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Apple Lays Off 200 Employees from Autonomous Car Unit

cnbc.com

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Re: Apple Lays Off 200 Employees from Autonomous Car Unit

#161

Post by oblio »

innocentoldguy wrote: post #35
pentae wrote: post #6

When you can't make a laptop with reliable screens or keyboards, or an iMac lineup that has CPU's 2 generations behind.. Maybe it's time to shut down the stupid vanity projects and focus on your core business instead?

I must be pretty lucky. I've been using Apple products since the original iMac and the only problem I've ever had was when I dropped my phone on a rock and cracked the screen. Apple was great about replacing it for me too. Regarding CPUs, I'm personally much more interested in being able to run macOS on my computer, iOS on my phone, and tvOS on my TV and have them all work together in ways that make me happy. If Appl…

> I must be pretty lucky.

> [...]

> It has a Threadripper 1950X processor, 128GB of RAM, and an Nvidia Titan V card in it.

Yes, you are, you're rich. An Nvidia Titan V card on Amazon costs about $3k!

Re: Apple Lays Off 200 Employees from Autonomous Car Unit

#162

Post by setquk »

matthewmacleod wrote: post #154
setquk wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having returned my 2018 "improved butterfly keyboard" MBA because the keyboard died after 3 weeks, I suspect that the issue isn't being taken seriously. A minor design revision that didn't pick up or resolve a recurring issue is a death march for a product.

Okay, but on the flip side I used the 2017 MBP for a year with no problems whatsoever. It's hard to figure out realistically how much of a problem this is for them.

Take the dead ones to bits and do a post mortem. There's enough of them.

Re: Apple Lays Off 200 Employees from Autonomous Car Unit

#163

Post by oblio »

iamgopal wrote: post #141
no1youknowz wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This article is a bit sketchy, but serves my point-ish. They say Volvo is going to release a true self-driving car by 2021. But then it goes on to mention level 4. Let's pull it back a little and say by 2021, they release level 4. If any automaker is going to do Level 5 in the snow. It's going to be Volvo. Being a Swedish company (albeit owned by a Chinese firm now), they have a particular track record when it comes…

How in the world a car company can attract ( let alone provide environment or infrastructure etc ) sufficient software talent to achieve this ?

$$$, just like every other company.

Re: Apple Lays Off 200 Employees from Autonomous Car Unit

#164

Post by asendra »

rgovostes wrote: post #16
pentae wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well thats my point - it seems that they can't chew gum and walk at the same time. If they could, we'd have Macs that are updated to the latest gen hardware in a reasonable amount of time, and issues like the faulty keyboard would have been fixed by now after 3 years.

I don't think this viewpoint is shared by the vast majority of people who buy personal computers. Gigahertz, number of CPU cores, Intel processor families, etc. mean nothing. I think the reason why they don't rev their hardware as frequently as they could is because it doesn't pay to. The number of people choosing between a Mac and a Dell who go for the one with the newest processor has to be vanishingly insignifican…

It shows a lack of respect for their users, and for their users money.

They are charging the same for almost two years old hardware than they would if It had been updated, but the user gets a worst product, and in the long run, experience.

Re: Apple Lays Off 200 Employees from Autonomous Car Unit

#165

Post by jsjohnst »

oblio wrote: post #151
amelius wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Autonomous Vehicle, is basically a Giant Mobile iPhone that you can sit in it. Ugh. What's next? It seems in the future everything will look like an iPhone and is built by one company. Why can't we have more modularization in the economy, i.e. smaller companies that do 1 thing well, which sell to potentially multiple other companies that do 1 thing well too? Perhaps we should set a hard limit on the number of emplo…

An iPhone is made by many different suppliers. Apple only makes a handful of chips. Important chips, but hardly everything in the phone.

Apple doesn’t even “make” the chips, they design them. TSMC and GlobalFoundry have been the fabs historically that have done the actual “making” of them.

Re: Apple Lays Off 200 Employees from Autonomous Car Unit

#166

Post by mrweasel »

lsc wrote: post #157
jarym wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ll add my pet peeve to the list: Sell me a £1k phone that can’t connect to the £3.5k laptop you sold me because the phone comes with a USB-A cable and the laptop only has USB-C sockets. This is precisely the sort of garbage Stveve was very much against yet Apple seem to now think ‘it’s ok’. It’s not ok. To the down voters, the fanaticism only emboldens Apple to become more mediocre. Think about that a moment.

>Sell me a £1k phone that can’t connect to the £3.5k laptop you sold me because the phone comes with a USB-A cable and the laptop only has USB-C sockets. https://www.apple.com/shop/product/MQGJ2AM/A/usb-c-to-lightn... I mean, usb C has issues, but not being able to connect to an iphone isn't one of them.

Yeah, but it's $19 and should have been included for free with the phone.

Re: Apple Lays Off 200 Employees from Autonomous Car Unit

#167

Post by ako »

ulfw wrote: post #17
pentae wrote: post #6

When you can't make a laptop with reliable screens or keyboards, or an iMac lineup that has CPU's 2 generations behind.. Maybe it's time to shut down the stupid vanity projects and focus on your core business instead?

I have no idea why you're getting downvoted. If a company decides not to produce wireless routers (which were class leading) or monitors etc anymore, all because they're non "core" to a computer/mobile hardware company then I don't see how building automotive AI is core to a computer/mobile hardware computer company that has zero core competency in either car manufacturing or AI.

You have core now, core in the future, and never core.

When work started on the iphone, phone weren't core, but there was a vision that it could be. Routers were killed because there was no future where routers would ever be core.

Apparently Apple sees (saw) a future where automotive AI might be core.

Re: Apple Lays Off 200 Employees from Autonomous Car Unit

#168

Post by millstone »

jarym wrote: post #113
pentae wrote: post #6

When you can't make a laptop with reliable screens or keyboards, or an iMac lineup that has CPU's 2 generations behind.. Maybe it's time to shut down the stupid vanity projects and focus on your core business instead?

I’ll add my pet peeve to the list: Sell me a £1k phone that can’t connect to the £3.5k laptop you sold me because the phone comes with a USB-A cable and the laptop only has USB-C sockets. This is precisely the sort of garbage Stveve was very much against yet Apple seem to now think ‘it’s ok’. It’s not ok. To the down voters, the fanaticism only emboldens Apple to become more mediocre. Think about that a moment.

Hey Apple thrives on "pet peeves," way back to missing function keys and second mouse buttons. Keep 'em coming.

> Sell me a £1k phone that can’t connect to the £3.5k laptop you sold me

Of course they can connect, via Bluetooth and WiFi and AirDrop...

If you mean your iPhone can't charge off a MBP, well, OK: MBPs are admittedly not the best charging hubs.

> This is precisely the sort of garbage Stveve was very much against

Yeah, that's baloney. Steve would ask why the iPhone still has any ports at all.

Re: Apple Lays Off 200 Employees from Autonomous Car Unit

#169

Post by nkkollaw »

Let's be honest, Apple hasn't been able to ship a decent, non-defective computer in many years, now.

I would be extremely scared of driving a car where the steering wheel or breaks got stuck from dust particles like their keyboards (but the break pedal is over 85% thinner!).

Apple is still able to sell stuff because they're milking the successful products of the last years when Steve Jobs was still alive, but the situation is quickly shifting. Personally, I switched from Apple to Linux and just bought an absolutely wonderful Surface Book 2 (yup, EUR 2000), and it's the best computer I've ever owned. Compared to my last, defective, keeeey-repeeeating MacBook Pro it has a detachable screen so that it can turn into a tablet or you can fold it for presentations, touchscreen, awesome design, and the screen is 3:2 so I can see more text. I had been a customer for over 10 years.

Re: Apple Lays Off 200 Employees from Autonomous Car Unit

#170

Post by boyband6666 »

GuardianCaveman wrote: post #127
jarym wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ll add my pet peeve to the list: Sell me a £1k phone that can’t connect to the £3.5k laptop you sold me because the phone comes with a USB-A cable and the laptop only has USB-C sockets. This is precisely the sort of garbage Stveve was very much against yet Apple seem to now think ‘it’s ok’. It’s not ok. To the down voters, the fanaticism only emboldens Apple to become more mediocre. Think about that a moment.

Besides the connections the software doesn’t work between those two out of the box. My mom bought 2k MacBook Pro from the Apple store and a 1100 Iphone xs and we got home and plugged it in to back up her saved backup and iTunes wouldn’t let us. I can’t recall the exact problem but the solution was downloading the latest software for both devices. Several hours later it was working but out of the box? So disappointing…

Was there not also a point where a new MBP with USB-C only, and a new iphone wouldn't even be able to be connected out of the box?
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