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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

#241

Post by ansgri »

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.

Yet hardware, especially dumb mechanical parts like cases, is what distinguishes Apple devices the most. They also design awful inconvenient UIs, just like auto companies.

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

#242

Post by cromulent »

true_religion wrote: post #204
Animats wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For testing purposes, today's clunky rotating LIDAR units are OK. For deployment, something better will be needed. That's coming along well, but due to lack of a market, nobody is producing in volume yet. I'd bet on Continental, the auto parts company, which is using flash LIDAR technology from Advanced Scientific Concepts.[1] That's known to work well, and ASC has been selling it to DoD successfully. Space-X also us…

Their logo is a curious mashup. Tag-line "the future in motion". Logo character: a horse. Really? It's as if they wanted to present themselves both as an old and respectable company (hence the horse, and name), and yet still modern enough to define the future. The mashup though is so clumsily done it makes me believe the company is either a very early stage startup, or an utter scam.

145 years old, 39 billion in revenue, 212000 employees. Quite the scam :)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continental_AG

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

#243

Post by sangnoir »

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…

You seem to be forgetting the Moto ROKR, when Apple extracted a lot of cell phone expertize from Motorola with "iTunes collaboration" as a cover.

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

#244

Post by georgespencer »

the_duke wrote: post #233
georgespencer wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Apple TV Profitable and doing billions of dollars of revenue a quarter. Losers?

Source?

Profitable = Apple wouldn't keep it around if it wasn't.

Revenue = Asymco estimate. Apple lumps it into the "Other" category in its reporting. Horace estimated that it was doing $3bn of revenue a year in 2015. Maybe it's still just a $3bn a year business and not a $4bn a year business, but the point remains that calling it a "loser" is nuts.

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

#245

Post by kalleboo »

old-gregg wrote: post #82
datguacdoh wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

During 2015-16 I was given 3 or 4 opportunities to get a free Chromecast, and I got one. It sits barely used now, in one of the rarely visited HDMI inputs on my TV. I wonder how many of those "sold" devices were actually given away and forgotten. Chromecast cannot possibly be considered usable by most because it follows a weirdo, google-style, controlled-by-the-browser (but only Chrome) model. It is the most absurd w…

I use an Apple TV, but 90% of the time it's just being an AirPlay receiver - the same functionality that Chromecast provides.

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

#246

Post by dogma1138 »

MBCook wrote: post #145
peregrine wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've got just the apple support document for you! https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT205225 If your TV supports HDMI features you will only ever need one remote.

Sadly there's no way to disable having it power the TV off without also disabling the ability to control the TVs volume.

Yes there is you should have HDMI CEC settings somewhere depends on the TV you can set what exactly is passed and is it bi-directional or not. At the least CEC power is available on virtually every appliance I've seen.

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

#247

Post by MarkMc »

CharlesW wrote: post #71
gajeam wrote: post #65

I guess you never know with Apple but it just seems like a really crowded space for them to come into, especially if they insist on controlling the whole ecosystem like they do with their other products. First of all, it's a high price tag for them to get top talent in the area. Waymo, Uber, Tesla, Ford (and a dozen other car companies), and who knows how many start ups are all vying for the same pool of engineers. E…

> I guess you never know with Apple but it just seems like a really crowded space for them to come into… The iPhone entered a crowded phone market and now controls the vast majority of smartphone profits. There's really no such thing as market "saturation" when you can grow the market and eat old participants. > First of all, it's a high price tag for them to get top talent in the area. Apple has $250 billion in cash…

> The iPhone entered a crowded phone market and now controls the vast majority of smartphone profits. There's really no such thing as market "saturation" when you can grow the market and eat old participants."

The iPhone was far superior to other phones of its day. Plus it had significant network effects - having more users meant having more apps, which meant having more users.

Self driving tech would be much more a commodity product. Even some Apple employees "struggled to explain what Apple could bring to a self-driving car that other companies could not" [1] And self driving cars will have absolutely no network effects or 'lock-in'. Ford will dump Apple's self-driving technology in an instant if Google offers their technology a bit cheaper.

[1] https://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/09/10/technology/apple-is-sa...

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

#248

Post by icanhackit »

elmar wrote: post #221
icanhackit wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My guess: they saw a flooded market with no brand loyalty because its a box that sits unnoticed in an office or living room and said "We can leave the scraps for Linksys and TP-Link" then saw Tesla's margins and said "Yeah, that looks nice."

Tesla burns cash, loses more than $4,000 on every car sold http://www.reuters.com/article/us-teslamotors-cash-insight-i...

1.) That article is from 2015. 2.) Dividing operating losses by number of cars sold is...not a very good way of calculating things. You're taking R&D, new capital (Gigafactories, retail outlets, acquisitions like SolarCity) and all other expenses and dividing by number of cars sold. It makes for a nice clean Excel spreadsheet (A1 divided by A2) but a poor understanding of how emerging businesses with huge growth potential work under the hood.

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

#249

Post by cmrdporcupine »

marvin wrote: post #227
true_religion wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can't we just accept that the car won't drive itself in the snow or rain or with a missing headlight? I'd find that totally reasonable, and get back behind the wheel to take my own risks in a snowstorm (or ... you know... stay at home like the advisories always tell you to).

I would absolutely not find it reasonable if my "self-driving" car won't drive itself in the rain or snow, given that in my climate, it is raining or snowing >270 out of every 360 days of the year. Such a product would still have a large market value since there are nice climates with dense populations in the world too, but not everyone lives in California.

What you said -- plus: the last thing you want is a car that 'self drives' until the conditions suddenly change at high speeds and the half-aware driver is forced to take over unprepared and unalert and convinced that his/her car is supposed to be driving for them.

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

#250

Post by Keyframe »

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.

That's an interesting point and dwells in philosophical space.

Is Apple an entity with knowledge that it accumulates, develops, and applies or are people who work on and hold key positions in projects the ones that bring forth knowledge, develop it and apply it?

Is company's know-how separate from people working on it, and are people the ones who (can) bring it into the company or are people coming to the company and applying company's knowledge? What happens if either lacks - can a company bring in (group of) knowledge and can a company bring in (a group) of talent without (much) knowledge?

Cases can be made for both, I guess. So, there's no straight answer.

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