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Apple Scales Back Its Ambitions for a Self-Driving Car

nytimes.com

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Re: Apple Scales Back Its Ambitions for a Self-Driving Car

#291

Post by jacquesm »

empath75 wrote: post #274
jacquesm wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This so reminds me of the discussion about fire from the Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy. The challenge of a self driving car is to get it to drive by itself, not to try to make it look good and to solve a whole pile of engineering problems that have had everybody in engineering looking at them since as long as we have the profession. Making gadgets and making a self driving car require a different mind-set. The fir…

What if 'self-driving' was just one possible feature among many in a potential Apple car and wasn't necessary? I'd happily buy an apple electric car that I had to drive myself.

> I'd happily buy an apple electric car that I had to drive myself.

How could you say that without knowing anything about such a car?

Is the brand enough to get you to buy something?

Re: Apple Scales Back Its Ambitions for a Self-Driving Car

#292

Post by [deleted] »

empath75 wrote: post #274
jacquesm wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This so reminds me of the discussion about fire from the Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy. The challenge of a self driving car is to get it to drive by itself, not to try to make it look good and to solve a whole pile of engineering problems that have had everybody in engineering looking at them since as long as we have the profession. Making gadgets and making a self driving car require a different mind-set. The fir…

What if 'self-driving' was just one possible feature among many in a potential Apple car and wasn't necessary? I'd happily buy an apple electric car that I had to drive myself.

[deleted]

Re: Apple Scales Back Its Ambitions for a Self-Driving Car

#293

Post by runholm »

c3534l wrote: post #72
ctdonath wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Over the decades I've noticed how businesses need to recognize and focus on their core competencies - if they don't, they die. Everything must feed that core, and undue distractions are lethal. Occasionally there's a need to pivot , which is deliberately stepping from one competency to another, but that is rare and difficult. Apple's core is to build small computers; everything else they do (music, video, cloud servi…

Counter arguments: Walmart, Google and Amazon.

Not well known in the west, but Mitsubishi has been and is active in an insane number of business sectors:

Shipping, motor vehicles, home electronics, bank and finance (UFJ holdings), nuclear power, cameras and optics (Nikon), industrial chemistry, beer brewing (Kirin) and real estate.

Re: Apple Scales Back Its Ambitions for a Self-Driving Car

#294

Post by SeeDave »

jacquesm wrote: post #240
tambourine_man wrote: post #36

“From the beginning, the employees dedicated to Project Titan looked at a wide range of details. That included motorized doors that opened and closed silently. They also studied ways to redesign a car interior without a steering wheel or gas pedals, and they worked on adding virtual or augmented reality into interior displays. The team also worked on a new light and ranging detection sensor, also known as lidar. Lida…

This so reminds me of the discussion about fire from the Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy. The challenge of a self driving car is to get it to drive by itself, not to try to make it look good and to solve a whole pile of engineering problems that have had everybody in engineering looking at them since as long as we have the profession. Making gadgets and making a self driving car require a different mind-set. The fir…

>The challenge of a self driving car is to get it to drive by itself, not to try to make it look good and to solve a whole pile of engineering problems that have had everybody in engineering looking at them since as long as we have the profession.

This is why I believe that comma.ai was so visionary, say whatever you want about George Hotz's personality. He truly _gets it_ that self-driving is the critical part, not the car.

Re: Apple Scales Back Its Ambitions for a Self-Driving Car

#295

Post by avar »

hueving wrote: post #190
icanhackit wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You make a good point but my question still stands, why couldn't they design it in California and outsource manufacturing to Hon Hai/Foxconn the way they do with their phones? Unlike Tesla, sourcing the parts wouldn't be Apple's problem.

Because outsourcing car manufacturing doesn't make much sense. The transportation costs eat up most of the savings. That's why Toyotas, Volkswagons, etc sold in the US are made in the US. One shipping container holds 60,000 iphones. One shipping container holds one car.

> One shipping container holds one car.

Here's a company selling a product allowing you to ship 3-4 cars, or 6 micro cars in one container: http://www.consolidatedcarshipping.com/how-it-works/the-proc...

Re: Apple Scales Back Its Ambitions for a Self-Driving Car

#296

Post by 72deluxe »

bluthru wrote: post #218
thaumasiotes wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The app store already existed for Blackberries at the time. I'm not sure what you're talking about with voicemail.

The iPhone was the first phone with visual voicemail.

Sorry to be completely lost but what is "visual voicemail"? This is an odd term - almost as daft as "visual BASIC"

Re: Apple Scales Back Its Ambitions for a Self-Driving Car

#297

Post by intoverflow2 »

jacquesm wrote: post #291
empath75 wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if 'self-driving' was just one possible feature among many in a potential Apple car and wasn't necessary? I'd happily buy an apple electric car that I had to drive myself.

> I'd happily buy an apple electric car that I had to drive myself. How could you say that without knowing anything about such a car? Is the brand enough to get you to buy something?

When your customers have this sort of attitude it's no wonder Apple managed to convince themselves this was worthwhile.

Re: Apple Scales Back Its Ambitions for a Self-Driving Car

#298

Post by 72deluxe »

iiiggglll wrote: post #182

> Even though Apple had not ironed out many of the basics, like how the autonomous systems would work, a team had already started working on an operating system software called CarOS. There was fierce debate about whether it should be programmed using Swift, Apple’s own programming language, or the industry standard, C++. Wow. Few things guarantee success like starting off a project with a good old-fashioned language…

And it didn't settle it - I would love to know if they went for C++. It's getting better and better.

Of course, if they wrote it in Swift 1 they would have had pains migrating to 2 and 3, but if they wrote it in C++ then they wouldn't be able to refactor any of the code as Xcode doesn't support refactoring C++....

Re: Apple Scales Back Its Ambitions for a Self-Driving Car

#299

Post by nrhk »

LyTeo wrote: post #258
threeseed wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For all intents and purposes my 1998 Windows CE Casio PDA looks and acts like a first gen iPhone I assume you also think a Hyundai looks and acts like a Ferrari. Because that is what you are saying. I owned that PDA as well as the Treo 650 which was far better and the iPhone isn't an incremental jump. It was a complete revolution.

> I assume you also think a Hyundai looks and acts like a Ferrari. He argued against an assumption that apple reinvented smartphone. If you want to use this argument, you have to show that people think that Ferrari reinvented the car.

Only if Ferrari came into the market with a bunch of innovations that every manufacturer then adopts. I would call that a reinvention and more or less what Apple did.

People were using styluses, the phones were blocky and thick, the UI was confusing and adopted from desktop instead designed for mobile, hardware keyboards, small screens, business focused

I had every "smartphone" and internet tablet back in day running on Palm, Symbian, Blackberry. All of those OS's are completely irrelevant today because of how far Apple pushed the envelope. Though I thought Palm was headed in the right direction with the Pre.

You can call it an evolution but it was such a major leap it was essentially a redefinition.

Re: Apple Scales Back Its Ambitions for a Self-Driving Car

#300

Post by pedroaraujo »

SeeDave wrote: post #294
jacquesm wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This so reminds me of the discussion about fire from the Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy. The challenge of a self driving car is to get it to drive by itself, not to try to make it look good and to solve a whole pile of engineering problems that have had everybody in engineering looking at them since as long as we have the profession. Making gadgets and making a self driving car require a different mind-set. The fir…

>The challenge of a self driving car is to get it to drive by itself, not to try to make it look good and to solve a whole pile of engineering problems that have had everybody in engineering looking at them since as long as we have the profession. This is why I believe that comma.ai was so visionary, say whatever you want about George Hotz's personality. He truly _gets it_ that self-driving is the critical part, not…

"Visionary"? Hardly. His self driving technology was basically a big giant hack. He is a good hacker but calling him "visionary" is a bit of a stretch.
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