321–330 of 434 posts
That's too bad. I was really hoping for Apple to spend all of their resources trying to build a car and then go out of business because IMO they ruined computing for everybody by popularizing walled gardens, anemic UIs and super limited software.
Also, I don't think macOS is a limited software. As for iOS, the phone software was way more limited before iPhone came along.
> 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…
My guess is it wasn't much of a debate and in actuality they used something like Simulink to model the control system and then had that generate the C++ code for the target hardware. I doubt any car control system software is written by hand these days.
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Urban renewal is a policy which exists, yes.
Yeah that Empire State Building is almost 90 years old, time to tear it down and build a new one closer to the streetcar line. Jesus you are absolutely insane.
If Apple were truly serious about building self-driving cars, they would buy one of the big 3 US auto manufacturers. It could buy all 3 with cash and still have one of the largest hoards of cash ever accumulated.
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…
Besides, Apple doing the iPod and iPhone is a counter example to your argument, unless you stretch the definition of the core business of a Y2K computer company to be music players and phones.
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I'd say the choice of language you write your OS in is a pretty important one. There should be a fierce debate about such things.
If you're talking about the actual vehicle motion control systems, they probably should have been looking at what languages avionics companies use, not what their app developers are familiar with. You'll need languages and operating systems that are battle-tested (literally) in hard-real-time fault tolerant systems. Swift should never have been on the whiteboard for something like that. It's never been used in that s…
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Capacitive screens were less responsive than resistive screens. The difference was that you used your physical finger instead of a stylus. Personally speaking, I preferred resistive screens for their responsiveness and accuracy. The capacitive screen was needed for "pinch to zoom" and other gestures of the modern era. The delay in the UI compared to resistive screens (as well as the higher-CPU time required for proce…
Is there some more information on that? I believed so far (or the industry made me believe) that capacitive screens were much faster than the resistive ones.
Think how crazy the trackpad goes on a cheap laptop when you plug in a knock-off power supply with poor power conditioning.
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Why would a high margin, high ROE, low capital requirements business like Apple invest in a low margin, poor ROE, high capital requirements business like a car maker? Besides being a poor investment that would lock up lots of their capital, it would also create a ton of management distractions. If they are serious about building self-driving cars, they are probably making a huge mistake. Cars have been a poor busines…
Electric will drive down the per-mile cost of the vehicles, and autonomous will drive up the per-hour use of the vehicles, which will lead to a larger potential margin. You can sell a car for a lot more if it's being rented out for 12 driving hours per day. Especially so if it's a high end experience. People have a hard time shelling out $60,000 for a car when they could get something pretty adequate for $30,000, but…
But when the cab ride is a more realistic $25, and a luxury cab ride $50, most people will go for the $25 option. See Uber Black vs Uber X.
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Cities and homes should not be expected to last forever; while we shouldn't be rebuilding them every year, doing so every few decades is probably more environmentally friendly than not.
I'm not sure I'm understanding... my home was built in 1953 and is standing just fine. It's got new windows, new insulation, and a new roof. Are you saying I should abandon it and go build a new one? There's a brick building in town that's been there since 1842, you're saying we should rip it down just because it's old? Has everyone in this entire thread lost their damn minds? First meth-head farmers are "living in l…
That's too bad. I was really hoping for Apple to spend all of their resources trying to build a car and then go out of business because IMO they ruined computing for everybody by popularizing walled gardens, anemic UIs and super limited software.
Phones where a walled garden long before the iPhone. J2ME apps sucked, but there where a lot of them. Calling the iPhone the first smartphone is mostly just marketing and form factor. They got the interface right and built a better browser, but you could use the web, email, apps, take pictures etc on phones long before the iPhone.
No they weren't.
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And then there is stronger braking to be considered, which almost always is some kind of disk brake which you can't do if there is no shaft to mount one on. Which means the spherical wheel system would have to be oversized to compensate for lack of such a shaft even if it would work to drive the car. Magnetic wheels have other interesting problems that would need to be solved such as when two cars get close to each o…
Could you just use standard wheels, but let all four of them turn 90 degrees? Then the car could move laterally.
It's a lot simpler with independent electric motors per wheel, but generally not that useful as self drivings cars can already parallel park just fine.