Apple receives permit in California to test self-driving cars • Hacker News Board

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

#181

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Apr 15, 2017, 6:47 AM UTC

jedberg wrote: post #172

charlesism wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your reasoning is excellent. The only problem is that Apple doesn't have sufficient drive, talent, or reputation, in the auto industry to actually make and sell a good car. No employee wants to leave Tesla to work at Apple. No consumer wants to buy a car made by Apple. Hopefully Tim and the gang won't blow through too much money before they accept that. They're pretty good at making phones and computers. They might w…

Your reasoning is excellent. The only problem is that Apple doesn't have sufficient drive, talent, or reputation, in the cell phone industry to actually make and sell a good cell phone. No employee wants to leave Motorola to work at Apple. No consumer wants to buy a phone made by Apple. Hopefully Steve and the gang won't blow through too much money before they accept that. They're pretty good at making computers. The…

[deleted]

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

#182

Post by flexie » Sat, Apr 15, 2017, 6:48 AM UTC

charlesism wrote: post #163

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…

Your reasoning is excellent. The only problem is that Apple doesn't have sufficient drive, talent, or reputation, in the auto industry to actually make and sell a good car. No employee wants to leave Tesla to work at Apple. No consumer wants to buy a car made by Apple. Hopefully Tim and the gang won't blow through too much money before they accept that. They're pretty good at making phones and computers. They might w…

I might. I love what Tesla is doing but I sure hope there will be competitors (not to take anything away from Lucid, Rimac, Nissan etc). Right now, Tesla is in a league of its own and until the setbacks reported in recent months Google and Apple seemed more suited for competing with Tesla than the traditional car manufacturers and the tiny new EV companies.

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

#183

Post by charlesism » Sat, Apr 15, 2017, 6:49 AM UTC

pg314 wrote: post #171

charlesism wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your reasoning is excellent. The only problem is that Apple doesn't have sufficient drive, talent, or reputation, in the auto industry to actually make and sell a good car. No employee wants to leave Tesla to work at Apple. No consumer wants to buy a car made by Apple. Hopefully Tim and the gang won't blow through too much money before they accept that. They're pretty good at making phones and computers. They might w…

> No consumer wants to buy a car made by Apple. Why not? Have you seen it?

I've seen the "Acer Ferrari One" laptop, and an Apple Car is the same kind of "wrong." I think Apple might have been able to sell a car if it had come to market five or six years ago. But these days, the world is so over-saturated with Apple (not that I mind, personally) that I don't think there'd be enough enthusiasm.

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

#184

Post by iancarroll » Sat, Apr 15, 2017, 6:55 AM UTC

snovv_crash wrote: post #175

jedberg wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your reasoning is excellent. The only problem is that Apple doesn't have sufficient drive, talent, or reputation, in the cell phone industry to actually make and sell a good cell phone. No employee wants to leave Motorola to work at Apple. No consumer wants to buy a phone made by Apple. Hopefully Steve and the gang won't blow through too much money before they accept that. They're pretty good at making computers. The…

You're not holding it right, so you don't have signal vs. you're not sitting in it right, we're sorry everyone died. Phones are toys. Cars kill people and are highly regulated.

I think Apple may be able to make this distinction as well. You portray them as an incompetent organization based on one defect. And, of course, car manufacturers routinely put out products with life threatening defects (i.e. Takata), so it's not like they're immune from fault either.

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

#185

Post by mojuba » Sat, Apr 15, 2017, 6:58 AM UTC

fgonzag wrote: post #177

jedberg wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your reasoning is excellent. The only problem is that Apple doesn't have sufficient drive, talent, or reputation, in the cell phone industry to actually make and sell a good cell phone. No employee wants to leave Motorola to work at Apple. No consumer wants to buy a phone made by Apple. Hopefully Steve and the gang won't blow through too much money before they accept that. They're pretty good at making computers. The…

I mean from a computer to a mp3 player to a phone is the same ballpark. Electronics. Moving to mechanical systems is a whole different thing. I'm not saying it won't work out, but I don't think their plan is manufacturing cars. Maybe it's just licensing the self driving tech along with the infotainment system.

But surely Apple can cooperate with one of the car makers? There is no indication that they are or are not working on it with someone else.

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

#186

Post by epistasis » Sat, Apr 15, 2017, 6:59 AM UTC

ori_b wrote: post #169

draw_down wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was pretty much the reaction the cell phone guys had when Apple entered their market.

I was an intern at RIM around the launch of the iPhone. I don't think what you said was quite accurate.

That was what people were saying publicly. Would love to hear the inside story.

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

#187

Post by WrtCdEvrydy » Sat, Apr 15, 2017, 7:02 AM UTC

old-gregg wrote: post #95

jorvi wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Inebriated on that Apple kool-aid I see. I think 90% of the stuff me and my friends play on the Chromecast is initiated by the Netflix or YouTube app, where all I have to do is tap a button. You know what else is great? If we're chilling with multiple people, I don't exclude 80% of them from controlling or playing anything by having an Apple TV. Fancy that, the Chromecast is actually a simpeler, more useable product…

Hold on, how do you let 80% of people to control Chromecast? If anything's it's not controllable by anyone by default because nobody happens to lug around a laptop with a pre-installed chrome extension. I haven't used Android for a while, but on my last Nexus phone Chromecast wasn't useful for anything other than Youtube.

Localcast on Android allows you cast any video stream (on a browser), or any local file or any chrome tab. So you can stream a presentation from Google Drive.

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

#188

Post by Miserlou57 » Sat, Apr 15, 2017, 7:03 AM UTC

millstone wrote: post #164

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.

The image of "shipping phones off to be built by other people in China" could not be farther from the truth. Not only does Apple plan every build in extreme detail (stations, tests, flow, etc), they send an army of PMs, EPMs, engineers, etc. to oversee each build in person. They have to. Apple's manufacturing and operations expertise is enormous. It's a competitive advantage on the same scale as, say, Google's data c…

this. literally every United SFOHKG upper-deck is loaded with Apple engineers.

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

#189

Post by charlesism » Sat, Apr 15, 2017, 7:11 AM UTC

jedberg wrote: post #172

charlesism wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your reasoning is excellent. The only problem is that Apple doesn't have sufficient drive, talent, or reputation, in the auto industry to actually make and sell a good car. No employee wants to leave Tesla to work at Apple. No consumer wants to buy a car made by Apple. Hopefully Tim and the gang won't blow through too much money before they accept that. They're pretty good at making phones and computers. They might w…

Your reasoning is excellent. The only problem is that Apple doesn't have sufficient drive, talent, or reputation, in the cell phone industry to actually make and sell a good cell phone. No employee wants to leave Motorola to work at Apple. No consumer wants to buy a phone made by Apple. Hopefully Steve and the gang won't blow through too much money before they accept that. They're pretty good at making computers. The…

My impression is that building a car involves a fairly different set of skills (ie: pretty much everything except the dashboard) than Apple has.

The thought of bringing in 95% new-hires to work on a project in which your company has no experience... I mean, why?

If the primary motivation is money, without sufficient passion, good luck competing with Tesla - where they live and breath electric cars.

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

#190

Post by snovv_crash » Sat, Apr 15, 2017, 7:14 AM UTC

iancarroll wrote: post #184

snovv_crash wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're not holding it right, so you don't have signal vs. you're not sitting in it right, we're sorry everyone died. Phones are toys. Cars kill people and are highly regulated.

I think Apple may be able to make this distinction as well. You portray them as an incompetent organization based on one defect. And, of course, car manufacturers routinely put out products with life threatening defects (i.e. Takata), so it's not like they're immune from fault either.

I'm not worried about their technical capabilities. I'm worried about a company culture that blames the customer when the product is misused or doesn't meet industry standards in some way. Things they have gotten away with in the phone and computer market will kill people in the automotive market.