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Apple R&D Reveals a Pivot Is Coming

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Re: Apple R&D Reveals a Pivot Is Coming

#191

Post by mcphage »

Doctor_Fegg wrote: post #148
SyneRyder wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple is not even trying, or is leaving their Maps team terribly under resourced. I've been running some experiments submitting the same edits to Google, Yelp & Apple simultaneously (since Apple uses Yelp data), and timing how long each takes to update. The last time I publicly recorded my results: Google Maps: 40 minutes Yelp: 3 days 20 hours Apple Maps: 13 days https://twitter.com/syneryder/statuses/668473075365642…

OpenStreetMap: 0 minutes

That wouldn't be good, either, since it would mean no quality control of the data going in.

Re: Apple R&D Reveals a Pivot Is Coming

#192

Post by tyingq »

patrickbolle wrote: post #181
tyingq wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>They imagined a phone must have a physical keyboard I get that I'm not representative of the market, but my pattern of using a smartphone involves a lot of email. I don't see that going away, as a lot of my communication involves people in other timezones. I was way more productive in this when I had a blackberry, but, of course, it did suffer horribly when using the web. It won't change, but I wish there was enoug…

I've been a lifetime BlackBerry user (from waterloo) and just got the priv. it's a really great device but having the passport on android would be a gamechanger imo

Yes...that passport looks great. Android on a BB Passport would fit my definition of a decent keyboard android phone. The wide format looks like a more natural layout.

Re: Apple R&D Reveals a Pivot Is Coming

#193

Post by mcphage »

Communitivity wrote: post #164

I don't understand the confusion on what Apple's next big thing is, they've laid it out time and again. Come to think of it, I think I just saw a slide with it right on the single slide during the Viv presentation. I went back and found it. Here is the video URL at the time the slide is shown: https://youtu.be/Rblb3sptgpQ?t=51 It's the same thing OpenAI, HARC, and other groups are working on: creating revolutionary i…

> I don't understand the confusion on what Apple's next big thing is, they've laid it out time and again. [...] It's the same thing OpenAI, HARC, and other groups are working on: creating revolutionary intelligent assistants and possibly achieving strong AI.

I hope so, but given they released Siri in 2011, and only minimally improved on it since, it doesn't look like they're giving the field much attention. It doesn't look Apple takes it very seriously, and in the meantime Google & Microsoft have released their own superior versions.

Re: Apple R&D Reveals a Pivot Is Coming

#195

Post by vidarh »

mcphage wrote: post #188
vidarh wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think anyone didn't think it was possible. Back in '99 I was working on a tablet w/built in phone, and Ericsson had their ScreenPhone around the same time. Both where "tethered" to a base station at home (ours used a custom extension to DECT), I believe, but the intent was always to add proper mobile support. In fact, when I was first sold on the concept, the guy who started the company talked me through how…

> The challenge was that around the time the iPhone launched, people did not believe the market was there yet, nor that the hardware was ready, largely because "everyone else" had a go too early, failed, and essentially shelved the idea for the next decade as something that was way too early. > What Apple got exactly right and everyone else messed up was the timing. My [perhaps mistaken] understanding is that Apple h…

Yes, that's the story I've heard too, and I can absolutely believe that. While the rest of us threw stuff at the wall and got frustrated when it didn't stick, they had a benchmark to aim for.

Here's an early article on our attempt [1], and you can see how far the specs were from a tolerable tablet or from being able to shrink the it down to a phone form factor (the original design actually called for a very small dumb handset for the tablet that magnetically attached to the speaker magnets in the tablet, and induction charged; amusingly Sony finally relased a handset for one of their phablets a couple of years ago - we were over a decade ahead of our time ;) )

[1] http://www.zdnet.com/article/freepad-norways-alternative-to-...

Re: Apple R&D Reveals a Pivot Is Coming

#196

Post by ZenoArrow »

neo2006 wrote: post #172
ZenoArrow wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "That was research for research's sake. It was, explicitly, not directed at ever making money, but instead, advancing the state of the art." Advancing the state of the art can lead to making more money, the research results can be monetised, whether they are or not all depends on the intent of those leading the particular institution.

This is a naive way to see things. Creating products and advancing technology are two different things and very often the one do not lead to the other. To create that business model based on technologies breakthroughs you need to have "the dare to fail" mindset and be willing to launch multiple fails before succeeding with one product, that's not Apple way of doing things there business model and reputation is based…

It's not naive, you just can't predict the ROI.

Re: Apple R&D Reveals a Pivot Is Coming

#197

Post by jjuel »

abalone wrote: post #62

It's a car and it's not a "pivot". The Mac, iPod, iPhone, iPad, Apple TV and Watch are all about apply the same philosophy to new product categories and then tightly integrating them. At the core of it is fundamentally rethinking the interface between user and machine. With cars it makes perfect sense as long as you do one thing first: throw out everything you've read about fully autonomous cars being right around th…

"Effective autopilot assistance features can plausibly get us to 10X improvements in safety and convenience."

So similar to the autopilot feature that Tesla already has in their cars? Plus it isn't going to up safety until there is 100% acceptance in this autopilot feature. Sure your car might be driving safer, but the other people who don't have these features will still be a danger to you.

Re: Apple R&D Reveals a Pivot Is Coming

#198

Post by jamesrcole »

Communitivity wrote: post #164

I don't understand the confusion on what Apple's next big thing is, they've laid it out time and again. Come to think of it, I think I just saw a slide with it right on the single slide during the Viv presentation. I went back and found it. Here is the video URL at the time the slide is shown: https://youtu.be/Rblb3sptgpQ?t=51 It's the same thing OpenAI, HARC, and other groups are working on: creating revolutionary i…

Do you think that's the only major thing they're working on?

Re: Apple R&D Reveals a Pivot Is Coming

#199

Post by WalterBright »

astrodust wrote: post #53
beloch wrote: post #37

According to this chart, Apple spent $6B in 2014 and is projected to spend just over $10B in 2016. For comparison, in 2014 Volkswagen spent $13.5B, Samsung spent $13.4B, and Microsoft spent $10.4B. [1] Apple has, historically, not been a big spender when it comes to research, tending to favor short-term, tightly focused research over long-term, curiosity driven research. Over the last few years their research budget…

Just imagine how much fun Ive would have designing an orbital space station. What's interesting is how aggressively they're moving into the car space if that's what's happening. The phone people had no idea, they got blindsided thinking Apple wouldn't have the guts, would never commit the money.

I can't imagine how they could keep a car project secret. Too many people would have to know, and you can't develop a car in a locked room.

Re: Apple R&D Reveals a Pivot Is Coming

#200

Post by baron816 »

I don't like the idea of Apple (or even Google for that matter) making cars. It seems like such a weird space for a company that makes consumer electronics parts to move into. It would be almost as weird as them starting to build houses. And I don't want to buy all my stuff from one company.

Either way, I'm skeptical that any company is going to make huge, monopolistic profits from selling autonomous cars. It's something that's going to easily commoditizable. Consumers aren't going to care which company their buy their autonomous tech from, as long as it's safe and it works.

A better fit (although much, much, much harder to achieve) for Apple would be a real robot/android. Apple has hundreds of billions in cash to play with and a steady stream of income on the horizon for the next few years. I think they should accept that they don't have to come out with the next big hit every year. They should look 10+ years in advance and try to beat everyone to the last consumer electronic product.

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