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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

#31

Post by newnewpdro »

saagarjha wrote: post #29
ulfw wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> I don't see how building automotive AI is core to a computer/mobile hardware computer I don't see why Apple needs to stay within the bounds what what you think their "core" products are.

They don't, but as a public company they do have obligations to their shareholders which at least suggest they shouldn't be neglecting their core business.

Re: Apple Lays Off 200 Employees from Autonomous Car Unit

#32

Post by boyband6666 »

traek wrote: post #13
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.

What makes you believe the autonomous car project comes at the expense of Mac improvements, rather than being unrelated?

It will still take up senior management and board time. THis is something recognised accross corporate governnce - see recently GSK spinning off it's over consumer health and the counter portfolio of drugs, to focus on what it's core business is; novel pharmaceuticals.

Yes you don't want to be a total one trick pony, but if you do everything, you do nothing well.

Re: Apple Lays Off 200 Employees from Autonomous Car Unit

#33

Post by bonestamp2 »

saagarjha wrote: post #27
bonestamp2 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I assume he's talking about the car project. It seems like they now have fewer than 1000 engineers on that project, so I can't imagine what they're doing with that few engineers. That would be pretty small scope in the auto sector. There's one large automaker I consult for and they've got more people than that just working on software they use internally. So, in scale, it might seem like a vanity project, but Apple o…

> It seems like they now have fewer than 1000 engineers on that project I believe Apple has significantly more employees disclosed on this project than that. This is clearly not a "vanity project".

I agree, like I said... even if it was less than 1000 they know something we don't (so I don't think it's a vanity project).

Re: Apple Lays Off 200 Employees from Autonomous Car Unit

#34

Post by npunt »

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?

Uh... 2 gens? iMacs are on Kaby Lake which is last gen. Anyway, the iMac doesn't have Coffee Lake CPUs because they're barely any different than Kaby Lake, or even Skylake for that matter. Intel is basically rebadging CPUs at this point while they sort out their 10nm process. The main driver of a refresh would be upgrading the GPU and some connectivity options at this point.

Re: Apple Lays Off 200 Employees from Autonomous Car Unit

#35

Post by innocentoldguy »

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 Apple could add a car to that, I'd be thrilled. I'm always willing to try other options, but I've just never found a setup that worked quite as well for me.

For example, I have a computer I built from parts from NewEgg and Nvidia about a year ago. It has a Threadripper 1950X processor, 128GB of RAM, and an Nvidia Titan V card in it. I used it for about a week and then went back to my MacBook Pro. The custom-built computer is gathering dust in the corner of my office. My point is that different things are important to different people.

Re: Apple Lays Off 200 Employees from Autonomous Car Unit

#36

Post by usaphp »

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.

They stopped making routers and monitors not because they are non “core” products, they stopped making them because there is not much money in it. You buy routers ones every 10 years probably, and margin is limited, but supporting them throughout this period is quite expensive. As for monitors, there is so many competitors right now, that it’s hard to make it worth building your own monitor, Especially if you want to win the market share you need to distinguish yourself from competition, and there is very little you can do to make your monitor distinguishable from your competitors.

Automotive AI meanwhile is a future and they have to think about future with all the money they have now.

Re: Apple Lays Off 200 Employees from Autonomous Car Unit

#37

Post by olliej »

pentae wrote: post #11
culturestate wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple makes the products Apple wants to make; that those product choices might not align with everyone's preferences (I'm pretty happy with my 2018 MBP, for instance) doesn't mean the company can't walk and chew gum at the same time. Particularly when they make $200 billion per year in revenue.

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.

Attacking the CPU is dumb - mobile cpus have not increased significantly in performance, so why pay a premium of more than x% for Seriously, the GPU is the only thing you're likely to get a big win from at the consumer level, and you're restricted to intel's shitty IGP until you get to the top end MacBook Pro. Again: you are exceedingly unlikely to get a real day-to-day performance increase from the high end intel mobile cpus on a core-for-core basis, and adding a tonne of cores just eats your battery life (hell, ram alone is a significant power drain for laptops, hence the last gens 16gig limit)

Re: Apple Lays Off 200 Employees from Autonomous Car Unit

#39

Post by nostrademons »

culturestate wrote: post #22
nostrademons wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It reminds me of the Apple of the early 1990s. So many stupid vanity projects, some of which were actually pretty cool: Newton, Dylan, Copland, Taligent, OpenDoc, etc. And yet they couldn't succeed at their bread and butter of selling computers. There's no Steve Jobs to bring them back from the brink this time.

What precipice does Apple need to be walked back from? Certainly not the current one, where they rake in an amount of money roughly equal to the GDP of Luxembourg in a single quarter.

Money is a lagging indicator for product quality. When a company's built up a strong brand, it can take years (or sometimes decades - witness Sears and Applebees) of bad experiences or outdated products before it starts to show up in sales numbers. But when it does, it usually ends up cascading rapidly, oftentimes faster than the company can react.

Apple started its slide the first time around 1989 - that was when Mac models started proliferating, when System 6 came out, and when its first sales decline happened. Jobs didn't return until 1998. That's almost a decade in between.

It's similar for other dominant companies - the writing was on the wall for IBM when Compaq & Dell started selling PC clones in 1983/1984, but they didn't need a turnaround until 1993. Sun Microsystems hit its zenith at the top of the dot-com boom in 2000, but its stock price didn't start sliding until 2007 and it wasn't purchased until 2010.

Re: Apple Lays Off 200 Employees from Autonomous Car Unit

#40

Post by usaphp »

newnewpdro wrote: post #31
saagarjha wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't see how building automotive AI is core to a computer/mobile hardware computer I don't see why Apple needs to stay within the bounds what what you think their "core" products are.

They don't, but as a public company they do have obligations to their shareholders which at least suggest they shouldn't be neglecting their core business.

I think the shareholders are the main reason why Apple actually stopped making routers and monitors. There isn’t much money in those products, and shareholders wants to see revenues, they don’t care what products you build as long as they make them money
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