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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

#851

Post by dagmx »

adastra22 wrote: post #839
dagmx wrote: post #817

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tesla’s Model 3 and Y outsell other brands models. Toyota is losing their crown , especially in California. https://news.yahoo.com/report-sheds-light-major-rivalry-2045...

Not what I meant. "People want an experience that works out of the box." That experience of a car just working out of the box, doing what it is supposed to do, and never having any issues whatsoever, is more typical of Toyota/Honda than it is of any of the EV makers. Even though electric vehicles as a category should be better in principle (fewer moving parts).

There’s no single axis to people’s decisions though.

The Japanese brands have stagnated in terms of style, features and BEV availability. Especially in the case of Honda, they’ve also lost that impression of reliability.

Tesla and Hyundai/Kia are eating their market for what people’s wants have changed to: cars as an extension of the rest of their lives, not just a utility.

ease of use has to be viewed in that context

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

#852

Post by demondemidi »

ProfessorLayton wrote: post #168

To be honest, I'm not sure what Apple could've brought to the table in regards to making an electric car. Apple's hardware design philosophies[1] don't really align with what consumers want in a car. Apple being less minimalistic than a Tesla — which is already at an extreme — is a hard sell. [1] Examples of what I mean: - Cars use faux materials all the time for cost and weight purposes, or even just looks (i.e. fak…

You honestly believe Tesla is minimalistic? I see it as bloatware. I have to click through three dialogs to open my glovebox? How many servos and sensors are necessary to make the flush door handle pop out? And still not work in cold weather? I have multiple layers of menus to stare at dialogs to tell me how to basically use the car? Come on.

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

#853

Post by dagmx »

Affric wrote: post #845
dagmx wrote: post #794

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s a difference in ability and desire. Why do a lot of technical people own iPhones and use Mac’s? It’s not because they can’t understand the technology and it’s not because they don’t like to tinker. It’s because they don’t want to carry that constant burden of thought with them. Maybe some do, but a lot of folks like the base state to be one where they can just chill.

100% The final part of my comment got cut off by my tab switching behaviour but it was along the lines of “I find it hard to believe that even the most passionate hacker or tinkerer could become an adult and not have realised most people aren’t like that.

Ah fair. Yes I definitely agree with that.

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

#854

Post by fsloth »

diffeomorphism wrote: post #818
dagmx wrote: post #788

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of people want (as you describe) the “least-complex thing I can find that does the essential job I want done” But what you then go on to describe is the antithesis of other people’s definitions. People want an experience that works out of the box. That they don’t have to think about package managers or maintenance. That’s low complexity for the vast majority of people. That’s why people are going for Apple and…

People want something that works out of the box and keeps working without additional maintenance or annoying you all the time. The post you are replying to has a stronger focus on the second part but still wants the same thing. Same reasoning for getting debian instead of windows. The preinstalled option seems easier at first sight (someone else prepared the box for you), but then windows has McAfee trials, hey sign…

Any vanilla option with millions of users and some reputation for quality works for this. Windows works just fine out of the box. As does mac os. As does debian.

With windows you ofc run the risk of purchasing your kit from a shitty vendor - so that for sure is a slight extra hurdle.

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

#855

Post by dingsbumps »

jcgrillo wrote: post #352
k8svet wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can type significantly faster with GBoard, swipe or not, than I could on any physical phone keyboard ever. Blackberries, the G1, Droid OG. No way I'd ever take those over GBoard. But iOS users don't really know what they're missing from GBoard, so.

I haven't owned an iPhone since the iPhone 4, I lean really heavily on autocorrect on my Pixel (is that using Gboard?). It's just an infuriating experience to me compared to physical buttons. I probably hit the backspace key at least three times as often and often when I try to type a backspace instead it comes out as an "l", "m", ".", or enter. Most of the time I just wish I could plug my full sized keyboard into th…

You can indeed just plug in your full size keyboard into your phone! You may need a USB A to C adapter, but your phone will happily support an external keyboard

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

#856

Post by nicolas_t »

Miserlou57 wrote: post #833
ProfessorLayton wrote: post #168

To be honest, I'm not sure what Apple could've brought to the table in regards to making an electric car. Apple's hardware design philosophies[1] don't really align with what consumers want in a car. Apple being less minimalistic than a Tesla — which is already at an extreme — is a hard sell. [1] Examples of what I mean: - Cars use faux materials all the time for cost and weight purposes, or even just looks (i.e. fak…

I don’t hate the Apple Watch, but I was pretty seriously disappointed at how it looked when it came out. Great! They made a watch look like my phone, cool

I still prefer the look of the galaxy watch classic

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

#857

Post by petabyt »

steelframe wrote: post #782

After having gone through decades of adopting the "latest and greatest" tech, I've gotten to the point where what I really want is the least-complex thing I can find that does the essential job I want done. For a computer, I want something with SeaBIOS, a stripped-down kernel, and a handful of packages from the Debian Stable repository. I want it hackable and repairable -- something like a Framework. Nothing like a M…

Mechanical components becoming lines of code improved reliability and performance greatly, but at the cost of massively increasing complexity and making modifications impossible unless you are willing to reverse engineer.

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

#858

Post by MomoXenosaga »

adastra22 wrote: post #839
dagmx wrote: post #817

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tesla’s Model 3 and Y outsell other brands models. Toyota is losing their crown , especially in California. https://news.yahoo.com/report-sheds-light-major-rivalry-2045...

Not what I meant. "People want an experience that works out of the box." That experience of a car just working out of the box, doing what it is supposed to do, and never having any issues whatsoever, is more typical of Toyota/Honda than it is of any of the EV makers. Even though electric vehicles as a category should be better in principle (fewer moving parts).

My mom drives a small Citroen C1 and never opened the hood. Cars are already pretty damn reliable.

As I understand it it's usually the software that goes bad they have the whole engine thing down to a science.

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

#859

Post by I_AM_A_SMURF »

Miserlou57 wrote: post #833
ProfessorLayton wrote: post #168

To be honest, I'm not sure what Apple could've brought to the table in regards to making an electric car. Apple's hardware design philosophies[1] don't really align with what consumers want in a car. Apple being less minimalistic than a Tesla — which is already at an extreme — is a hard sell. [1] Examples of what I mean: - Cars use faux materials all the time for cost and weight purposes, or even just looks (i.e. fak…

I don’t hate the Apple Watch, but I was pretty seriously disappointed at how it looked when it came out. Great! They made a watch look like my phone, cool

It's funny that of all things Apple's watches are square and Android watches are round. It feels like it should be the other way around.

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

#860

Post by Doctor_Fegg »

beardicus wrote: post #668
iwontberude wrote: post #658

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe cars are inherently garish and tasteless.

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

My long-standing hobbyhorse is that Apple should buy Brompton.

Miniaturisation? Check. Lightweight metals? Check. Battery technology? Check. Premium design-centric product? Check. Product small enough to be sold through worldwide network of Apple Stores? Check.

Then add in what Apple could do with UX around bike navigation and you have a perfect fit.

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