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Apple Car: Bad Idea After All

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Re: Apple Car: Bad Idea After All

#261

Post by eande »

jononomo wrote: post #102

I wish Toyota would partner with Apple for their internal maps, screen, controls, etc. Toyota seems to have a major problem with intuitive usability (especially for my parents who are in their 80s). Toyota is the largest car company in the world and makes the most reliable vehicles in the world, but they need that extra touch to take them to the next level. Just as I would never by a phone that is not an iPhone, or a…

Toyota is heavily investing and committed to launch their own groundbreaking Arene OS solution through the Toyota's Woven Planet Group starting in 2025.

https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/toyota...

Re: Apple Car: Bad Idea After All

#262

Post by no_wizard »

askvictor wrote: post #249
zx10rse wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Apple does do this, just not for cars. They have a massive and fine tuned global supply chain for all their hardware devices.

I imagine some of that expertise would play well in the car market, but I'm certain much as Tesla did, they may hit road bumps along the way, however its not completely out of their DNA to handle this sort of thing.

Re: Apple Car: Bad Idea After All

#263

Post by wwweston »

sytelus wrote: post #205
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…

HUDs are the small part of the story. far more important thing is what sensors you have access to and what can you control? Car manufactures are notoriously behind and bad on properly expanding and standardizing both sensors and controls. So, it is impossible to deliver consistent experience and capabilities. Even in 2022, most manufacturer haven't still figured out how to do firmware update without using USB drives.…

> Even in 2022, most manufacturer haven't still figured out how to do firmware update without using USB drives.

This... makes sense to me? Physical access and automotive service go hand-in-hand. Over-the-air presents update hell and security issues.

Re: Apple Car: Bad Idea After All

#264

Post by AlotOfReading »

jononomo wrote: post #102

I wish Toyota would partner with Apple for their internal maps, screen, controls, etc. Toyota seems to have a major problem with intuitive usability (especially for my parents who are in their 80s). Toyota is the largest car company in the world and makes the most reliable vehicles in the world, but they need that extra touch to take them to the next level. Just as I would never by a phone that is not an iPhone, or a…

Apple has already publicly torpedoed their relationship with one major manufacturer (Hyundai/Kia). It's suspected that the same thing has happened less publicly with others like Nissan. They've supposedly been talking with Toyota for a bit, but that's always been a weird choice because Toyota leadership has never fully bought into the idea of electric vehicles and SV development styles, nor are they likely to enjoy being treated the way Apple tends to treat "suppliers". They also have their own development units for this, like GM and most of the German manufacturers.

Re: Apple Car: Bad Idea After All

#265

Post by lttlrck »

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…

It seems Mercedes are not going that direction at all with with the EQ range. They've gone all in, the MMI is deeply embedded into the car, speech recognition runs locally, it can control performance mode, seat massagers, huge swathes of car specific functionality, via speech, that I think Apple would have an uphill to catch up with, universally, across all vendors.

I doubt the upper tier of manufacturers would be happy with mere UI skins either.

Cars that are more like appliances, shared cars, with user customization in your phone, maybe that could work?

Re: Apple Car: Bad Idea After All

#266

Post by thinkling »

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 was thinking along those lines, but the majority of phones are Android and I can't see a car manufacturer tying major features of a vehicle to users of Apple phones.

Do they get Google to implement equivalent Android features just as CarPlay and Android Auto are complementary now? In some ways that makes sense (you get the personal assistant you prefer instead of one provided by the car company) but it means differentiation must be limited because the car can't change too much depending on what phone is plugged into it.

Re: Apple Car: Bad Idea After All

#267

Post by dalyons »

dhosek wrote: post #231
smm11 wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

The last few times I’ve rented a car it’s had CarPlay and based on those experiences, the next time I buy a car, it must have CarPlay. The experience without it is just so poor (and don’t get me started on how ridiculously bad the experience of pairing bluetooth is in my parent’s car which requires a mix of voice commands and button presses in a completely undiscoverable way).

yup! me too. Thats how i ended up buying a new car instead of a recent second-hand version of the same. Carplay was an absolute non-negotiable must have.

Re: Apple Car: Bad Idea After All

#268

Post by e63f67dd-065b »

cercatrova wrote: post #128
johannes1234321 wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> imagine car manufacturers are somewhat tired of always building HUDs and in vehicle control systems. So gradually standardizing on a way to take all the displays/touchscreens in a vehicle and let them be run by Carplay seems like the future. What is then remaining as distinctive feature of a car vendor? The design? With their custom entertainment system they can confront they driver with their own brand identity an…

Who buys cars for their HUD? I buy cars for their performance, miles per gallon (or electric equivalent), brand value, etc.

Speaking as somebody who doesn't care at all about cars, the primary things that would drive my car purchase would be:

- Cost (per unit distance in fuel, maintenance, etc)

- Comfort (which includes integration with other software, ie Carplay)

I don't care about "performance"; I don't even know what that means, and frankly I don't care. The car needs to get from my house to some other point on the map and back cheaply and comfortably.

Re: Apple Car: Bad Idea After All

#269

Post by Moto7451 »

cercatrova wrote: post #128
johannes1234321 wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> imagine car manufacturers are somewhat tired of always building HUDs and in vehicle control systems. So gradually standardizing on a way to take all the displays/touchscreens in a vehicle and let them be run by Carplay seems like the future. What is then remaining as distinctive feature of a car vendor? The design? With their custom entertainment system they can confront they driver with their own brand identity an…

Who buys cars for their HUD? I buy cars for their performance, miles per gallon (or electric equivalent), brand value, etc.

I didn’t buy my Audi for the HUD (or other UI) but I’m unlikely to buy another one after:

1. The Android based entertainment system regularly crashes. 2. The non-android based digital center cluster is designed so poorly as to have the date in two to three places and fuel levels hidden by default. 3. Safety systems that will needlessly engage the brakes because it believes that driving past the backed up left turn lane on a gently curving road is an imminent head on collision.

I’ve learned to work around these issues for the most part. Disabling all the wireless hardware reduces, but does not eliminate entertainment crashes. I memorized the steering wheel dial flicks to get the fuel gauge to display. I turn off the safety features.

Most of the car is very nice. The software stack is honestly something Audi should have outsourced to a competent development team elsewhere in the automotive industry.

Re: Apple Car: Bad Idea After All

#270

Post by yalogin »

What is the point of this article? I guess it had good engagement here but ultimately doesn’t provide anything of value. Apple will get into the car business if it can offer something better. Either way the product will be wonderful if they do, and we know they won’t abandon it too. So if they get in we can see iteratively improving product that is baseline better than many/most. Does it happen? Who knows?
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