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Apple to wind down electric car effort after decadelong odyssey

bloomberg.com

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Re: Apple to wind down electric car effort after decadelong odyssey

#561

Post by maxerickson »

pquki4 wrote: post #559
tibbar wrote: post #545

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is more overlap between the two than you'd think, specifically in producing and evaluating datasets for training and fine-tuning models. Most software engineers and ML engineers who worked on self-driving cars would do fine at working on GenAI; in fact, they're more qualified than the vast majority of engineers to work in a brand-new industry. Same goes for engineers working on compute hardware. Even engineers…

The question is: does Apple actually need so many people working on GenAI? Would a team with 300 people be twice as good as a team with 150 people for what Apple is going to release as products? I wouldn't be surprised if Apple is going to lay off most of them.

It doesn't need to be twice as good, it needs to generate more net income.

Re: Apple to wind down electric car effort after decadelong odyssey

#562

Post by MBCook »

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #526
theturtletalks wrote: post #502

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope, just seen it in action over and over. No one thought they would do VR and they did. No one thought they would compete with Netflix and their movies are winning awards now. No one thought they would cannibalize the iPod with a phone and they did. The state of US tech companies is that they will also go into new markets. When Netflix came out, did you really think Amazon and Apple would get into that market? To A…

> No one thought they would do VR and they did What has this VR achieved? Nothing so far. Cannibalising your own product isn’t an achievement They have never shipped a large physical product or anything mechanical in the entire history of the company, this is outright delusional.

It’s been like a month. Seriously. That’s a ridiculous hurdle to clear.

“The new Samsung ring came out this morning. At 11:30 the entire management resigned in unison apologizing and cancelled the project due to low sales.”

Re: Apple to wind down electric car effort after decadelong odyssey

#563

Post by FirmwareBurner »

theturtletalks wrote: post #543
MBCook wrote: post #492

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does Apple‘s walled garden have to do with buying a car? I’m so tired of people claiming apples walled garden gives them magic abilities. It has nothing to do with this. Do you really think people are going to pay an extra $30,000 for a car because it works with the iPhone? I have an iPhone. I love Apple stuff. I’m not paying any premium for an Apple car, they have to convince me it’s worth it over the competiti…

What does Apple‘s walled garden have to do with bluetooth headphones? Now, look at AirPods, simple bluetooth headphones, with tight integration with iOS. I was the one ridiculing Apple for even entering this market and I thought they looked dumb. Sony XMs looked way better. Now headphones are a sizable market for Apple. So many of my friends are awaiting the refreshed AirPods Max. The same people that said they would…

You still haven't said what the differentiator of an Apple car would be.

Re: Apple to wind down electric car effort after decadelong odyssey

#564

Post by jncfhnb »

baal80spam wrote: post #341
andrewia wrote: post #267

I know somebody on the project. The cancellation makes sense, they were years from release and every new VP pivoted the project and lost progress. If they had committed to their original project (a bus) or the first revision (a very high-end car) they could have released on a timely schedule. But they're far too late to the game.

Apple-bus (iBus?). Now that sounds glorious.

Now demanding 30% of revenue from the businesses they take you too!

Re: Apple to wind down electric car effort after decadelong odyssey

#565

Post by evan_ »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #554
evan_ wrote: post #490

If I were running a successful company I would stay as far away from selling cars as possible- it can't imagine how bad it is for PR (not to mention your psyche) to suddenly have "Family killed by drunk driver" headlines with a giant color picture of your flagship product, blood-stained and mangled below it.

People are taking issue with your comment (by more or less excusing other car companies) but I get what you are saying. Working in software I didn't sign up for something that people will put their lives in the hands of (awkward wording, but you know what I mean).

I think it's more than just the coders, it's just like... you know there's going to be a news story about an Apple Car running over a toddler and then right next to it there's a banner ad for the newest iPhone. Bad vibes.

Re: Apple to wind down electric car effort after decadelong odyssey

#566

Post by LeafItAlone »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #554
evan_ wrote: post #490

If I were running a successful company I would stay as far away from selling cars as possible- it can't imagine how bad it is for PR (not to mention your psyche) to suddenly have "Family killed by drunk driver" headlines with a giant color picture of your flagship product, blood-stained and mangled below it.

People are taking issue with your comment (by more or less excusing other car companies) but I get what you are saying. Working in software I didn't sign up for something that people will put their lives in the hands of (awkward wording, but you know what I mean).

Nobody is excusing the car companies, because there is nothing to excuse. It’s not Toyota’s fault is someone drives drunk and nobody associates the two.

Re: Apple to wind down electric car effort after decadelong odyssey

#567

Post by MBCook »

derefr wrote: post #464
mtlmtlmtlmtl wrote: post #449

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait, you're right. I could've sworn I remember the ipod touch being first. Now I'm wondering why it existed it all.

Because parents didn't want to buy an entire flagship smartphone just for their 6yo to listen to music on the schoolbus. But they were okay with buying them an iPod. iPods were just mid-tier consumer-electronics expensive; which, back in ~2005, was nowhere near entry-level smartphone expensive, let alone flagship smartphone expensive. Then, after the iPhone started getting rev after rev, Apple's "lean manufacturing"…

> Because parents didn't want to buy an entire flagship smartphone just for their 6yo to listen to music on the schoolbus. But they were okay with buying them an iPod.

Yep. Well said. The cost of a full phone + expensive plan is a lot.

Plus kids wanted the apps (really games) the iPhone had. Apple wanted to sell them games.

And besides that parents were far more hesitant to give young kids phones than (for better or worse) than today.

The final reason I’ve heard is the number of hand-me-down phones given to kids now that smartphones are ubiquitous means sales slowly fell to ver little compared to when introduced.

Re: Apple to wind down electric car effort after decadelong odyssey

#568

Post by TeaBrain »

Spivak wrote: post #289
chucke1992 wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is hilarious that people are trying to portray MSFT's moves in AI as "desperate" lol

MS got the score of the century. They're selling the shovels and access to the mines.

The GPUs that Nvidia is selling to Microsoft, Google, Meta and the venture-backed AI bandwagon are arguably the shovels.

Re: Apple to wind down electric car effort after decadelong odyssey

#569

Post by zuhsetaqi »

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #531
dublinben wrote: post #498

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can Apple products be status items when over 60% of smartphones in the US are iPhones? Is Coca-Cola a status item? Is it possible that they're just good products that deliver good value to the majority of people who buy them? Is a $1300 Galaxy S24 Ultra not a status item?

> How can Apple products be status items when over 60% of smartphones in the US are iPhones? How can an official suit and tie be a status item if most men have one? How can a good beard be a status item if it grows for free?

I wouldn’t say a general suit and/or tie are a status item. Maybe if it’s a expensive one.

A beard definitely isn’t a status item. That’s like saying black hair are a status item

Re: Apple to wind down electric car effort after decadelong odyssey

#570

Post by madeofpalk »

brandall10 wrote: post #119
madeofpalk wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's been killed, restarted, scaled down, scaled up about every 9 months for the past 10 years.

Is this current news more irreversible?

I expect news to say that the project has been restarted, with smaller scope, by the end of the year.
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