entire driving experience. Just like they are | obsessed with controlling the experience of a phone or a tablet | and refuse to relegate aspects to partners. | | >improving them isn't some insurmountable challenge for | existing manufacturers | | You say this but yet car manufacturers continue refusing to do | so. It's been years already and sluggish screens are still | normal, a bunch of weirdly placed knobs that offer no | substantial tactile feedback, wheels that are horrible to hold, | here are 3 different screens for some ungodly reason, and list | goes on. Now this doesn't mean Apple will get everything right, | but their attention to detail isn't something to overlook here | and it's a huge advantage in a field where manufacturers have | largely gone stagnant. | | Apple can expand carplay while also manufacturing their own | car. Actually, that would be one of the greatest forms of | advertising their own car. Here's the pure experience, whereas | you're using something tainted by GM. | | To note, I'm not convinced the Apple Car will happen, but I'm | frankly confused by people with the perspective that they have | no leverage and nothing to offer here. A car with the Apple | brand and nothing new will likely push more units than several | new carmakers. | thr0wawayf00 wrote: | > You say this but yet car manufacturers continue refusing to | do so. It's been years already and sluggish screens are still | normal, a bunch of weirdly placed knobs that offer no | substantial tactile feedback, wheels that are horrible to | hold, here are 3 different screens for some ungodly reason, | and list goes on. | | The laziness of auto manufacturers is so apparent these days, | seeing reports of auto features being turned into | subscription-based offerings. I just bought a brand new car | that has a fair amount of sensor tech, which makes it | difficult to mount 3rd party devices to the windshield | because they obstruct the optical sensors. A service I would | absolutely (and begrudgingly) pay for would be a built-in | dash cam with a cloud integration. They already have all of | the tech and expertise in-house. They would make a killing | and I'm sure insurance companies would get on board too. But | no, let's attach a monthly fee to heated seats instead. | amelius wrote: | > Control over the entire driving experience. | | Impossible. The driving experience is _also_ controlled by | other road users and traffic laws, for example. | | > To note, I'm not convinced the Apple Car will happen, but | I'm frankly confused by people with the perspective that they | have no leverage and nothing to offer here. | | The Apple Watch looks sexless. Most people don't want a car | like that. | lowercased wrote: | > As if Apple is just a tiny little startup looking for VC | funds to get into the automotive industry and couldn't | possibly compete with Ford. | | Ford's market cap is $47b. Apple has more than that free cash | on hand. I suspect Apple would 'partner with', then | eventually just subsume, an existing card company, if they | really wanted to get in to this. You're buying a lot of | existing infrastructure (dealers, parts, distribution, | warehouses, etc) that would take a long time to replicate. | fullshark wrote: | > What could Apple do that GM, Toyota, or Tesla couldn't? | | I think they filed some patent that revealed their competitive | advantage was based on the premise they were uniquely capable | of extracting range and charge out of batteries via | optimizations and their experiences building consumer | electronics. If they delivered somehow an electric vehicle with | much better UX across the board they could build a healthy car | business. | zx10rse wrote: | Tesla is pretty much a software company. | | Apple or any other company that wants to step in the EV market | can be huge, if they focus on build quality and user | experience, and by user experience I don't mean just the UX | dashboard. | | There is a huge room for innovation in the automotive industry, | I argue that we still haven't saw the next Model T 100 years | later, and the industry grew a lot. | | Give the people an affordable well build, reliable, easily | serviceable car, and you might outsell Toyota Corolla. | | Apple started from scratch with the ipod, iphone, watch. Can | they do it and with a car, I don't know they certainly have the | budget, they certainly can find the talent, the only question | is do they have the vision. | askvictor wrote: | Software companies don't have to manage production, | inventory, shipping, or a heap of things that are crucial to | physical products. Tesla do a heap of interesting things in | software, but that doesn't make them pretty much a software | company. | no_wizard wrote: | Apple does do this, just not for cars. They have a massive | and fine tuned global supply chain for all their hardware | devices. | | I imagine _some_ of that expertise would play well in the | car market, but I 'm certain much as Tesla did, they may | hit road bumps along the way, however its not completely | out of their DNA to handle this sort of thing. | morcheeba wrote: | It's funny how those are the same arguments people made when a | company that built PCs started making phones. How could they | compete with Verizon?! They were thinking evolutionary, but the | iPhone had so many fundamental changes (technological, | business, social) that upended an industry and made new ones. | I'm not saying the car is a good idea, but Apple has overcome | entrenched competition before with very capable competitors. | [deleted] | hbn wrote: | They already showed off giant carplay updates at WWDC this | year. They showed a car where the entire dash was a giant wide | screen, where it even handled the speedometer, odometer, fuel | level, etc | | https://appleinsider.com/articles/22/06/09/apples-2023-carpl... | packetlost wrote: | I'd rather see standard APIs and hardware mounting systems | that let me slot in different hardware to upgrade my cars | software + screens + CPU + etc. without having to buy a new | car | babypuncher wrote: | Isn't the point of CarPlay and Android Auto to make this | possible, without needing to actually replace hardware? The | idea is to make it so the hardware in your car is just a | dumb terminal that doesn't ever need to be upgraded. Your | infotainment system gets upgraded every time you get a new | phone or iOS/Android upgrade. | packetlost wrote: | Sort of, but they don't let you control things like... | climate control, etc.. There's no real reason those APIs | can't/don't exist as long as they have proper safety | mechanisms in place. | scarface74 wrote: | Isn't that the purpose of Android Automative - not to be | confused with Android Auto? | packetlost wrote: | Yeah, but no manufacturer has implemented it to my | knowledge. Also I believe that requires being installed | on the car's head unit itself | scrlk wrote: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android_Automotive#Vehicles | _wi... | | Seems like there's quite a few cars out there with | Android Automotive? | macshome wrote: | There have long been CarPlay and Siri intents for things | like climate control but no automaker has wanted to give | up more control inside their dashboard. | tomatotomato37 wrote: | Wow, congratulations, Apple managed to hotglue a screen to | the dash. But how about the rest of the car? | | What's the seating like? Is the suspension firm or soft? How | big are its blindspots? Can it make it over a grass median | without bottoming out? What about a snow bank? How well does | the frame cope with rust? Can you manipulate its doors with a | hand full of groceries? Do the brakes fade when fully loaded? | Does it oversteer or underwater under hard cornering? | | There's so much more to a car than its dashboard and | powerplant, but I feel like 90% of SV think all you need to | do to disrupt the auto market is bolt an iPad to a motor | duped wrote: | That terrifies me | ghaff wrote: | Of course, like it or not, you're describing how Tesla does | it and again, like it or not, it's probably the direction | that a lot of car controls are headed. | dylan604 wrote: | Which is why I'm torn. I love all of the safety features, | quiet interiors, etc that modern cars have, but I really | like the simplicity of older cars (especially their lack | of privacy invading add-ons). | duped wrote: | Tesla interiors are awful (for a car, not just for a | luxury car) so I'm in the "or not" category there. It's | not just about the lack of physical dials (although | that's a factor). Everything about Tesla interiors | screams "cheap and no QA" | savagej wrote: | dylan604 wrote: | You are not alone. I like the idea that gauges are | connected directly to the thing they are measuring. | However, I may be disconnected from modern reality in that | what might look like a "traditional" gauge might already be | connected to the car's computer rather than direct | measuring. I'm just not a grease monkey to know the inner | workings. | ghaff wrote: | While my Honda Passport does have a reasonable number of | physical buttons--which probably are still fly by wire-- | I'm pretty sure all the gauge displays are all just | digital readouts of readings coming off the bus. | avianlyric wrote: | Yeah no gauge in a modern car is directly connected to | anything, except maybe the fuel gauge in a cheap car. | | Everything is being run the cars ECU, all of those gauges | are servo driven, all of them are getting their data in | the form of discrete digital values. That's assuming your | car even has physical gauges, and not just digital gauges | on a screen. | agitator wrote: | Yeah nothing in the UI is connected directly to a sensor | these days. The UI is just a display for relevant data on | the CAN bus. | | Sensors have redundancies and detections in both sensing | and communications so that the receiving end knows when | there is an issue and doesn't display false information, | resulting in an error code being thrown and displaying a | "check engine light". | [deleted] | roneythomas6 wrote: | Since iOS 13(2019) Apple CarPlay can show a second display on | the gauge cluster or HUD. AFIK no automakers have supported | it. https://www.theverge.com/2019/9/20/20875604/apple- | carplay-io... | paxys wrote: | The biggest reason that cars have horrible UX is that consumers | don't care about it. No one is buying one for how good the | speedometer looks. Give me a good performance and MPG. Make the | components last long and be serviceable. Make it look good on | the outside. Put advanced safety features. Perform well in | crash tests. A hundred more of these and _maybe_ the car will | be worth buying. | | People here are delusional when they go oh, Apple can make a | better Carplay integration and easily outsell Ford and Tesla. | rootusrootus wrote: | > People here are delusional when they go oh, Apple can make | a better Carplay integration and easily outsell Ford and | Tesla | | OTOH, why do most people buy a Tesla right now? "How good the | speedometer looks" is a pretty good description. Performance | is good, reliability awful, UI usability awful unless you | like fancy computer graphics. As a car, a Model 3/Y has a lot | of compromises and lacks many features other cars have. But | that computer screen... | | To be fair, "image seekers" (traditional automotive | terminology) most likely comprise the vast majority of Model | 3/Y buyers at this stage. This is an area where Apple has a | strong history of success. | | But I don't think it's a good fit, making cars is _expensive_ | and completely different from everything else they do. | scarface74 wrote: | I specifically don't want a Tesla because of the shitty | infotainment system and lack of support for AirPlay. | mercutio2 wrote: | There's a lot I don't like about Tesla. | | But your list of good/bad didn't include a single word | about the Supercharger network, which is the #1 reason | people who want electric vehicles choose Tesla, in my | experience. | | I agree that the big screen is annoying, but I put up with | it so I can go on road trips and not rent a car or limp | around searching for charging. | [deleted] | chroma wrote: | People buy Teslas primarily for two reasons: | | 1. The Supercharger network means you can take them on road | trips without worrying. This isn't the case for other EVs | which use the Electrify America charging network. | | 2. They're basically iPhones on wheels. | | Unlike every other car manufacturer, you get constant | software updates and improvements. Since I bought my car, | software updates have increased its power by 5%, improved | its range estimation, increased charging speeds, and it now | drives itself on surface streets (originally it only self- | drove on freeways). The UI has also been improved. Similar | to iPad OS's dock, frequently-accessed apps are | automatically shown in one area. I can also pin apps (or | menus within some apps) if I want. A ton of new features | have been added. I much prefer the current UI to the | version that my car shipped with. | | This reminds me of the debate over physical keyboards on | phones. For years after the iPhone came out, some people | swore they'd never give up their physical keyboards. And | yes, physical keyboards (just like physical buttons) do | have a lot of advantages. But you can't change them with a | software update, and you can't change them depending on | context. For most use-cases, that flexibility outweighs the | lack of tactile response. | conductr wrote: | This sounds like it's written by a male engineer. Everyone in | my life I've ever bought a car with/for has been focused on | the shiny objects and features that were so ridiculous they | appeared to be purely designed for marketing. People care. | That's why every surface is going digital, because people | care. In fact, that's a move towards worse UX, likely higher | maintenance, yet only makes sense because it looks cool. | | See smart tvs and good luck finding an old dumb tv these | days. | | That's not to say I don't agree with your conclusion. Apple | has to do a lot more than make the best dash app ever to sell | cars. But then again, they don't manufacture anything | themselves as is and do just fine. I'm sure they could find a | Foxconn like partner in the automotive space. | randcraw wrote: | You describe only one reason for choosing a car: utility. But | cars are often chosen for other reasons: style, status, some | cool factor or compelling feature. UX is generally not a | dealmaker, especially since nobody outside the car sees it. | But bad UX definitely can be a deal _breaker_. | | For me, a good example of this is recent BMWs. The instrument | cluster on 2 and 3 series models is hideous -- misshapen | dials, poor color choices, bling where there should be | understatement. The days of simply communicating only | essential info elegantly are long gone. I simply would not | buy a car with a dashboard that ugly. (These insights should | matter to BMW since I've driven and loved their cars for 30 | years, but oddly they haven't sought my opinion. Alas, it | shows.) | | Bad UX is indeed important to some of us. | treis wrote: | I think it's looking at Tesla's 875 billion dollar market cap | and saying "I can do that". Which I think they can. They'll | sell a ton of cars on brand alone so long as they don't mess it | up. | | It's kind of an interesting dichotomy. You can look at Toyota, | GM, Tesla, etc. and say why would Apple be interested in those | profits. But then you look at Tesla's market cap and then it's | obvious why Apple would want some of that. | | Ultimately I think the Apple car (and Tesla) is a long term | bust. Automotive manufacturing is a well trod industry with, | frankly, too many companies as is. I don't see how they could | ever generate the sort of profits long term that the market | caps imply. | scarface74 wrote: | Tesla is basically an overrated meme stick by any reasonable | valuation. | | Apple isn't going to get that type of added market cap based | on adding an addition $3 billion in net profit (what Tesla | made) | munk-a wrote: | Tesla definitely has some smoke and mirrors going on and is | clearly overvalued but I feel like calling them a meme | stock at this point is pretty inaccurate. Teslas are on the | road doing things and the company is selling them in pretty | serious quantities... all against the seemingly iron willed | determination of Elon Musk to bankrupt the company by | creating a PR nightmare and wasting money. | scarface74 wrote: | Compare their sales and profits to other car makers. They | are grossly overvalued | qaq wrote: | Compare their sales growth to other car makers. Compare | their profit margins to other car makers. | scarface74 wrote: | Yes just like every startup. "We had 1% of the market and | grew to 2%. We doubled in the last year and are growing | much faster than the incumbents". | | In what rational world should Tesla have a PE of 20x GM? | qaq wrote: | We will pretty much know in the next few years. If they | deliver 2 mil in 2023 and 4mil in 2024 that would be a | very good indicator. | treis wrote: | Yes, but as a counter point they are grossly overvalued. | If you can get the same gross overvaluation, which Apple | probably can, then why not do it? Especially if you can | goose the stock price long enough to hit your bonus | metrics and cash out. | scarface74 wrote: | The markets aren't going to value Apple like Tesla just | because they enter the same industry. Tesla has an | earning multiple right now of 99.52x compared to Apple's | 25.3x. | | Adding another 4 billion in profits when it already makes | around $19.44B is not going to get the market to value | its stock higher anymore than Disney adding streaming | helped it to be worth the multiple that Netflix was. | | But the market can stay irrational longer than most | people can stay solvent | r00fus wrote: | Overvalued, yes. Completely? Hell no. | sk55 wrote: | Once autonomous technology becomes mainstream, UX becomes the | differentiating factor. I think Apple would have a lot to | offer. | anamexis wrote: | And the entire rest of the car as well... | packetlost wrote: | The winds don't seem to be blowing in the direction of true | autonomous driving through. The hype cycle seems to have died | down and the sense of reality is setting in. | mberning wrote: | Capitulation on "full self driving" is here. Most | manufacturers will be lucky to get level 3 automation by | the end of the decade | bryanlarsen wrote: | Level 3 is widely considered to be a bad idea. Relying on | a driver to take over quickly is a recipe for disaster. | ghaff wrote: | I suspect that the next phase is some sort of | "acceptance" around the limited conditions where full | autonomy might be viable in the next decade+. E.g. | limited access highways in x lighting/weather conditions. | Which actually seems pretty interesting. It's just | probably a very big gut-punch to anyone who thought | they'd never have to drive/own a car outside of some very | limited areas by about now. | soperj wrote: | I don't exactly see Apple as a AI powerhouse, maybe that's | coloured by Siri though. | fdye wrote: | So I've always wondered if Apple actually building a 'car' was | ever really the goal. It seems like a skunkworks where they try | crazy things and then incorporate into Carplay. Future seems to | be ever expanding Carplay support. I use it and probably would | not buy another car that did not have it integrated. I imagine | car manufacturers are somewhat tired of always building HUDs and | in vehicle control systems. So gradually standardizing on a way | to take all the displays/touchscreens in a vehicle and let them | be run by Carplay seems like the future. Eventually, they can | start handing more and more of the software side (not their | specialty) off to people cellphones via some interface, | particularly around media. As the ubiquiti of the M1/M2 type chip | is found in all of our pockets (embedded ML silicon), the car | companies will no longer have to actually embed it in a vehicle | as an add on. Plugging in your phone with an M1/M2 type chip will | unlock Siri or similar AI functionality in the vehicle. Sure it | will drive without it, just like it does now, but it wont be | 'cool' and have all the assist, nav, and media functionality | everyone wants. | dzhiurgis wrote: | Seeing how boring Carplay has been so far I'd have my doubts | about skunkworks. That said it makes sense they might be | working on exclusive operating system of sorts. The way car | systems (100s of suppliers and their implementation) work | nowadays is insane. | bergenty wrote: | I don't know what you mean by "boring" but CarPlay is | fantastic. It works really well and covers most things I'd | like to do with a central console. | dzhiurgis wrote: | You are right, maybe because it's boring it is good, but | IMO its not fantastic. Main use case is using google maps | in a pretty inconvenient way... | | Like, you iOS doesn't support my language maybe then just | let me read message on that massive screen. | | And if my kids want to watch peppa pig - let them? Blocking | video from central console is such immature safety feature. | ghaff wrote: | "Boring" is good compared to most of the systems the car | manufacturers came up with. A some of them still manage to | screw up the integration of CarPlay with their own | infotainment systems which often don't seem to want to get | out of the way. | randomdata wrote: | The display of outside temperature is a curious oversight. | That's the one thing I find myself regularly toggling back | to the native console for. | | iOS plasters that information all over the place when | running on the device itself, so it is not like it is out | of character. | Tiktaalik wrote: | CarPlay does _not_ work well at all on my 2018 Golf. There | 's a multitude of obvious, awful bugs. (eg. audio | directions not occurring, but nonetheless ducking spotify | audio for them) | Kon-Peki wrote: | > audio directions not occurring, but nonetheless ducking | spotify audio for them | | FYI - there are two different audio "sources" at play: | "music" and "announcements". Your "announcements" volume | is set to 0. | | Not that I have any idea how to change that on _your_ | car, but on my VWAG car I can adjust the "announcements" | volume by turning the volume dial while it is speaking | the directions (or not, in your case) | scarface74 wrote: | How much of that is the fault of shitty CarPlay hardware | in most cars? We see how well things like AirPlay works | when Apple controls both ends of the hardware. | munk-a wrote: | Probably about 90%? Apple is writing software in an | attempt to replace native software and whenever their | software doesn't perform as well as the native software | performs it's on them. | | I do understand that Apple needs to integrate with | hardware from hundreds of different manufacturers and I | feel their pain - but nobody is twisting their arm and | forcing them into the market. | | I'm sure 10% of the time or so the car maker is just | being completely incompetent in using incompatible | hardware or switching things out at the last minute | without warning - but yea, mostly on Apple. | giobox wrote: | I think this is a fair take, and I've had similar thoughts too. | However, one thing computer industry people don't seem to get | is how much the idea of Apple owning the "dials" on the | instrument cluster as shown in the keynote this year will | likely go down like a cup of cold sick at most European auto | makers. In many cases the designs or colors used in the dial | faces have decades of brand history behind them. | | Regardless of what customers desire, auto-makers are in no rush | to become just a dumb pipe for apple or google's driving | software. So far not one automaker has of yet publicly | announced support or plans to support the more extensive | CarPlay Apple demoed. I think if it does ship, it will need to | support far, far more customization on interface and dial-faces | than was shown in the keynote for auto-makers not to feel | totally sold out of the cabin. | | It was slightly disappointing to me I've only really seen Nilay | Patel at the Verge in the media point this out; anyone with | experience of the car industry I think will come to a similar | conclusion. People may forget, it took a very long time for | some automakers to even trust adding the existing CarPlay, | partly due to concerns regarding loss of control of cabin | features. Old CarPlay is is a far less intrusive system than | the one Apple are proposing now. | | As a thought experiment - if I personally ran BMW or Mercedes, | I would have real concerns about dilution of the brand by | adopting a generic industry wide car UI, even if I also think | Apple would probably do a great job. Maybe the carrot of Apple | solving autonomy as part of the package might be enough to | swing the deal, but even there, I think in time legacy | automakers will work out who to aqui-hire to build their own | systems instead of selling out completely. | | > https://www.theverge.com/2022/6/7/23157963/apple-carplay- | nex... | no_wizard wrote: | I'm willing to bet that Apple will lay down some cash to get | car manufacturers on board if they think it will increase | lock-in for iOS (and therefore the iPhone and other devices) | by a certain margin. | | Google I'm sure has its own incentives to do this. | | Too early to tell if this will be the case or not. | TheCondor wrote: | Making the iPhone more sticky seems like a solid play. Use the | phone in place of a key. Keep maintenance records on the phone. | Tap a few buttons on the app and give the dealer a virtual key | to the car so you can get it serviced. States are already | putting IDs in to apps and the wallet. etc.. Maybe use the | phone for various road passes and such, that seems like an easy | and natural extension. | | Around the time the self-driving craze sort of took off, the | noise in the echo chamber was that Apple was terribly far | behind in 2 main categories: services and AI/ML. Now, they're | charging ahead with services and they've got custom ML hardware | on every single device they sell. A car seems like too big of a | project with too much hype to use as a forcing function for all | that stuff. | | Seems like there are some strong health and safety plays as | well. If you have a watch on, it already can do fall detection. | Car crash detection is a logical next step, if all the | passengers had watches on, they could start sending real-time | telemetry to the paramedics, maybe encourage them to prioritize | a passenger that was in greater distress. With the cameras and | such, there is absolutely enough processing power in your | iPhone to look for drivers falling asleep and with some other | data they could probably make a pretty good guess if you're | intoxicated. | | My concern was that Apple would make a car and it would be a | McLaren or something, it would be coveted, look amazing, and be | just about completely unattainable. Now if I could buy a Toyota | or a Hyundai and just plug my phone in and it became the brain | of the car? I'd talk myself in to taking a new car for a test | drive to try it. | chroma wrote: | > Making the iPhone more sticky seems like a solid play. Use | the phone in place of a key. Keep maintenance records on the | phone. | | Apple already does this,[1] though not many car manufacturers | support it (BMW and a few models from Kia). | | Teslas let you use any iPhone or Android phone as the key. | You can also use your phone to turn on valet mode (which | limits acceleration and max speed) and track and control the | car (turn on heat/AC, lock/unlock, view through the cameras, | etc). Lastly, you can book service or request roadside | assistance from the phone app. It's all very handy, and I'm | surprised more car companies haven't copied these features | yet. | | 1. https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT211234 | nradov wrote: | Almost every new car sold in the developed world has a display | in the dashboard, but very few actually have a Heads-Up Display | (HUD) projected in the driver's line of sight. It's mostly just | premium models from GM and BMW that come with this feature. | It's a shame that more cars don't have a HUD as it really does | help to reduce driver distractions. | dlandis wrote: | > It's mostly just premium models from GM and BMW that come | with this feature. | | Some Mazda SUVs (e.g. CX-3) had a HUD starting back in 2018 | or earlier. | [deleted] | criddell wrote: | Volvo has a HUD projected on the windshield. | saiya-jin wrote: | This is by far the best feature of our BMW F10 (manufactured | in 2014 IIRC). I _hate_ the distraction of constantly | checking my speed in town, where there is a mix of dense | traffic, many obstacles, outright stupid cyclists ignoring | all traffic rules and aggressive motorcycles drivers and tons | of radars that fine _hard_. | | I've noticed with my previous car (also BMW, E46 that I will | remember fondly for the rest of my life as amazing car but | not due to this) that if I looked at speed, my peripheral | sight of whats happening on the actual road was almost 0. I | _may_ notice break lights of car close to me if its newer | car, or an atomic blast, but anything else simply no. Just | something very bad waiting to happen. | | Its such a great safety feature even with minimal info | (current speed, current speed limit, and if car navigation is | on some basic directions, but maybe thats the key, don't | clutter it with too much info) that I would make it mandatory | if I were EU and subsidize it. | bombcar wrote: | I've often thought that we should use that massively huge A | pillar for some simple gauges, such as speed | nradov wrote: | Gauges on the A-pillar would interfere with airbag | deployment. | spogbiper wrote: | I think all the Genesis models have them | lttlrck wrote: | It seems Mercedes are not going that direction at all with with | the EQ range. They've gone all in, the MMI is deeply embedded | into the car, speech recognition runs locally, it can control | performance mode, seat massagers, huge swathes of car specific | functionality, via speech, that I think Apple would have an | uphill to catch up with, universally, across all vendors. | | I doubt the upper tier of manufacturers would be happy with | mere UI skins either. | | Cars that are more like appliances, shared cars, with user | customization in your phone, maybe that could work? | johannes1234321 wrote: | > imagine car manufacturers are somewhat tired of always | building HUDs and in vehicle control systems. So gradually | standardizing on a way to take all the displays/touchscreens in | a vehicle and let them be run by Carplay seems like the future. | | What is then remaining as distinctive feature of a car vendor? | The design? | | With their custom entertainment system they can confront they | driver with their own brand identity and differentiate how they | integrate the different features. | | But with EVs the engines aren't as different as fossil fuel | engines, they don't have their gear shifting with that | adjustment anymore. Lots of brand vlauebis lost and becomes | obvious to the buyer that cars are 95% the same across brands. | dmonitor wrote: | You say that as if it were a bad thing. I'd rather a good | entertainment system than the shite that Toyota puts the bare | minimum effort into. | r00fus wrote: | Toyota are so glaringly bad these days. Their horrible BT | implementation on our age-old Sienna really ticks me off on | a daily basis. | cercatrova wrote: | > _these days_ | | > _age-old Sienna_ | | Interesting dichotomy there. I have a modern Toyota and | BlueTooth works just fine. | misterprime wrote: | My wife has a previous gen RAV4. I have a current gen | Corolla Hybrid. The interface is VERY similar. However, | she has a physical play/pause button on her RAV4 while my | Corolla does not. This is INCREDIBLY frustrating because | when you start the car, it MIGHT automatically resume | your media. Sometimes this is OK, but other times, it is | interrupting a conversation and losing your spot in the | podcast you're listening to. A pause button is the | perfect solution. However, in the Corolla, you have to | wait about 30 seconds before you can tap the touch screen | to switch to the audio touch controls, then wait a second | or so before you can tap the touch screen pause button. | | TLDR: Toyota removed the physical play/pause button and | it's really annoying. | r00fus wrote: | Same energy as complaining about not being able to provide | customer with "dazzling box cover art design" because digital | downloads made shelf boxes irrelevant. | | Cars have handling, space, looks... just about everything | else other than the dash/touchscreen is meaningful | competition space. | bobthepanda wrote: | Yeah, we sold cars for the better part of a century without | digital entertainment systems, so we can go back to that | not being a differential. | | Particularly when it seems like none of these bespoke | entertainment systems raise the bar, and instead the | standard seems to be "not annoying and in the way." | wil421 wrote: | Not really my wife's BMW and my Jeep are both SUVs. They are | pretty different and Jeep has started offering off road | Hybrids. Eventually both companies will offer full EVs in | existing lineups. The BMW is much better to drive but I | wouldn't take it off road. EVs will continue to fill the | niche gaps their consumers want. | cercatrova wrote: | Who buys cars for their HUD? I buy cars for their | performance, miles per gallon (or electric equivalent), brand | value, etc. | noelsusman wrote: | It's in my top 3 criteria along with reliability and energy | efficiency. Performance is probably dead last for me, | assuming some reasonable floor (i.e. I can safely merge | onto the highway). | | It's something I'm going to interact with on a near daily | basis, so it's important that it doesn't piss me off. | dasil003 wrote: | Not sure, but a car with good physical controls might jump | to the top of the list. | dagmx wrote: | It was definitely a factor for us, especially as more cars | move to all Software interfaces. A laggy or unintuitive | system ranges from annoying everyday to dangerous. | dionidium wrote: | It was a significant factor for me when I last bought a | car. | Rebelgecko wrote: | I've only test driven a few cars equipped with HUDs, but | it's a super cool feature. I can see the value of a car | that projects nav directions in addition to the more | standard things like current speed. There's even phone apps | you can use to simulate a HUD, if you keep your windshield | clean. | criddell wrote: | Me. Just about any car is fine as far as performance goes. | All I really care about are the creature comforts in the | cabin and the infotainment system (or whatever they call it | now) is a big part of that. | robotcapital wrote: | Another anecdote, but this is exactly how I chose my last | car. I went to CarMax, filtered by CarPlay integration, and | then chose from what was available. In fact, the lack of | CarPlay integration is one of the main reasons I didn't | consider a Tesla at the time. | | From basic things like a snappy interface and keeping my | podcasts in sync, to suggesting the destination based on | the recent maps search I did from my phone on the way to | the car, the attention to detail makes it a better | experience. I don't particularly get any joy out of | driving. I just want to get to my destination safely and | quickly, and CarPlay makes the process less taxing. | smm11 wrote: | Today I learned that people pick a car based on how well | it integrates with a cell phone. | mrkurt wrote: | People use the infotainment in cars almost as much as the | actual driving interface. It's not all that weird! | bombcar wrote: | I can see it especially if the various models are | "similar" - I chose my last used car from Hertz from a | field of two - based on how well the iPhone played music | with the radio. Other than that the cars were | functionally identical for me. | BurningFrog wrote: | Cars are a very mature technology, if you're not a car | hobbyist, and the different brands are not very | different. | | The new-ish field of screen and cell phone probably has | the most differentiation right now. | dhosek wrote: | The last few times I've rented a car it's had CarPlay and | based on those experiences, the next time I buy a car, it | _must_ have CarPlay. The experience without it is just so | poor (and don't get me started on how ridiculously bad | the experience of pairing bluetooth is in my parent's car | which requires a mix of voice commands and button presses | in a completely undiscoverable way). | TylerE wrote: | Once you get used to Waze on the big screen it's really | hard to go back. | dalyons wrote: | yup! me too. Thats how i ended up buying a new car | instead of a recent second-hand version of the same. | Carplay was an absolute non-negotiable must have. | ptmcc wrote: | Cabin usability and ergonomics are a huge selling point. | CarPlay & HUDs are just one piece of that, but it a | critical piece of the overall usability experience. | | Getting into a car that has a pre-CarPlay infotainment | system feels like stepping back decades in time even though | the car may only be a few years old. Slow, unresponsive, | buggy, and just extremely unpleasant and unnatural to use. | | IMO, cars that predate screen-based infotainment systems | have aged far better than pre-CarPlay systems. OEMs are | just disastrously bad and behind the times at building a | quality infotainment system. Mirroring the smartphone that | everyone already has is a fantastic solution. | | It's a very good thing that CarPlay shifts so much of the | responsibility out of the car and into the smartphone, | something that is much more easily and frequently upgraded. | cercatrova wrote: | I'm getting a lot of responses and it seems I can't edit my | previous comment. To clarify, I mean who buys cars | primarily for their built-in infotainment system that's not | Android Auto or Apple CarPlay? If a car has either one, | then I don't really care what it comes built-in with | because I won't be using it. Beyond that, other factors are | necessary too such as MPG as I mentioned. | e63f67dd-065b wrote: | Speaking as somebody who doesn't care at all about cars, | the primary things that would drive my car purchase would | be: | | - Cost (per unit distance in fuel, maintenance, etc) | | - Comfort (which includes integration with other software, | ie Carplay) | | I don't care about "performance"; I don't even know what | that means, and frankly I don't care. The car needs to get | from my house to some other point on the map and back | cheaply and comfortably. | kingkongjaffa wrote: | The only reason I'm considering upgrading my 2011 Audi to a | newer one is the technology. The car itself is great but | it's got crappy stop start features, crappy | audio/infotainment tech, bad A/C etc. | topkai22 wrote: | It is relatively cheap to upgrade the infotainment | systems on most cars. Apple and android compatible | systems start as low as $350. | | I did a self install on a 2010 ford Escape after my kids | killed the radio (by inserting pennies into the cd | slot...). Between that upgrade and new tires it was like | driving a new car. | Moto7451 wrote: | I didn't buy my Audi for the HUD (or other UI) but I'm | unlikely to buy another one after: | | 1. The Android based entertainment system regularly | crashes. 2. The non-android based digital center cluster is | designed so poorly as to have the date in two to three | places and fuel levels hidden by default. 3. Safety systems | that will needlessly engage the brakes because it believes | that driving past the backed up left turn lane on a gently | curving road is an imminent head on collision. | | I've learned to work around these issues for the most part. | Disabling all the wireless hardware reduces, but does not | eliminate entertainment crashes. I memorized the steering | wheel dial flicks to get the fuel gauge to display. I turn | off the safety features. | | Most of the car is very nice. The software stack is | honestly something Audi should have outsourced to a | competent development team elsewhere in the automotive | industry. | crooked-v wrote: | Well, I'd say there's a difference between HUD and | infotainment. I might be influenced in a car decision by | the actual HUD and its useful features (for example: the | blind spot cameras on some new cars), but the infotainment | screen between the driver and passenger is almost always | just an annoying barrier between me and having the | music/podcasts/whatever + maps from my phone playing in the | car. | agumonkey wrote: | A good interface helps performance in a way. If I don't | have the right information and have to work at it I get | slower reflexes. | thinkling wrote: | I was thinking along those lines, but the majority of phones | are Android and I can't see a car manufacturer tying major | features of a vehicle to users of Apple phones. | | Do they get Google to implement equivalent Android features | just as CarPlay and Android Auto are complementary now? In some | ways that makes sense (you get the personal assistant you | prefer instead of one provided by the car company) but it means | differentiation must be limited because the car can't change | _too_ much depending on what phone is plugged into it. | paxys wrote: | Can't say about building or selling an entire car, but they did | have a _massive_ self driving division which went nowhere. | mardifoufs wrote: | Is their self driving division still active? | modeless wrote: | More than ever if I go by how often I see their cars on the | road. Three yesterday. | als0 wrote: | What do they look like? | lucky_cloud wrote: | Some photos here, although this is from 2017 | | https://appleinsider.com/articles/17/04/27/apples-self- | drivi... | jedberg wrote: | SUVs with car size iPhones on top. I see them almost | every day here in Cupertino. | hindsightbias wrote: | > functionality everyone wants | | Depressing if manufacturers and users want more chip/software | dependencies after the last two years of supply chain fun. | Rebelgecko wrote: | For better or for worse (IMO _mostly_ better), users care | more about features than the tech that goes into making those | features work | sytelus wrote: | HUDs are the small part of the story. far more important thing | is what sensors you have access to and what can you control? | Car manufactures are notoriously behind and bad on properly | expanding and standardizing both sensors and controls. So, it | is impossible to deliver consistent experience and | capabilities. Even in 2022, most manufacturer haven't still | figured out how to do firmware update without using USB drives. | You can't even use phone to unlock cars. These are not hard | things, but car manufacturers just can't get around to do it | given their ancient and inefficient supply chains and factories | which are only optimized for price wars, not leap-frogging | experience. CarPlay is great for music and may be some cute | graphics of basic gauges but the real value ultimately lies in | some level of self-driving, assisted features and holistic | integration which cannot be enabled without having complete | control of hardware. | MuffinFlavored wrote: | > Car manufactures are notoriously behind and bad on properly | expanding and standardizing both sensors and controls. | | Does Tesla make their own sensors and are they "ahead of the | curve"? | wwweston wrote: | > Even in 2022, most manufacturer haven't still figured out | how to do firmware update without using USB drives. | | This... makes sense to me? Physical access and automotive | service go hand-in-hand. Over-the-air presents update hell | and security issues. | usefulcat wrote: | I dunno, a billion dollars a year (for 8 years) for CarPlay | skunkworks seems like a bit much even for Apple.. | MDWolinski wrote: | Let's take a look at it. I'm sure Apple is getting paid in | some way for CarPlay integration. Now if the next generation | has higher level of integration that car manufacturers use it | instead of their own built software, there's certainly money | flowing to Apple. | | So, let's say that Honda starts integrating it into their | vehicles. In 2020, 1.3mm vehicles. Of course, initially, not | every car Honda sells will have CarPlay installed, but a few | years out, let's assume every vehicle does. | | If Apple got 2% of the selling price of the vehicle. Across | all Honda models, the starting MSRP averages out to about | $32,091. So, on average, Apple would get $641 per vehicle | sold. Over the course of a year (if every vehicle sold with | it), just from Honda, Apple would get $833mm. Add in a few | more larger manufacturers and it's not a bad investment. | lotsofpulp wrote: | https://www.macworld.com/article/233855/carplay-faq.html | | > Whether it costs money to get CarPlay support in your car | is up to its manufacturer. While Apple doesn't charge | automakers a fee for the necessary software to integrate | CarPlay, there are some costs associated with meeting the | necessary hardware requirements. | | The only reason an automaker does not include CarPlay is to | try and keep their product from becoming a commodity. It | was disappointing to see Toyota be stubborn and refuse | CarPlay for so many years. | dmitriid wrote: | That, and greed. Looking at how many features car | manufacturers keep behind absolutely meaningless | arbitrary levels and packages, it's just ... argh | xxpor wrote: | When you have that much cash on hand, is it really? | boringg wrote: | I mean how much of a return can carplay generate on an | initial investment of 8 billion and on-going OPEX even if | selling to all the manufacturers (which it isn't). | | I think the point is that it was unlikely their intention | to be building solely for carplay and an actual car was a | bonus. However if they wind down the hardware play of an | actual car this could be something that soften those sunk | costs. | 32995844 wrote: | Imagine a world where the car manufacturers no longer | deal with software development for the vehicle, but | instead you have a licensing agreement with Apple where | CarPlay _is_ the interface. Similar to Volvo and Google | and Android Automotive. A lot of car manufacturers are | standardizing around Android in general (see Acura, | Volvo, BMW). If Apple could get in with an A-series chip | and a custom software stack, then that would probably be | a decent amount of money through some hardware purchasing | and software licensing. Look at how Cariad (the VAG | stack) blew up schedules for upcoming Porsche and Audi | models and early versions of it were laggy, missing | features, OTA updates are slow /non-existant, etc. If | Apple can get their foot in the door, it opens up new | service opportunities for things like Apple Music | alongside any licensing, which may be the bigger goal. | spockz wrote: | Given the thread on Volvo and polestar bemoaning all the | issues with the new Android Auto versions, I'm not so | eager to continue in that trend. Let the car companies do | what they do best. Build an automotive grade car that | does the car thing really well and leave the | entertainment to the CarPlay. Getting hud and center | driver console display driven by CarPlay would be awesome | though. | bombcar wrote: | Looks like that might be coming in 2023 if the CarPlay | site is any hint: https://www.apple.com/ios/carplay/ | | >Next generation of CarPlay | | This next generation of CarPlay is the ultimate iPhone | experience for the car. It provides content for all the | driver's screens including the instrument cluster, | ensuring a cohesive design experience that is the very | best of your car and your iPhone. Vehicle functions like | radio and temperature controls are handled right from | CarPlay. And personalization options ranging from widgets | to selecting curated gauge cluster designs make it unique | to the driver. | scarface74 wrote: | If it convinced people to buy high margin iPhones a lot. | Not to mention with the push into services, what's the | lifetime value of an iPhone customer. | a4isms wrote: | The five pillars of revenue are: | | 1. Selling a thing. | | 2. Selling add-ons and upgrades to a thing. | | 3. Selling other things to people who bought one of your | things. | | 4. Preventing people who are subscribing to your thing | from switching to somebody else's thing. | | 5. Preventing your competition from commoditizing things | and driving prices down. | | (There aren't really just five, there is no one "theory | of everything," it's just a literary device.) | | CarPlay is obviously #1 "Selling a thing," manufacturers | license it. But it could also be #4 "Preventing people | who are subscribing to your thing from switching to | somebody else's thing." | | If automobiles all have their own proprietary interfaces | or worse, Android Auto, people who drive cars may end up | buying phones that integrate nicely with their cars and | ditching their iPhones. | | If my conjecture is correct, Apple is investing in | CarPlay to protect the most profitable product the world | has ever seen. | madeofpalk wrote: | Apple refuses to fund development of their own apps and | platforms, yet sinks a billion into Carplay? | a4isms wrote: | Something, something, "put the armour where the holes | aren't." | | If you are selling a lot of phones and tablets and laptops | with your apps and platforms as they are, you don't want to | invest billions in making them better just to make your | existing customers stop complaining. They bought your | product anyways, clearly whatever they're complaining about | wasn't a deal-breaker. | | You only want to invest in your own apps and platforms in | areas where improvements would drive meaningful business | outcomes. So you need to look at features that would cause | someone who would otherwise buy a Samsung phone to buy an | iPhone. Or you need to find people who didn't but an iPhone | or iPad or AppleTV or OS X laptop and figure out if there | is something that can be added to the product to get people | to switch. | | In the case of a dominant player like Apple, those are hard | to find in the mainline product. Big new sources of revenue | are most likely to come from entirely new product areas | (thus their investment in phones, watches, tablets, and | set-top boxes) or from going down-market and making | commodity products. | | They're allergic to cutting margins to the bone, so we're | left with trying to find new markets, and that is why they | invest so much in an automobile skunkworks while being much | more careful about investing in the products that are | already successful. | davzie wrote: | Imagine not being able to control basic aspects of your car | like heating and stuff because you forgot or choose not to use | a smartphone! | [deleted] | ericmay wrote: | Is there a car on the market where this is the case? I'm not | sure why that would be anything to worry about. I don't think | any manufacturer except potentially Apple would require this | for safety and competitive reasons. | stephc_int13 wrote: | The competitive advantages of Apple are a strong brand, a huge | stack of cash, world-class software and silicon engineers and | second-to-none operations to build and sell millions of high-tech | devices. | | They can make a car if they want to make a car. They could also | make nice planes and boats... | | The question is, how competitive can they be in this market? | | I think they are too fat. | aetherane wrote: | I don't get why Apple's user experience keeps being repeated as | "second to none". It really depends on what you are doing and | used to. I personally find Android easier to use than iOS, but | maybe I would feel differently if I haven't been using it for a | while. | PlsDntBan wrote: | pGuitar wrote: | Apple always had anti-consumer rules for their products... not | sure why it finally took off. | boxed wrote: | Besides them inventing the modern smart phone and | revolutionizing an industry? | | What did the romans ever do for US? :P | pGuitar wrote: | They did start the phones as we know them today.... but | better Android ones with slide out keyboards came out soon | after | norin wrote: | they gave us Nokia | norin wrote: | Nokia? | davmar wrote: | brought peace? | smoldesu wrote: | All Apple did is commodify the industry, and that business | model has proven to be successful for them (same as it was | with the iPod). | | At the end of the day, Apple's contributions to technology | aren't chivalric acts of kindness. Their ultimate goal is | the same as everyone, running a rent collection business | and relying on their services to make consistent income. | _That 's_ what I think we need to fix. Apple can continue | to make phones, we just need to separate their services | (the App Store, Apple Music, Apple TV, Podcasts, etc.) from | their hardware business. If they did that, I might actually | buy a Mac again! | scarface74 wrote: | A commodity is something by definition that is easily | substitutable and you have to compete on price. Apple | products are anything but a "commodity". This is kinda | Econ 101. | stevage wrote: | Agreed. And just look at the debacles of their various mice and | keyboards to see how much they actually care about delivering | great user experience for everyone. They prioritise "design" | and company image every time. | [deleted] | supervillain wrote: | A suggestion for Apple. | | 1. Apple is worth $2.44 trillion USD; pay off the whole $240 | billion USD debt owed by the Philippines. | | 2. Establish Apple HQ facilities in the Philippines and employ | the vast majority of the country's talented software engineers | there. | | 3. Take advantage of the cheap labour, low costs, and high | standard of living to ride the wave of unending profit. | | This is how you turn things around and switch the lightbulb. | [deleted] | barbazoo wrote: | It's a fun thought experiment, I'm wondering though, what | problem would that solve? | zffr wrote: | > pay off the whole $240 billion USD debt owed by the | Philippines. | | Why do this? | [deleted] | endisneigh wrote: | Apple already does (3) without (2) or (1). I expected a more | interesting plan from a supervillain | MrBuddyCasino wrote: | _takes huge bong hit_ this is how you turn things around and | switch the lightbulb | bergenty wrote: | Terrible idea, the Philippines is not known for innovation. | paxys wrote: | They can set up a facility and employ people in a country | without paying off their debt. What exactly does Philippines | have to offer that others don't? | supervillain wrote: | If the Philippine debt is repaid, you'll have established the | new Silicon Valley, complete with a talent pool dominated by | software engineers and a large number of blockchain and AI | experts. | danaris wrote: | I think it would be a very bad move to do something like this | right now, when the Philippines is still run by the close- | enough-to-fascist-to-make-little-difference dictator Duterte. | Just as _one_ example of why doing anything that even _appears_ | to legitimize and support him (or anything that puts you or | yours in his power) is a bad idea, his way of dealing with | "the drug problem" is just to kill drug users outright. To the | tune of tens of thousands. | | I certainly feel for the people of the Philippines, and setting | up a major Apple HQ there would likely improve their | opportunities somewhat, but as long as Duterte or anyone like | him is in charge there, there are just so many reasons not to | make any significant commitments to the Philippines. | [deleted] | ncmncm wrote: | They could have bought Tesla, once. Too late now. | pryelluw wrote: | I don't see the point of them selling a car. Expanding CarPlay is | more realistic. Let the automakers produce the vehicle code and | apple takes care of the screens and what nots. I'd love to be | able to build iOS apps for my car. Though as someone who values | consumer and ownership rights, it might not be a great idea after | all. | strulovich wrote: | Tesla has a $886m market cap as of today, that's a third of | Apple's. | | There's money to be made selling cars, a lot of money. | | If all Apple does is CarPlay, they don't get that money. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-09-27 23:01 UTC)