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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

#681

Post by truculent »

skullone wrote: post #670
ein0p wrote: post #656

Kinda still wish they’d have made it, or at least shown some pre-production work, just to see what a radical product re-think could look like in this space. Cars of 2024, even in the premium segment, are nearly uniformly garish and tasteless, with tons of half baked features of marginal utility accreted over the years and never perfected. Apple’s take on the category could have been a master class in product design a…

Aren't Apple products also uniformly garish and tasteless with tons of half baked features too? Glad we don't have to see what dumb ideas Apple had in store for us in the automotive realm. The m1/m2 are good chips, but macos is stagnant, iPhones have... memojis as their new feature? Apple has good industrial design for devices that fit in the palm of your hand. I truthfully cannot fathom how that could extend to a ca…

Memoji are, what, 6 years old now?

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

#682

Post by chrischen »

JoshTko wrote: post #673
beardicus wrote: post #668

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep. Apple dodged a very uncool bullet here. Now make an e-bike, Tim Apple.

This. Ebike with non disableable airtag built into the frame as the killer feature.

Ebike market is very fragmented in terms of use cases. They’d have to release like 10 models.

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

#683

Post by RodgerTheGreat »

DinaCoder99 wrote: post #158
filmgirlcw wrote: post #18

Good. This was an idea that never made any sense to me. It’s high overhead/low-margin and requires infrastructure, sales and after-sales support that just aren’t aligned with how Apple does business. It’s one thing to create a new car company (even tho those attempts usually fail), it’s another to purposefully take it on as a business line when your existing business groups prints money and have 40%+ margins. Especia…

I just don't see how they can make any more money with "generative ai" than a useful tool that actually can get me around. Seems like chasing after fool's gold.

For a strictly vibes-based technology bubble, it can be valuable to invest a little in vibes, if not necessarily technology. Claiming you're assigning employees to a buzzword is very affordable.

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

#684

Post by Auracle »

kwhitefoot wrote: post #396
staticman2 wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If AGI is defined as a AI that can replace most humans at most tasks, it would be worth money if it's cheaper than paying humans. So instead of a Marvel film costing 100 million to make, if an AGI can do it for 30 million it's worth tens of millions of dollars. Of course society might eventually collapse from mass unemployment, but corporate owners would live like kings until that finally happens.

If AI replaces most humans at most tasks how are the humans going to pay for the products?

There are two possibilities- one is what the PC largely did. Nobody really lost their jobs even though one accountant can do the work of 40 that just had calculators. We can just do “more” now.

On the other hand there’s what the washing machine, mechanized farm equipment, etc. did. A slow shift in how many people are required to do a job. There were no absolute jobs lost, just a shift in the economy.

Chances are it’ll be somewhere in between.

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

#685

Post by zemo »

Raptor22 wrote: post #539
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.

> original project (a bus) This is actually insane to me. Like bonkers, even. The MBA types are surely the source of that idea. From a brand perspective, the only car that ever truly made sense for Apple to make was something at least resembling a supercar. They could have made do with a Telsa Model S kind of car perhaps, but I'm shocked that a brand-conscious company like Apple thought a bus was the best bet as an i…

Apple’s take on the VW Bus would be very on-brand imho

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

#686

Post by Tiktaalik »

riddlemethat wrote: post #3

This is a smart move. Apple seems so far behind in generative AI it's making Google look innovative.

Do we actually know if they're far behind or if they just haven't released something publicly because it's not perfect?

I mean looking at Google and the various daily AI dramas they get, it seems like everyone else has rushed to market and is dealing with the negative fallout of that.

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

#687

Post by Auracle »

jcgrillo wrote: post #35
exe34 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you missed all the people complaining that it'll put them out of business?

No, but having tried it I can't figure out what they're talking about. Seems like more NFT-esque nonsense.

This comment is really odd to see on HN. It’s like if a group of computer enthusiasts (in person) had a guy saying “I don’t understand what the big deal is with this so-called internet.”

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

#688

Post by crazygringo »

skullone wrote: post #677
willbw wrote: post #674

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone accuse anything Apple made of being garish.

They only have like 2% of the PC/laptop market, so not many people think they're that attractive. I like my M1 MacBook itself, but hate the aluminum chassis. I find it brutally garish, sharp and uncomfortable (hurts to type on, hurts my wrists where they rest on a sharp edge, so it's basically a desktop with an attached keyboard and mouse)

It's fine that you don't like it, but it's not garish. That's just not what the word means. MacBooks are literally the opposite of that:

adjective

gar· ish | \ ˈger-ish \

Definition

1 : clothed in vivid colors

//a garish clown

2 a : excessively or disturbingly vivid

//garish colors

//garish imagery

b : offensively or distressingly bright : GLARING

3 : tastelessly showy : FLASHY

//garish neon signs

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/garish

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

#689

Post by skullone »

truculent wrote: post #681
skullone wrote: post #670

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aren't Apple products also uniformly garish and tasteless with tons of half baked features too? Glad we don't have to see what dumb ideas Apple had in store for us in the automotive realm. The m1/m2 are good chips, but macos is stagnant, iPhones have... memojis as their new feature? Apple has good industrial design for devices that fit in the palm of your hand. I truthfully cannot fathom how that could extend to a ca…

Memoji are, what, 6 years old now?

My point exactly. It is such a locked down platform, that I cannot for the life of me understand why people fawn over iphones. They were first to market, but market mover advantage is gone, Apple has not made a good iphone value proposition in years. Especially if you hold it wrong.

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

#690

Post by pstuart »

chrischen wrote: post #682
JoshTko wrote: post #673

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. Ebike with non disableable airtag built into the frame as the killer feature.

Ebike market is very fragmented in terms of use cases. They’d have to release like 10 models.

just 3: good, better, best
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