On the Android side of the fence, Xiaomi car looks nice:
https://techcrunch.com/2024/02/26/this-is-xiaomis-first-elec...
Apple to wind down electric car effort after decadelong odyssey
611–620 of 992 posts
Re: Apple to wind down electric car effort after decadelong odyssey
#612> The two executives told staffers that the project will begin winding down and that many employees on the car team — known as the Special Projects Group, or SPG — will be shifted to the artificial intelligence division under executive John Giannandrea. Those employees will focus on generative AI projects, an increasingly key priority for the company. This line really excited my PR-spin senses. The set of people work…
> "Many employees" will be moving to jobs within Apple only insomuch as ~5% of 2000 people is arguably "many" (or whatever the size of the autonomous vehicle software team is). I would expect the majority of the people on that team to be working on autonomous driving. So the software folks would be a good fit for genAI and most of the remainder would be mechanical and electronics folks working on the sensors who also…
> From all the rumors I've heard Apple was never planning on building this car from scratch
One theory was that Apple started their own car project in the mid-2010s to retain their top UX and SWE (and AI) talent because Tesla was poaching them all (and it shows: Tesla's visual UI designs is very Apple-ish: clean, consistent, tasteful, especially when compared to the mishmash you get on a Ford, Toyota, or even BMW); and I don't think it's a coincidence that Tesla's self-driving project really took-off after Siri started getting worse...
The other plausible theory was that ever since Apple launched CarPlay, they realised how inept the bulk of the carmaker industry is when it comes to software/high-technology and they saw an opportunity to make their own self-driving software platform and then license it out to automakers, and using CarPlay as a beachead into the carmaker industry; I want to believe this because it does make the most sense... excepting how those same automakers tend to be very protective of their brand identity: we've seen how GM and others clearly resent having to share their platform with AndroidAuto and CarPlay, so there's no way they'd publicly license Apple's tech - though still, some might. I speculate that had this plan ever worked Apple would have spun-off the company rather than try to put the Apple brand on it - but I don't think Apple has really spun-off any companies since ClarisWorks.
At the other-end of the plausibility spectrum, I noticed a lot of people (MacRumors' forums, et al) wanted to believe Apple was somehow going to ship a one-size-fits-all "iCar", with styling right out of the Bondi Blue iMac G3 book - and as the 1990s jokes go - it would only work driving on Apple owned highways, require an proprietary EV charging connector on a cable that gets frayed after only a few months, and if you get a chip in the windscreen you have to replace the whole thing.
Re: Apple to wind down electric car effort after decadelong odyssey
#613Earlier quoted context omitted.
What does Apple‘s walled garden have to do with bluetooth headphones? Now, look at AirPods, simple bluetooth headphones, with tight integration with iOS. I was the one ridiculing Apple for even entering this market and I thought they looked dumb. Sony XMs looked way better. Now headphones are a sizable market for Apple. So many of my friends are awaiting the refreshed AirPods Max. The same people that said they would…
You still haven't said what the differentiator of an Apple car would be.
Maybe an enhanced version of CarPlay or something more nefarious like cutting off other auto makers from using CarPlay anymore. People that are used to CarPlay might be inclined to jump ship. Trust me, Apple will find a way to leverage their walled garden, to my chagrin. Just look at how they’re maliciously complying with the EU DMA law. I want to leave Apple’s walled garden myself, but can’t deny it exists.
Green bubble vs blue bubble another example.
Re: Apple to wind down electric car effort after decadelong odyssey
#614Earlier quoted context omitted.
The question is: does Apple actually need so many people working on GenAI? Would a team with 300 people be twice as good as a team with 150 people for what Apple is going to release as products? I wouldn't be surprised if Apple is going to lay off most of them.
It doesn't need to be twice as good, it needs to generate more net income.
has anyone cared about net income in decades? maybe it's about signaling to investors, "we have 100s of people working on [emergent technology]"
Re: Apple to wind down electric car effort after decadelong odyssey
#615Earlier quoted context omitted.
Wow, skimping on 150 people for the biggest change to the tech industry in since the invention of the computer. You understand Apple spent like billions for this electric car industry that never produced anything? Why would they want to starve the AI project now? You understand how many people in Microsoft and Google are working on AI adjacent projects? Even if they aren't AI researchers, there's tons of work just to…
More cooks does not a delicious meal make.
More cooks can't make one meal better but more cooks can make dozens of different meals and you can choose the best result.
Re: Apple to wind down electric car effort after decadelong odyssey
#616Earlier quoted context omitted.
That’s some Apple fan boy cope.
It's more "fuzzy thinking" than fanboy cope. Despite all the glittery rhetoric that "a car is just a computer on wheels", this always seemed like a bizarre move for Apple and I've never seen anyone explain what the strategic vision was supposed to be. Even with full lv5 autonomy, what's Apple's unique twist? Big monitors for watching TV+ in the car? That wouldn't have been remotely enough. I wish we could read the in…
I think it’s a lot more simple than that. They’ll probably buy an existing EV company when they’re serious about entering the market. That’ll give them a head start and they won’t be reinventing the wheel. The acquihire will help bring in talent as well.
Before they released the AirPods, they bought Beats. It would along the same lines but with a way more complex machine.
Re: Apple to wind down electric car effort after decadelong odyssey
#617The R1 chip in the Vision Pro came from this effort so there’s definitely some return on investment here.
The billions they plowed into a cancelled automobile project was a good investment because 400,000 nerds will buy a strap-on dorkbox of a face computer this year with slightly improved hand tracking and other signal compositing? Not sure investors will see it that way, certainly not after the silly AVP is cancelled and Cook can get back to fiddling around the edges of Job's iPhone legacy with a few more fashionable accessories, maybe yet another pair of headphones.
Re: Apple to wind down electric car effort after decadelong odyssey
#618Earlier quoted context omitted.
What does Apple‘s walled garden have to do with bluetooth headphones? Now, look at AirPods, simple bluetooth headphones, with tight integration with iOS. I was the one ridiculing Apple for even entering this market and I thought they looked dumb. Sony XMs looked way better. Now headphones are a sizable market for Apple. So many of my friends are awaiting the refreshed AirPods Max. The same people that said they would…
> simple bluetooth headphones That's the thing. With other Apple devices, they're not simple bluetooth headphones. They have added features and functionality that only really work with other Apple products due to their proprietary protocols on top of regular Bluetooth. _No_ other Bluetooth headphones can work quite like Airpods do, because of the walled garden. So, you have your expensive Apple headphones that only r…
An enhanced CarPlay or even going as far as removing CarPlay from existing car manufacturers.
Re: Apple to wind down electric car effort after decadelong odyssey
#619Earlier quoted context omitted.
The phone made sense to me because by that point Apple had clearly proven themselves as a consumer electronics company. It’s wasn’t as big a jump and cell phone software was largely junk. The carrier thing was true, but they could have launched outside the US. Instead they found a carrier desperate enough. But they’ve never done safety critical stuff like a car. Of highly mechanical stuff like a car. Or things that n…
If a car model won't run, you can't all your customers they're "holding it wrong".
Tesla is employing that strategy with some success.
Re: Apple to wind down electric car effort after decadelong odyssey
#620Earlier quoted context omitted.
Shipping a billion iPhones and shipping millions of cars only reasonable each other at a surface level. Apple does not have much expertise in maintaining the same supply chain and logistics, and certainly not in design. They could hire people with the expertise, but Apple is allergic to growing engineering expertise outside of Cupertino.
They could hire Magna to build it for them! Then again, that isn't necessarily working out perfectly well for Fisker.
I doubt that's Magna Steyr's fault though. They've produced 10k cars, but Fisker have only delivered half of those, and from everything I've seen, it seems to be well-built from a hardware standpoint.