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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

#961

Post by ezfe »

jcgrillo wrote: post #756
ezfe wrote: post #625

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's great, and I don't begrudge you, but most people want to be able to tell their computer what to do and not need to understand the discrete steps it took to get there. Taking a completely different type of example, image editing. Let's say you ask your computer to remove a blemish in a photo. A professional could remove it, maybe better even, without AI. They know the tools to use, the keys to press, and effect…

> Regular people don't give a crap about that, they want to circle the item (or otherwise identify it) and click "remove." When the computer removes the selected item they're happy, and generative AI is working on THAT type of solution. This feels dangerously close to a lack of empathy for the user. I understand that's not your intention, in fact the opposite. But in order to accept the notion that users actually wan…

That's very true, I dislike how Apple, etc. don't uncover the manual controls for things. So when the smart tools stop working it gets frustrating because there's no manual way to continue.

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

#962

Post by lawkwok »

teaearlgraycold wrote: post #761
iwontberude wrote: post #658

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe cars are inherently garish and tasteless.

One of my hottest takes: cars look dumb. Even the fancy muscle/sports cars. Watch the suspension kick in as a car drives over a speed bump and remember it’s just a box on wheels.

I think cars only look good relative to other cars. But as an object themselves, they don’t add to the landscape.

Look at all the concept renderings of future apartments or idyllic European countryside’s. There’s always only a few cars or one car. Together, they are an an invasive organism.

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

#963

Post by golergka »

stephen_g wrote: post #711
type0 wrote: post #637

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There was this long song and dance about how apps were to be replaced by web pages Yeah and the first iPhones were terrible if you didn't jailbreak them

Terrible compared to what? At the time, mobile applications were universally pretty crap. Browsers were atrocious, not being able to render real CSS or anything (they’d give you a simplified broken layout). I didn’t have the first iPhones (my first was the iPhone 4) but I had a first generation iPod Touch, and Safari felt pretty magical at the time compared to anything else on the market. The capacitive screen, multi…

To be fair, Symbian apps were quite okay-ish. I had Nokia 6600 and it had a lot of great games and apps. Of course, when Apple finally launched the Appstore, and apps there were able to use iPhone's touchscreen, it was over for Symbian.

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

#964

Post by seesaw »

microtherion wrote: post #632
ProfessorLayton wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

a fun and whimsical one.

To me, it looks edgy for edginess' sake. In comparison, the Canoo vehicles look like they were actually designed with purpose.

Canoo looks like the cars Apple actually would have created.

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

#965

Post by ksec »

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'm not sure what Apple could've brought to the table in regards to making an electric car.

At this point Apple dont need to make any thing special in order for it to sell. Lv4 / Lv5 AVs ( autonomous vehicles ) is basically lots of computer on a battery moving around. The key problem here is Lv 5 AV, as we should have all learned in 2024 it doesn't exists. Not even close. All the promise about we would be there in 2016..... 2024 hasn't been true.

Without AVs, and hence without the needs of all the computing power, there isn't anything in a Car that is adjacent to Apple's core strength.

> Apple design in general has lost a lot of it's soul.

I would argue it is not just their design, but Apple itself. Again It is Tim Cook's Apple now. Not Steve Job's Apple.

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

#966

Post by [deleted] »

acchow wrote: post #775
mdhb wrote: post #482

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Im not debating the mechanics of why it’s so shit, I’m saying that they are many years behind everyone else and that it’s not obvious that simply throwing money at the problem is going to fix that for them or that they actually have much of a track record of making good software again despite unlimited budgets and many years of opportunity to prove otherwise.

Llama2 13b runs on an m1 at 13 tokens/s. So they will be able to do this on an iPhone. https://gist.github.com/gengwg/26592c1979a0bca8b65e2f819e31a...

[deleted]

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

#967

Post by ActorNightly »

freeone3000 wrote: post #466
ActorNightly wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are generally 3types of car buyers today. 1. People who are into cars as status items (which encompasses car enthusiasts, because lets be real, very few of those people who are into "performance" even touch 50% of the cars capability on public roads). This is your BMW/Porsche and other buyers. 2. People who want cheap modes of transportation. This is your cheapest level sedan buyers. 3. People who want specific…

Apple cars would aim more for the (1) bracket than the (3). Apple products are status items. Same particular utility can be had much cheaper.

In order to be in 1, Apple car has to be a complete package with performance as well. While Apple can build an electric car, you can't outsource design of something that feels sporty.

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

#968

Post by ActorNightly »

kube-system wrote: post #557
ActorNightly wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are generally 3types of car buyers today. 1. People who are into cars as status items (which encompasses car enthusiasts, because lets be real, very few of those people who are into "performance" even touch 50% of the cars capability on public roads). This is your BMW/Porsche and other buyers. 2. People who want cheap modes of transportation. This is your cheapest level sedan buyers. 3. People who want specific…

> 1. People who are into cars as status items (which encompasses car enthusiasts, because lets be real, very few of those people who are into "performance" even touch 50% of the cars capability on public roads). This is your BMW/Porsche and other buyers. I don't disagree with what you're probably trying to say here, but I disagree with how you're stating it. First, "car enthusiast" != "performance enthusiast". There…

There are an extremely small number of car enthusiasts that are in it because they like working with their hands to make performance mods to try stuff. The rest is all about status. I know this because I used to be solidly in the car world back in the early 2000s , my friend from college had an Integra Type R that he raced in the Honda Challenge that we both tracked and worked on, and I got to experience pretty much all of car culture first hand.

People who are into modifications for power to roll race on the street do it solidly just to show off how much money they can spend.

People who drive "hard" on the street really arent even close to performance capabilities of their car. Give me most any ~250 hp sedan, no matter which wheel drive, Ill redo the suspension and stick on good tires, and I can keep up with any 911 on twisty roads. The culture in this regard is pretty evident because I will be seen as a poser if I do this.

As for the track, there is a separate subculture that happens at the track. Sure there is a minority out there to just have fun in their regular cars, most everybody including them are oogling the expensive track toys, and nobody is paying attention to actual driving skill of the people. At one point and time, a husband and his wife pulled up with a mobile home towing a garage with 2 Ferrari Challenge cars, with the entire setup costing more than I have ever made in my entire life even now 10 years later, and of course they were not any faster around the track, but they were the stars of that day.

Racing series are also literally about who can spend the most money, until you cross the bridge of being good enough to run sponsors. Not even on the car parts either, for example, we would camp at the track, while other people would pull up in their trailer homes and get a much better night sleep with AC, which gives a huge advantage come racing.

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

#969

Post by ActorNightly »

serjester wrote: post #450
ActorNightly wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>This was an idea that never made any sense to me. I mean, for Apple, it absolutely makes sense. Electric vehicles are relatively straightforward to make. Everyone and their mother are producing some sort of electric scooter/dirt bike these days with new companies popping up every month. Furthermore Tesla has proven that for a lot of people a car is simply an appliance. Apple could easily outsource most of the functi…

Having worked at a car company, this is categorically false. Cars have thousands of moving parts (even EV's), are expected to operate reliably for a decade, represent the second most expensive thing most people will buy and any mistakes will kill people. If it were easy, we'd see a lot more profitable car companies.

>Cars have thousands of moving parts (even EV's)

Take a car with 4 motors, 1 per wheel (which is the best arrangement). The total list of moving parts.

- wheels - suspension linkage - driveshafts - brakes - pedals - windows - wipers - coolant pump - washer fluid pump - seats - frunk/trunk

Thats the list of moving parts. Dunno where you got 1000 moving parts from. Most each one of those has reliable manufacturers that have figured out how to build them correctly.

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

#970

Post by kube-system »

ActorNightly wrote: post #968
kube-system wrote: post #557

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 1. People who are into cars as status items (which encompasses car enthusiasts, because lets be real, very few of those people who are into "performance" even touch 50% of the cars capability on public roads). This is your BMW/Porsche and other buyers. I don't disagree with what you're probably trying to say here, but I disagree with how you're stating it. First, "car enthusiast" != "performance enthusiast". There…

There are an extremely small number of car enthusiasts that are in it because they like working with their hands to make performance mods to try stuff. The rest is all about status. I know this because I used to be solidly in the car world back in the early 2000s , my friend from college had an Integra Type R that he raced in the Honda Challenge that we both tracked and worked on, and I got to experience pretty much…

I know, I've been to the track with a couple of my cars too.

My point is that you neither have to reach the limits of a car's performance, nor do you need a high performance car, to appreciate cars for what they are. Many of the people who ended up on the track in the 00's and 10's are people who enjoyed whippin' 90s shitboxes around country roads, but couldn't afford the track. These are hardly people who buy cars for status.

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