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Apple Car: Bad Idea After All

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Re: Apple Car: Bad Idea After All

#71

Post by simonh »

lucasmullens wrote: post #29
SomeCallMeTim wrote: post #23

Given the number of times I've seen a reported, verified bug in OS X be "fixed" by hiding the bug from the public tracker and marking it "will not fix," I would have a hard time ever trusting a car made by Apple. Apple also makes their products to be disposable, seemingly as part of the culture, while a well-made electric car can run to a million miles over 50+ years. That's a very different build philosophy. The key…

The latest iPhone reversed course on the disposability piece a little bit, making it arguably the most repairable iPhone ever.

The disposability allegation was always bullcrap. iPhones have lead in terms of service lifetime, second hand value retention, and manufacturer software support for so long now and by such a huge margin I wonder at the motives of anyone still saying this.

Re: Apple Car: Bad Idea After All

#72

Post by modeless »

mardifoufs wrote: post #62
paxys wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can't say about building or selling an entire car, but they did have a massive self driving division which went nowhere.

Is their self driving division still active?

More than ever if I go by how often I see their cars on the road. Three yesterday.

Re: Apple Car: Bad Idea After All

#73

Post by dylan604 »

ghaff wrote: post #64
duped wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That terrifies me

Of course, like it or not, you're describing how Tesla does it and again, like it or not, it's probably the direction that a lot of car controls are headed.

Which is why I'm torn. I love all of the safety features, quiet interiors, etc that modern cars have, but I really like the simplicity of older cars (especially their lack of privacy invading add-ons).

Re: Apple Car: Bad Idea After All

#74

Post by taffronaut »

_ph_ wrote: post #44

I found the announced enhancements to car play very interesting. To my understanding, it aims for replacing most of the user-facing software in cars. This is very tempting for car manufacturers, not to compete with car play, but just embrace it. It almost looks as if car play is to become the Windows of the car industry - instead of trying to come up with your own solution, just install the most widely used software…

Margins in the auto industry are tight and manufacturers are seeing software as their saviour. Hence we see software features allowing you to 'subscribe' to e.g. heated seats. There's hope in auto manufacturers for the "Smart TV play" where owner/driver analytics (anonymous and otherwise) can be sold on. Then there are hoped-for kickbacks from in-car infomercials advising drivers to replace consumables like tyres via a manufacturer-linked outlet. This is why car manufacturers fixate on their own software and yet car software will become more and more dysfunctional for the end user as they're the 'mark' not the customer. It could be hugely profitable for Apple to take over the space, but that would be at the expense of the car manufacturers' dreams of software-driven increase in margins, so I wouldn't bet on them signing up soon.

Re: Apple Car: Bad Idea After All

#75

Post by thr0wawayf00 »

waboremo wrote: post #37
ARandumGuy wrote: post #8

A full Apple Car has always seemed unrealistic to me. Cars are a fundamentally different industry then consumer electronics and software. Apple would be starting from scratch, and facing a lot of entrenched competition with huge budgets and infrastructure. And for what? What could Apple do that GM, Toyota, or Tesla couldn't? Maybe a better UX for the dashboard. And while many car UXs are absolutely terrible, improvin…

As if Apple is just a tiny little startup looking for VC funds to get into the automotive industry and couldn't possibly compete with Ford. >And for what? Control over the entire driving experience. Just like they are obsessed with controlling the experience of a phone or a tablet and refuse to relegate aspects to partners. >improving them isn't some insurmountable challenge for existing manufacturers You say this bu…

> You say this but yet car manufacturers continue refusing to do so. It's been years already and sluggish screens are still normal, a bunch of weirdly placed knobs that offer no substantial tactile feedback, wheels that are horrible to hold, here are 3 different screens for some ungodly reason, and list goes on.

The laziness of auto manufacturers is so apparent these days, seeing reports of auto features being turned into subscription-based offerings. I just bought a brand new car that has a fair amount of sensor tech, which makes it difficult to mount 3rd party devices to the windshield because they obstruct the optical sensors. A service I would absolutely (and begrudgingly) pay for would be a built-in dash cam with a cloud integration. They already have all of the tech and expertise in-house. They would make a killing and I'm sure insurance companies would get on board too. But no, let's attach a monthly fee to heated seats instead.

Re: Apple Car: Bad Idea After All

#76

Post by SV_BubbleTime »

martythemaniak wrote: post #16
SV_BubbleTime wrote: post #4

Automotive EE here… any article that talks about Tesla’s financials even indirectly and it does not immediately mention how much money they make by selling carbon credits back to GM Ford and Stellantis can pay immediately be disregarded. A casual look at the numbers doesn’t explain much. But if you look at that 7% margin, and realize that Tesla is nearly doubling that with carbon credit sales which are 100% margin. I…

Those credits aren't particularly relevant any more. Several years ago they were essential and made up practically the entirety of their profits, but today they're just a side-gig. In Q2'2022: $300m credits, $16 billion in total revenue, 2.3B in profit.

Q2 was 300m hmm? Ok, do the rest of the math at 5% likely-actual or 7% industry average on sales.

Re: Apple Car: Bad Idea After All

#77

Post by endisneigh »

supervillain wrote: post #28

A suggestion for Apple. 1. Apple is worth $2.44 trillion USD; pay off the whole $240 billion USD debt owed by the Philippines. 2. Establish Apple HQ facilities in the Philippines and employ the vast majority of the country's talented software engineers there. 3. Take advantage of the cheap labour, low costs, and high standard of living to ride the wave of unending profit. This is how you turn things around and switch…

Apple already does (3) without (2) or (1). I expected a more interesting plan from a supervillain

Re: Apple Car: Bad Idea After All

#78

Post by logicalmonster »

dilap wrote: post #35
SomeCallMeTim wrote: post #23

Given the number of times I've seen a reported, verified bug in OS X be "fixed" by hiding the bug from the public tracker and marking it "will not fix," I would have a hard time ever trusting a car made by Apple. Apple also makes their products to be disposable, seemingly as part of the culture, while a well-made electric car can run to a million miles over 50+ years. That's a very different build philosophy. The key…

Fit and finish has absolutely collapsed in recent Apple software. Glitches and bugs all over the place. It's almost enough to tempt one to see if this really is, finally, the year of Linux of the desktop. Almost. I would disagree about Apple making products to be disposable, though! I've found Apple hardware to be incredibly long lasting. Their phones, ipads, and iphones all last years and years and years in my exper…

> Fit and finish has absolutely collapsed in recent Apple software.

Bugginess abounds more than ever in Apple's software, and I'd love for them to take a cycle off and just work on fit and finish and bugs rather than features. But to be fair, if you're judging against the experience of using Windows, well let's just say that's a low bar to beat.

As far as Linux desktops go, I think the way they run very solidly these days is phenomenal, but I don't think they solve everyday problems (things that watches and phones and other devices can do) as well as Apple. If you embrace Apple devices and services, you have a whole bunch of tools that work phenomenally together in smart ways. I don't think Linux really can match that whole package anytime soon.

Re: Apple Car: Bad Idea After All

#79

Post by dirheist »

kalimanzaro wrote: post #38

What if Apple made a 1500 dollar electric Mini (car)? Might just work. I have seen some comments here saying that all the money in the world can't buy you a better mobile phone. If Apple is able to generalize that to another product class, the world might really change for the better.

I think a mini car would tank Apple's brand value significantly, especially if you think about the type of die hard apple fanboys who would be the first flock to hit the streets in these things. All it takes is a couple of people getting into some pretty dumb accidents to make people turn against them (the same way people judge BMW and Tesla drivers but probably to an even greater extent tbh).

Re: Apple Car: Bad Idea After All

#80

Post by cronix »

dylan604 wrote: post #63
SomeCallMeTim wrote: post #23

Given the number of times I've seen a reported, verified bug in OS X be "fixed" by hiding the bug from the public tracker and marking it "will not fix," I would have a hard time ever trusting a car made by Apple. Apple also makes their products to be disposable, seemingly as part of the culture, while a well-made electric car can run to a million miles over 50+ years. That's a very different build philosophy. The key…

>while a well-made electric car can run to a million miles over 50+ years. That's a very different build philosophy. I'm trying to decide if this is something you actually think or is incredibly thick hyperbole. Why would you say a well-made electric car could run that many miles rather than the 200k+ mile cars that actually exist?

Because there are Tesla's that have gone over a million miles.
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