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Apple Car: Bad Idea After All

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Re: Apple Car: Bad Idea After All

#241

Post by BurningFrog »

smm11 wrote: post #212
robotcapital wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another anecdote, but this is exactly how I chose my last car. I went to CarMax, filtered by CarPlay integration, and then chose from what was available. In fact, the lack of CarPlay integration is one of the main reasons I didn't consider a Tesla at the time. From basic things like a snappy interface and keeping my podcasts in sync, to suggesting the destination based on the recent maps search I did from my phone on…

Today I learned that people pick a car based on how well it integrates with a cell phone.

Cars are a very mature technology, if you're not a car hobbyist, and the different brands are not very different.

The new-ish field of screen and cell phone probably has the most differentiation right now.

Re: Apple Car: Bad Idea After All

#242

Post by scarface74 »

qaq wrote: post #239
scarface74 wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Compare their sales and profits to other car makers. They are grossly overvalued

Compare their sales growth to other car makers. Compare their profit margins to other car makers.

Yes just like every startup. “We had 1% of the market and grew to 2%. We doubled in the last year and are growing much faster than the incumbents”.

In what rational world should Tesla have a PE of 20x GM?

Re: Apple Car: Bad Idea After All

#243

Post by chroma »

rootusrootus wrote: post #66
paxys wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The biggest reason that cars have horrible UX is that consumers don't care about it. No one is buying one for how good the speedometer looks. Give me a good performance and MPG. Make the components last long and be serviceable. Make it look good on the outside. Put advanced safety features. Perform well in crash tests. A hundred more of these and maybe the car will be worth buying. People here are delusional when the…

> People here are delusional when they go oh, Apple can make a better Carplay integration and easily outsell Ford and Tesla OTOH, why do most people buy a Tesla right now? "How good the speedometer looks" is a pretty good description. Performance is good, reliability awful, UI usability awful unless you like fancy computer graphics. As a car, a Model 3/Y has a lot of compromises and lacks many features other cars hav…

People buy Teslas primarily for two reasons:

1. The Supercharger network means you can take them on road trips without worrying. This isn't the case for other EVs which use the Electrify America charging network.

2. They're basically iPhones on wheels.

Unlike every other car manufacturer, you get constant software updates and improvements. Since I bought my car, software updates have increased its power by 5%, improved its range estimation, increased charging speeds, and it now drives itself on surface streets (originally it only self-drove on freeways). The UI has also been improved. Similar to iPad OS's dock, frequently-accessed apps are automatically shown in one area. I can also pin apps (or menus within some apps) if I want. A ton of new features have been added. I much prefer the current UI to the version that my car shipped with.

This reminds me of the debate over physical keyboards on phones. For years after the iPhone came out, some people swore they'd never give up their physical keyboards. And yes, physical keyboards (just like physical buttons) do have a lot of advantages. But you can't change them with a software update, and you can't change them depending on context. For most use-cases, that flexibility outweighs the lack of tactile response.

Re: Apple Car: Bad Idea After All

#244

Post by stevage »

aetherane wrote: post #125

I don't get why Apple's user experience keeps being repeated as "second to none". It really depends on what you are doing and used to. I personally find Android easier to use than iOS, but maybe I would feel differently if I haven't been using it for a while.

Agreed. And just look at the debacles of their various mice and keyboards to see how much they actually care about delivering great user experience for everyone. They prioritise "design" and company image every time.

Re: Apple Car: Bad Idea After All

#245

Post by hangonhn »

dabeeeenster wrote: post #10
pram wrote: post #5

The Polestar 2 feels like what an 'Apple car' would be like, to me. It seems to have a giant Android tablet in the middle console. Looks pretty smooth and tasteful overall but I can't summon up any excitement for it.

I own a relatively early Polestar 2 in the UK. It has been plagued with software problems, including a software update failing and bricking the car, requiring 3 different volvo techs to come and unbrick it. Even with Google helping on the software! Even now I'm stuck on 2.0 for some reason (2.2 is the latest in the UK). No idea why. Cant face the call to Polestar support and the inevitable reply of "Take it to a vovl…

Given the relative simplicity of an electric drivetrain compared to ICE, is all that software absolutely necessary? I'm a bit shocked (pun intended?) to hear that your car got bricked by a software update.

Re: Apple Car: Bad Idea After All

#246

Post by pineconewarrior »

logicalmonster wrote: post #78
dilap wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Apple did just move to an entire new architecture so I am hoping the bugs will start to calm down soon.

Re: Apple Car: Bad Idea After All

#247

Post by nradov »

bombcar wrote: post #229
saiya-jin wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is by far the best feature of our BMW F10 (manufactured in 2014 IIRC). I hate the distraction of constantly checking my speed in town, where there is a mix of dense traffic, many obstacles, outright stupid cyclists ignoring all traffic rules and aggressive motorcycles drivers and tons of radars that fine hard . I've noticed with my previous car (also BMW, E46 that I will remember fondly for the rest of my life a…

I've often thought that we should use that massively huge A pillar for some simple gauges, such as speed

Gauges on the A-pillar would interfere with airbag deployment.

Re: Apple Car: Bad Idea After All

#248

Post by giobox »

fdye wrote: post #26

So I've always wondered if Apple actually building a 'car' was ever really the goal. It seems like a skunkworks where they try crazy things and then incorporate into Carplay. Future seems to be ever expanding Carplay support. I use it and probably would not buy another car that did not have it integrated. I imagine car manufacturers are somewhat tired of always building HUDs and in vehicle control systems. So gradual…

I think this is a fair take, and I've had similar thoughts too. However, one thing computer industry people don't seem to get is how much the idea of Apple owning the "dials" on the instrument cluster as shown in the keynote this year will likely go down like a cup of cold sick at most European auto makers. In many cases the designs or colors used in the dial faces have decades of brand history behind them.

Regardless of what customers desire, auto-makers are in no rush to become just a dumb pipe for apple or google's driving software. So far not one automaker has of yet publicly announced support or plans to support the more extensive CarPlay Apple demoed. I think if it does ship, it will need to support far, far more customization on interface and dial-faces than was shown in the keynote for auto-makers not to feel totally sold out of the cabin.

It was slightly disappointing to me I've only really seen Nilay Patel at the Verge in the media point this out; anyone with experience of the car industry I think will come to a similar conclusion. People may forget, it took a very long time for some automakers to even trust adding the existing CarPlay, partly due to concerns regarding loss of control of cabin features. Old CarPlay is is a far less intrusive system than the one Apple are proposing now.

As a thought experiment - if I personally ran BMW or Mercedes, I would have real concerns about dilution of the brand by adopting a generic industry wide car UI, even if I also think Apple would probably do a great job. Maybe the carrot of Apple solving autonomy as part of the package might be enough to swing the deal, but even there, I think in time legacy automakers will work out who to aqui-hire to build their own systems instead of selling out completely.

> https://www.theverge.com/2022/6/7/23157963/apple-carplay-nex...

Re: Apple Car: Bad Idea After All

#249

Post by askvictor »

zx10rse wrote: post #225
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…

Tesla is pretty much a software company. Apple or any other company that wants to step in the EV market can be huge, if they focus on build quality and user experience, and by user experience I don't mean just the UX dashboard. There is a huge room for innovation in the automotive industry, I argue that we still haven't saw the next Model T 100 years later, and the industry grew a lot. Give the people an affordable w…

Software companies don't have to manage production, inventory, shipping, or a heap of things that are crucial to physical products. Tesla do a heap of interesting things in software, but that doesn't make them pretty much a software company.

Re: Apple Car: Bad Idea After All

#250

Post by pGuitar »

boxed wrote: post #163
pGuitar wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple always had anti-consumer rules for their products... not sure why it finally took off.

Besides them inventing the modern smart phone and revolutionizing an industry? What did the romans ever do for US? :P

They did start the phones as we know them today.... but better Android ones with slide out keyboards came out soon after
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