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Apple receives permit in California to test self-driving cars

uk.reuters.com

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Re: Apple receives permit in California to test self-driving cars

#131

Post by rifung »

mvpu wrote: post #128

Wow. Amazon is probably working on it too. Great that 10 years from now we'll be seeing Teslas, Apples, Googles and Amazons on the road more than Fords, Chevys, Hondas and Nissans. Interesting times.

I'm not sure that's actually the case. It's still up in the air whether Apple, Google, and Amazon are actually going to be building the cars or just building software/hardware that auto manufacturers can add to their cars.

I suspect, at least in the beginning, they will just be building autonomous technology and letting the auto manufacturers add it to their cars.

Re: Apple receives permit in California to test self-driving cars

#132

Post by marklubi »

ianamartin wrote: post #96
APPLthrowaway99 wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disclaimer: If it wasn't clear from the username, this is a throwaway. I don't want to endanger my business by associating my rant with my >7 year old HN account :-( There is a 0% chance that I would ever purchase a car from Apple with their self driving functionality in it. We recently had issues with a whole bunch of rejections of our app for reasons that are not clearly defined in their guidelines (allegedly they…

You . . . argue that you wouldn't trust an apple car on the basis that they make good hardware, but you have a software dispute with apple? I'm sure you are very frustrated, but this comment really doesn't make sense to me. I would tend to think of an apple car as hardware, which you admit is good. And it's probably being driven by apple software, which is sometimes iffy and buggy and downright crappy. I can't imagin…

It looks like the comment you were replying to was trying to equate dealing with oil changes/maintenance to poor customer support in an ongoing relationship.

I don't know that I can fault them for feeling frustrated with Apple's support. The number of times that things have been made obsolete by Apple after just a couple of years doesn't lend a lot of confidence to the thought of a vehicle purchase that you may wish to own for 10+ years.

Re: Apple receives permit in California to test self-driving cars

#133

Post by ams6110 »

chickenbane wrote: post #37
dcwca wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Apple has the best DNA to build cars. They know how to manufacture in scale. Something tells me shipping your phones off to be built by other people in China and building your own auto assembly factories from scratch are two completely separate things.

> Something tells me shipping your phones off to be built by other people in China and building your own auto assembly factories from scratch are two completely separate things. This is the question. Indeed, an electric auto is far simpler to manufacture than a legacy auto. Drastically less parts. Similarly, Tesla has demonstrated huge value in software component of the car, from the app, dashboard, OTA updates, not…

an electric auto is far simpler to manufacture than a legacy auto

That may be the case but it's a solved problem. Legacy makers can churn out engines and transmissions on automated lines with no difficulty. Other than the engine and transmission, the rest of the car is about the same.

Re: Apple receives permit in California to test self-driving cars

#134

Post by jes5199 »

weaksauce wrote: post #113
11thEarlOfMar wrote: post #39

In some markets, it is more about getting it right than getting in at the right time. We've seen many carcasses of products that were ahead of their time, not because they were bad ideas but because they were not formulated for mass adoption. Apple's own Newton is one example. It took the iPhone formulation to make the product features successful in the market. A more recent example is the telepresence robot. Many en…

to be fair, the apple tv remote is fantastic and it's better than any other remote i have used for the common features. (i do wish it had a tv power button though since it can actuate the volume but i guess they wanted to go with the standard that shuts down the tv when you shut off the apple tv if your tv supports it)

maybe so but this is the age of Netflix so remotes don't matter

Re: Apple receives permit in California to test self-driving cars

#135

Post by legolas2412 »

chrismealy wrote: post #116
israrkhan wrote: post #69

self-driving cars are becoming a crowded space. Too many players, with no clear winner in sight. The real problem to solve here is not technical , its regulatory. Tesla and Google have some advantage, but it is still far from reality.

The main problem is totally technical! Robot cars can barely deal with following white lines on the road. How about rain, construction, poorly marked roads, fallen trees, badly parked delivery trucks, emergency vehicles, pedestrians, cyclists, etc? Can cars read roads signs and understand them? We'll have full-on AI before self-driving cars are for real.

I've been parroting this on every self driving thread. I finally found one person who agrees with my thinking that driving is as hard as general AI.

Why is this idea so opposed by everyone?

Re: Apple receives permit in California to test self-driving cars

#137

Post by abalone »

datguacdoh wrote: post #55
abritinthebay wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AppleTV a loser? The only device significantly ahead of it in sales is the Roku (Amazon and Google's sticks are ~the same number of sales as Apple TV). But the market is pretty evenly split in sales and Apple still maintains one of the larger overall install bases for any of them (not the outsized winner it used to be there though of course). "Not being a de-facto monopoly" is hardly a loss.

Articles like http://www.recode.net/platform/amp/2016/6/10/11904942/google... seem to point to Apple TV being easily outsold by Amazon and Google.

It doesn't say anything about sales of Amazon devices. And I would take the initial volumes of Chromecasts with a big grain of salt. The iPhone is outsold by Android phones... it's not exactly an unsuccessful product.

Re: Apple receives permit in California to test self-driving cars

#138

Post by chrismealy »

legolas2412 wrote: post #135
chrismealy wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The main problem is totally technical! Robot cars can barely deal with following white lines on the road. How about rain, construction, poorly marked roads, fallen trees, badly parked delivery trucks, emergency vehicles, pedestrians, cyclists, etc? Can cars read roads signs and understand them? We'll have full-on AI before self-driving cars are for real.

I've been parroting this on every self driving thread. I finally found one person who agrees with my thinking that driving is as hard as general AI. Why is this idea so opposed by everyone?

At least we have each other.

Honestly, I am completely baffled that people who write software think self-driving cars are just around the corner. At this point I think it's basically a futurist cult.

Re: Apple receives permit in California to test self-driving cars

#139

Post by mikerathbun »

So far all the articles I have seen are about Apple experimenting with autonomous technology and most people assume that they are also building an electric vehicle. Those are two very different and challenging projects. I have been an Apple user since 2000 and a Tesla driver for four months and I don't see the current Apple being able to pull off an entire new car platform like that. This isn't a "one more thing" kind of reveal. Look at how long it took Tesla to get to the point where they can mass produce a relatively inexpensive electric vehicle with a basic self driving platform. I am a huge fan of both companies and have stained teeth from all of the Kool Aid, but just getting the battery manufacturing in place seems like an impossible feat for a company that is going to take over two years to design and release a new modular desktop computer for content creators.
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