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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

#401

Post by olyjohn »

danso wrote: post #173
josteink wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We have the iPhone because Apple was so ambitious. When you say that, you conventiently forget that Apple re -invented the smartphone. It was an proven thing, which already sold in spades in the tech/enterprise market. They took something which existed and was awkward to use, and re-did the UI layer of the whole thing. They refined something else which was already proven. They didn't invent something original from…

Also, the iPhone was preceded by years of producing iPods, which at least gave them expertise in portable electronics. What has Apple produced that is remotely similar to an automobile? It's not just design expertise, but the supply chain and manufacturing. Auto parts industry is massive. Is controlling the parts for a computer on the same scale as for an entire automobile? I suppose if Tesla can do it...but Tessa's…

Remember Tesla's first car? It was not the Model S. The Roadster was based on a Lotus chassis. They built a car on an existing vehicle platform before venturing into producing their own.

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

#402

Post by rothbardrand »

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…

Whenever Apple introduces a new product line, they do so with a major usability innovation. In fact their major new lines often have several usability innovations, that work together.

The iPod had click wheel. The Mac had the GUI. The Apple II was plug-and-play in a time when people built from scratch. The iPhone had multi-touch the Apple Watch had a bunch of stuff.

The challenge is not to solve an already solved problem.

Remember when the iPhone was introduced? It's obvious now it was quite revolutionary-- but at the time people complained that it wasn't anything significant and that lacking a keyboard meant it was doomed to failure.

If apple introduced a self driving Camry it would not really be compelling enough. For a new product category, Apple's only interested if they can create or redefine the category.

It's worked out pretty well so far.

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

#403

Post by rothbardrand »

jacquesm wrote: post #286
ams6110 wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't see spherical wheels working well. They would have a smaller contact patch on the road surface than a standard wheel, and consequently less traction.

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…

People who never think creatively never invent anything.

You are shitting on the fact that they even explored the idea as if ipso facto you know it was a bad idea.

You don't.

That you think you do is why you won't be inventing an iPhone.

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

#404

Post by rothbardrand »

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?

You're shitting on the project without knowing anything about it yourself... but you ask how he can be interested without knowing details?

And yes, the brand-- which is to say, their 40 year history of delivering products at a level of quality and innovation unmatched by any company in the world-- is enough to be interested in anything they produce.

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

#405

Post by rothbardrand »

jacquesm wrote: post #390
briandear wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They definitely should have not wasted time with multitouch and just used a stylus and a physical keyboard for iPhone. Right? Any time someone says “no stylus” it’s time to refocus right? After all, that just isn’t how portable devices in 2002 already worked? Apple doesn’t care about incremental improvements when talking about a new product category. They look to leapfrog. Have you considered the benefit of spherical…

> It seems like you don’t get Apple or their history of product development. I get it just fine. They are improved user interfaces over things that already existed. Changing the main method of transfer of energy from the motor to the road in a vehicle is a fundamental change that has significant implications for everything else in the vehicle to the point of making it very unlikely that that vehicle will ever be comp…

> They are improved user interfaces over things that already existed.

This is the lie every Apple hater tells themselves to reconcile their hate with the fact that Apple keeps inventing things never before seen.

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

#406

Post by rothbardrand »

anindha wrote: post #387
briandear wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They definitely should have not wasted time with multitouch and just used a stylus and a physical keyboard for iPhone. Right? Any time someone says “no stylus” it’s time to refocus right? After all, that just isn’t how portable devices in 2002 already worked? Apple doesn’t care about incremental improvements when talking about a new product category. They look to leapfrog. Have you considered the benefit of spherical…

Great analogy. Anything seems impossible before its done, and obvious 5-10 years after it's done.

Usually about a year after Apple's competitors have introduced a pale imitation, the haters will say it was always obvious.

I once had someone on here tell me that Apple invented nothing for the iPhone because the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey "invented multitouch".

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

#407

Post by rothbardrand »

josteink wrote: post #162
hallmark wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have the iPhone because Apple was so ambitious. Imagine if they had just partnered with existing phone manufacturers rather than trying to build a magic touch slate. Wait, we do know what would have happened - the Motorola ROKR, which everyone should be forgiven for forgetting.

> We have the iPhone because Apple was so ambitious. When you say that, you conventiently forget that Apple re -invented the smartphone. It was an proven thing, which already sold in spades in the tech/enterprise market. They took something which existed and was awkward to use, and re-did the UI layer of the whole thing. They refined something else which was already proven. They didn't invent something original from…

No. Apple invented the smartphone. There were no smart phones before the iPhone. There were PDAs and feature phones.

People like to pretend Apple never invents anything and to do so they always point at vaguely similar things that aren't nearly as good as if they support the point.

Someone one here once told me that Apple didn't invent multi-touch because it existed in the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey

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

#408

Post by rothbardrand »

danso wrote: post #173
josteink wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We have the iPhone because Apple was so ambitious. When you say that, you conventiently forget that Apple re -invented the smartphone. It was an proven thing, which already sold in spades in the tech/enterprise market. They took something which existed and was awkward to use, and re-did the UI layer of the whole thing. They refined something else which was already proven. They didn't invent something original from…

Also, the iPhone was preceded by years of producing iPods, which at least gave them expertise in portable electronics. What has Apple produced that is remotely similar to an automobile? It's not just design expertise, but the supply chain and manufacturing. Auto parts industry is massive. Is controlling the parts for a computer on the same scale as for an entire automobile? I suppose if Tesla can do it...but Tessa's…

People claimed the iPhone was doomed-- even after it was shipping-- because Apple couldn't "just waltz in and start making phones".

Apple is not going to produce a gas automobile, but an electric one.

An electric car is a lot closer to a computer in terms of supply chain, than it is to a gas car.

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

#409

Post by crypticlizard »

ctdonath wrote: post #39
mypalmike wrote: post #15

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…

Imo modern cars are basically small computers and everything else(seats,doors,wheels)is peripheral. I mean it is 2017 after all, don't you think it's about time we accept that cars are computers? Sure, we used to need humans to "complete" the computer part, seeing as we didn't have motherboards at first. But now computer is the core part of car and even humans aren't necessary. Why even bring your cell phone when your car is a cell phone? It's possible Apple needs the car to compete in a post cell phone world.

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

#410

Post by froo »

RivieraKid wrote: post #370
froo wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you not watch the video? I call a car that is cornering, accelerating/braking, actively dealing with traffic and finally parking itself a self driving vehicle.

In that case we had self-driving five years ago, I guess OP meant mind-off self-driving. That's the hard part, it could even be an AI-hard problem. Because if you have to pay attention with hands on a wheel, it's not a huge convenience improvement. And there's also the problem that human-take-over situations will be increasingly dangerous as the self-driving software improves. And by the way, the auto-pilot video is…

The original point I was trying to make was that this tech was already deployed in consumer facing technology that is just waiting to be turned on.
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