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Apple Car: Bad Idea After All

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Re: Apple Car: Bad Idea After All

#121

Post by randcraw »

paxys wrote: post #49
ARandumGuy wrote: post #8

A full Apple Car has always seemed unrealistic to me. Cars are a fundamentally different industry then consumer electronics and software. Apple would be starting from scratch, and facing a lot of entrenched competition with huge budgets and infrastructure. And for what? What could Apple do that GM, Toyota, or Tesla couldn't? Maybe a better UX for the dashboard. And while many car UXs are absolutely terrible, improvin…

The biggest reason that cars have horrible UX is that consumers don't care about it. No one is buying one for how good the speedometer looks. Give me a good performance and MPG. Make the components last long and be serviceable. Make it look good on the outside. Put advanced safety features. Perform well in crash tests. A hundred more of these and maybe the car will be worth buying. People here are delusional when the…

You describe only one reason for choosing a car: utility. But cars are often chosen for other reasons: style, status, some cool factor or compelling feature. UX is generally not a dealmaker, especially since nobody outside the car sees it. But bad UX definitely can be a deal breaker.

For me, a good example of this is recent BMWs. The instrument cluster on 2 and 3 series models is hideous -- misshapen dials, poor color choices, bling where there should be understatement. The days of simply communicating only essential info elegantly are long gone. I simply would not buy a car with a dashboard that ugly. (These insights should matter to BMW since I've driven and loved their cars for 30 years, but oddly they haven't sought my opinion. Alas, it shows.)

Bad UX is indeed important to some of us.

Re: Apple Car: Bad Idea After All

#122

Post by lucky_cloud »

als0 wrote: post #110
modeless wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More than ever if I go by how often I see their cars on the road. Three yesterday.

What do they look like?

Some photos here, although this is from 2017

https://appleinsider.com/articles/17/04/27/apples-self-drivi...

Re: Apple Car: Bad Idea After All

#123

Post by detaro »

WalterBright wrote: post #117

There have been a lot of failed new car company startups. Like the Tucker, the Bricklin, the DeLorean. It's really, really, really hard to create a new car company. The usual problem is way, way underestimating the amount of capital it will take. Tesla is an amazing company because they achieved it. Apple's expertise is in making software and tiny electrical gadgets. How they thought that would translate into experti…

> How they thought that would translate into expertise in making cars is beyond me

Is there any concrete statement/"evidence" that they ever seriously intended to "make cars"? Media reports always talk about "Apple cars", but the concrete visible bits I've seen also fit a software/computer-angle. But "Apple is dabbling in self-driving tech like any other large company with lots of money and an AI/ML-department" isn't as catchy a story.

Re: Apple Car: Bad Idea After All

#124

Post by tomatotomato37 »

hbn wrote: post #22
ARandumGuy wrote: post #8

A full Apple Car has always seemed unrealistic to me. Cars are a fundamentally different industry then consumer electronics and software. Apple would be starting from scratch, and facing a lot of entrenched competition with huge budgets and infrastructure. And for what? What could Apple do that GM, Toyota, or Tesla couldn't? Maybe a better UX for the dashboard. And while many car UXs are absolutely terrible, improvin…

They already showed off giant carplay updates at WWDC this year. They showed a car where the entire dash was a giant wide screen, where it even handled the speedometer, odometer, fuel level, etc https://appleinsider.com/articles/22/06/09/apples-2023-carpl...

Wow, congratulations, Apple managed to hotglue a screen to the dash. But how about the rest of the car?

What's the seating like? Is the suspension firm or soft? How big are its blindspots? Can it make it over a grass median without bottoming out? What about a snow bank? How well does the frame cope with rust? Can you manipulate its doors with a hand full of groceries? Do the brakes fade when fully loaded? Does it oversteer or underwater under hard cornering?

There's so much more to a car than its dashboard and powerplant, but I feel like 90% of SV think all you need to do to disrupt the auto market is bolt an iPad to a motor

Re: Apple Car: Bad Idea After All

#125

Post by aetherane »

I don't get why Apple's user experience keeps being repeated as "second to none". It really depends on what you are doing and used to. I personally find Android easier to use than iOS, but maybe I would feel differently if I haven't been using it for a while.

Re: Apple Car: Bad Idea After All

#126

Post by wil421 »

johannes1234321 wrote: post #119
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…

> 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…

Not really my wife’s BMW and my Jeep are both SUVs. They are pretty different and Jeep has started offering off road Hybrids. Eventually both companies will offer full EVs in existing lineups. The BMW is much better to drive but I wouldn’t take it off road. EVs will continue to fill the niche gaps their consumers want.

Re: Apple Car: Bad Idea After All

#127

Post by Tiktaalik »

bergenty wrote: post #43
dzhiurgis wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seeing how boring Carplay has been so far I’d have my doubts about skunkworks. That said it makes sense they might be working on exclusive operating system of sorts. The way car systems (100s of suppliers and their implementation) work nowadays is insane.

I don’t know what you mean by “boring” but CarPlay is fantastic. It works really well and covers most things I’d like to do with a central console.

CarPlay does not work well at all on my 2018 Golf. There's a multitude of obvious, awful bugs. (eg. audio directions not occurring, but nonetheless ducking spotify audio for them)

Re: Apple Car: Bad Idea After All

#128

Post by cercatrova »

johannes1234321 wrote: post #119
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…

> 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.

Re: Apple Car: Bad Idea After All

#129

Post by PlsDntBan »

aetherane wrote: post #125

I don't get why Apple's user experience keeps being repeated as "second to none". It really depends on what you are doing and used to. I personally find Android easier to use than iOS, but maybe I would feel differently if I haven't been using it for a while.

No post body was provided.

Re: Apple Car: Bad Idea After All

#130

Post by VBprogrammer »

restore_creole_ wrote: post #116
rootusrootus wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> while a well-made electric car can run to a million miles over 50+ years That is a big claim, which is completely unsupported by reality. ICEVs do not get recycled because the engine died. Body rot, repairs that cost more than the value of the car, etc, this is why cars are taken off the road. If anything, the current batch of early generation EVs are probably going to have shorter than average lifespans compared t…

For the million mile mark there is at least one example. https://insideevs.com/news/559261/tesla-models-p85-1500000-k...

With multiple battery and drive unit replacements we may as well call it Triggers Tesla!

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus

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