How Apple Scaled Back Its Titanic Plan to Take on Detroit • Hacker News Board

Re: How Apple Scaled Back Its Titanic Plan to Take on Detroit

#21

Post by coldtea » Mon, Oct 17, 2016, 3:18 PM UTC

PhoenixWright wrote: post #5

A couple of takeaways from this article: Apple has a problem with leadership. When managers aren't buying into a vision, mostly because it's murky at best, that is a big problem. SV hubris believing you can go into any industry and disrupt the incompetent incumbents is laughable. FB found this out with phones and it sounds like Apple and Google are now figuring it out with cars. The Netflix idea works here too: Apple…

>Apple has a problem with leadership. When managers aren't buying into a vision, mostly because it's murky at best, that is a big problem.

That's the inverse of what would actually be a big problem: managers BUYING into a "murky at best" vision.

>SV hubris believing you can go into any industry and disrupt the incompetent incumbents is laughable.

Isn't that what people said about music players and then about phones? Heck, they are already the #2 watchmaker in the world in profits too...

>FB found this out with phones and it sounds like Apple and Google are now figuring it out with cars.

Neither Google nor Apple have ever released in car. If anything, their setbacks are related to the advanced self-driving stuff they aspire to make, not some issue competing with existing car tech or distribution or anything.

Besides, tons of companies have entered the car market and gave established car companies a run for their money already. The Japanese obliterated the established Detroit order for example, and new Chinese cars are as good as anybody's for general use. Tesla also come out of nowhere and cornered a niche of the market. Heck, traditional car companies are so complacent and derivative that if anything it's the inverse of hubris to believe one can do better.

Nowadays, when most of the manufacturing the expertise is in assembly lines in China and the like, creating a new car to compete with existing models is laughably easy -- especially if you have $500 billion lying around.

Re: How Apple Scaled Back Its Titanic Plan to Take on Detroit

#22

Post by brianfitz » Mon, Oct 17, 2016, 3:20 PM UTC

coldtea wrote: post #18

hodder wrote: post #6

As an Apple shareholder, I am thankful Apple has shelved plans to dump billions into a cyclical, low margin, low return business.

Low margin? They wouldn't be making Yugos. Like with their laptops and such, they'd be targeting the higher end of the market. Cyclical is also great -- that's exactly what the laptop and especially the phone market are.

Simply targeting the higher end market doesn't tell you anything about the margins of the business. You need to know the size of each segment of the market and then what can be done to increase margins in each segment. For Tesla, they can't simply stay in the higher end of the market as they need to get greater economies of scale with more volume. Like with the Model 3, they want to move down-market so that they can make the business model work in the long term. As it stands, they only serve the high end of the market and lose money on each car they sell.

Re: How Apple Scaled Back Its Titanic Plan to Take on Detroit

#23

Post by intoverflow2 » Mon, Oct 17, 2016, 3:25 PM UTC

coldtea wrote: post #18

hodder wrote: post #6

As an Apple shareholder, I am thankful Apple has shelved plans to dump billions into a cyclical, low margin, low return business.

Low margin? They wouldn't be making Yugos. Like with their laptops and such, they'd be targeting the higher end of the market. Cyclical is also great -- that's exactly what the laptop and especially the phone market are.

Apple products haven't been the high end of the market for a long time, they're mass produced, mass consumed, purely disposable tech.

Re: How Apple Scaled Back Its Titanic Plan to Take on Detroit

#24

Post by CardenB » Mon, Oct 17, 2016, 3:31 PM UTC

brianfitz wrote: post #22

coldtea wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Low margin? They wouldn't be making Yugos. Like with their laptops and such, they'd be targeting the higher end of the market. Cyclical is also great -- that's exactly what the laptop and especially the phone market are.

Simply targeting the higher end market doesn't tell you anything about the margins of the business. You need to know the size of each segment of the market and then what can be done to increase margins in each segment. For Tesla, they can't simply stay in the higher end of the market as they need to get greater economies of scale with more volume. Like with the Model 3, they want to move down-market so that they can…

IIRC Tesla's margins are typically higher than competitors. They only lose money on each car because the R&D budget is wrapped into that. They lose money because they're investing into scale.

Re: How Apple Scaled Back Its Titanic Plan to Take on Detroit

#25

Post by applecarcont » Mon, Oct 17, 2016, 3:32 PM UTC

ynniv wrote: post #9

It's only when Steve isn't at the helm that we hear about internal projects that have no direction. It was good while it lasted.

The interesting question is what has Jony Ive been up to? The Apple Watch needed a design reboot (and the Edition is practically dead) and now supposedly so does the Apple Car (at his behest[1]). A third iteration of the iPhone design and no new Macs designs (yet). He/Cook seized power from Forstall but there's been little outright success/breakthroughs to show since then

[1] http://appleinsider.com/articles/16/01/25/apples-project-tit...

Re: How Apple Scaled Back Its Titanic Plan to Take on Detroit

#26

Post by j2bax » Mon, Oct 17, 2016, 3:32 PM UTC

intoverflow2 wrote: post #23

coldtea wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Low margin? They wouldn't be making Yugos. Like with their laptops and such, they'd be targeting the higher end of the market. Cyclical is also great -- that's exactly what the laptop and especially the phone market are.

Apple products haven't been the high end of the market for a long time, they're mass produced, mass consumed, purely disposable tech.

Do tell us what the high end of the laptop and mobile device market looks like and what products occupy it.

Re: How Apple Scaled Back Its Titanic Plan to Take on Detroit

#27

Post by csydas » Mon, Oct 17, 2016, 3:34 PM UTC

mikeash wrote: post #15

csydas wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can name a few differences, even if I don't think it's impossible. Phones were ready for a natural complete upgrade from brick phones to smartphones. The mobile environment was there, all the network components were coming online to make it a really useful device, processors were getting to a good stage for mobile usage where it made sense to make the jump and the jump was right into what Apple already knew pretty…

I completely agree, however people were saying pretty much the exact same things about Apple's phone efforts about ten years ago. In hindsight, it's clear that smartphones lined up just about perfectly with Apple's core competencies, but before they proved it in the market, people were saying just this sort of thing: the engineering is tough and different, the stuff Apple is good at isn't the stuff that's hard, regul…

Please excuse typos as I am on phone in the metro

I appreciate that a lot since I was one of the naysayers. Admittedly I was a bitter PPC Mac user upset that we weren't getting attention on the desktop side but I was still worried.

However, even if hindsight is 20/20, I do feel that a lot of the infrastructure and resources necessary for an iPhone were just there already and apple seized an emerging market. With cars I feel that the regulatory, technical, and physical infrastructure for smart cars isn't there yet for anything disruptive. Driverless cars still appear to need a lot of hand holding, and while there will be an investment payout eventually for folks in the game at the moment, I'm not sure it's as great as they are hoping it as soon as they are hoping. In my mind it makes more sense to have an apple iOS port for cars than an iCar. Or set up the infrastructure that driverless car folk are going to want. Siri taxi for example. Siri pizza delivery. Siri breathalyzer and/or drunk talk analyzer and safe delivery to home.

Basically whereas I feel that in the mobile space controlling the hardware 100% make sense, with the cars maybe it makes more sense to just get the software right. Maybe Apple sees the writing on the wall and figures very tightly controlled hardware so not much testing needed/similar performance.

I do this the differences are great enough Between the car and phone research to warrant the move. But maybe once again I'm just bitter Apple isn't paying attention to their desktop line. :p

Re: How Apple Scaled Back Its Titanic Plan to Take on Detroit

#28

Post by Q6T46nT668w6i3m » Mon, Oct 17, 2016, 3:38 PM UTC

applecarcont wrote: post #25

ynniv wrote: post #9

It's only when Steve isn't at the helm that we hear about internal projects that have no direction. It was good while it lasted.

The interesting question is what has Jony Ive been up to? The Apple Watch needed a design reboot (and the Edition is practically dead) and now supposedly so does the Apple Car (at his behest[1]). A third iteration of the iPhone design and no new Macs designs (yet). He/Cook seized power from Forstall but there's been little outright success/breakthroughs to show since then [1] http://appleinsider.com/articles/16/01/25…

Management, maybe

Re: How Apple Scaled Back Its Titanic Plan to Take on Detroit

#29

Post by digi_owl » Mon, Oct 17, 2016, 3:40 PM UTC

coldtea wrote: post #17

ynniv wrote: post #9

It's only when Steve isn't at the helm that we hear about internal projects that have no direction. It was good while it lasted.

There were internal projects with no direction all the time under Steve as well. Heck there were even EXTERNAL projects with no direction, like the Apple TV (still flailing around), the Apple Cloud offerings (only got robust in the last 2 years or so, and the most touted part back then, the "office"-like iCloud apps are universally ignored), the Apple boom box, and other things besides.

I can't help but wonder that during both runs of Jobs at the helm, Apple was basically making products tailored for the wants of one man: Steve Jobs.

Supposedly the iPod launched with a idiosyncratic equalizer, apparently tuned to Jobs tastes.

Re: How Apple Scaled Back Its Titanic Plan to Take on Detroit

#30

Post by skybrian » Mon, Oct 17, 2016, 3:41 PM UTC

coldtea wrote: post #21

PhoenixWright wrote: post #5

A couple of takeaways from this article: Apple has a problem with leadership. When managers aren't buying into a vision, mostly because it's murky at best, that is a big problem. SV hubris believing you can go into any industry and disrupt the incompetent incumbents is laughable. FB found this out with phones and it sounds like Apple and Google are now figuring it out with cars. The Netflix idea works here too: Apple…

> Apple has a problem with leadership. When managers aren't buying into a vision, mostly because it's murky at best, that is a big problem. That's the inverse of what would actually be a big problem: managers BUYING into a "murky at best" vision. > SV hubris believing you can go into any industry and disrupt the incompetent incumbents is laughable. Isn't that what people said about music players and then about phones…

You're comparing entirely different things.

Chinese cars are barely being imported in the U.S. (Three models so far). It has taken many years to get this far, and will take longer for them to have a similar reputation as, say, Korea.

Tesla has done well in the luxury car market, but they've been late and had quality issues. The Tesla 3 is not out yet and there is still a big risk they'll fail.

So, "laughably easy" is a major exaggeration. It's possible to launch a new car company but nobody finds it easy.