Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Apple to wind down electric car effort after decadelong odyssey

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

621–630 of 992 posts

Re: Apple to wind down electric car effort after decadelong odyssey

#621

Post by type0 »

eli wrote: post #29
MBCook wrote: post #19

I was always rather puzzled by the car. I can’t see them ever competing even with the small makers like Jaguar or Polestar or Lamborghini. They’re certainly not going to take on Ford or Mazda or Honda. The idea of making the infotainment guts is interesting but I can’t see any carmaker giving up that much control. If they don’t like CarPlay they’d never like full Apple infotainment. Sure Apple could do ADAS stuff, bu…

To be fair, that was what a lot of people thought about Apple making a cell phone. That they'd never compete with Nokia or Motorola and that US carriers would never give them enough control.

No, that's like comparing apples and oranges

Re: Apple to wind down electric car effort after decadelong odyssey

#622

Post by timetopay »

albedoa wrote: post #427
timetopay wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Apple's biggest successes have come from being the first mover in a brand new space. I would say that only one of the examples you gave was unambiguously the first mover in a brand new space. I will give you "category defining", though. For example, the iPod had tons of competitors already in the field when it launched. Airpods were not even close to the first wireless earbuds. One of the Apple Watch's major compet…

> The iPad came like a decade after Microsoft's first major tablet push. Wow, you really got their asses. Who could forget Microsoft's first major tablet push.

You're right, it was closer to two decades prior. My bad.

Re: Apple to wind down electric car effort after decadelong odyssey

#623

Post by ezfe »

k8svet wrote: post #279
jcgrillo wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does a computer understanding me make it better? I find that attempts the computer makes to understand me, "delight" me, etc. just end up pissing me off. It's a tool. All I ever want a tool to do is be completely invisible and become an extension of my body, which enables me to get a task done. Computer software which does anything other than exactly what I tell it to fails at this, because it instantly breaks my con…

I love watching my friends and family use Siri. Maybe 20% of the time it does what they want first try. 40% of the time they end up unlocking the phone and tapping the screen. Sounds infuriating to me. (To be clear, I don't have any always-(maybe)-on mics in my life, I doubt Hey Google or Bard or whatever is much better.)

But none of those things are Generative AI, which is a big part of WHY they're infuriating to use.

I use Siri to add stuff to my grocery list and set timers. That's it. It's useful when I'm in the kitchen to just say what needs to go on this list instead of remembering to write it down later.

The day when Siri or Google or whatever can make the corrections I mentioned in my higher post will improve it vastly.

Re: Apple to wind down electric car effort after decadelong odyssey

#624

Post by type0 »

FirmwareBurner wrote: post #563
theturtletalks wrote: post #543

Earlier 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.

Proprietary tires that you can only blow up with special hardware that you rent from Apple

Re: Apple to wind down electric car effort after decadelong odyssey

#625

Post by ezfe »

jcgrillo wrote: post #112
ezfe wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Generative AI won't lead to AGI any time soon but it does make our computers at lot better at understanding us. Simple example: Adding something to a reminder list, but the name of your lists don't exactly match the list you said to add to. Prompt: "Add milk to my shopping list" Siri: "I didn't find a shopping list, do you want to create one?" ChatGPT (when asked to pick from my actual lists), properly identifies the…

Does a computer understanding me make it better? I find that attempts the computer makes to understand me, "delight" me, etc. just end up pissing me off. It's a tool. All I ever want a tool to do is be completely invisible and become an extension of my body, which enables me to get a task done. Computer software which does anything other than exactly what I tell it to fails at this, because it instantly breaks my con…

That's great, and I don't begrudge you, but most people want to be able to tell their computer what to do and not need to understand the discrete steps it took to get there.

Taking a completely different type of example, image editing. Let's say you ask your computer to remove a blemish in a photo. A professional could remove it, maybe better even, without AI. They know the tools to use, the keys to press, and effect change. Regular people don't give a crap about that, they want to circle the item (or otherwise identify it) and click "remove." When the computer removes the selected item they're happy, and generative AI is working on THAT type of solution.

It's not here yet, so yes you're right that Siri IS maddening to use.

Re: Apple to wind down electric car effort after decadelong odyssey

#626

Post by johnnyanmac »

anonylizard wrote: post #581
pquki4 wrote: post #559

Earlier 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.

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…

>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?

Interest rates? I'm sure self driving cars will also shift society one day. But money isn't free anymore And in the case of R&D they can't amortize the costs of devs either. it shows how many companies really care about "changing the world".

Re: Apple to wind down electric car effort after decadelong odyssey

#627

Post by biftek »

epistasis wrote: post #272
boznz wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And I am so happy I live in a place where this doesn't happen.

Interesting, but I can't understand why that makes you happy. What benefit does it bring you?

I love not having to think or talk about work when I go outside.

If some one asks what I do they'll say "that's neat, must be nice to work from home!" and that's the end of the conversation, we can talk about hobbies or something else instead.

Re: Apple to wind down electric car effort after decadelong odyssey

#628

Post by johnnyanmac »

MBCook wrote: post #492
theturtletalks wrote: post #468

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple is still waiting it out until most of the existing EV issues are resolved. Then, they can swoop in and leverage their walled garden to get buyers/users. They'll also be different than Ford, Mazda, Honda, etc since I don't think they will try to sell their cars. It'll be a subscription fee and Apple will own the car. All this news tells me is that Apple is putting EV in the back burner since users are still not…

What does Apple‘s walled garden have to do with buying a car? I’m so tired of people claiming apples walled garden gives them magic abilities. It has nothing to do with this. Do you really think people are going to pay an extra $30,000 for a car because it works with the iPhone? I have an iPhone. I love Apple stuff. I’m not paying any premium for an Apple car, they have to convince me it’s worth it over the competiti…

>Do you really think people are going to pay an extra $30,000 for a car because it works with the iPhone?

Given that 30k is the difference between an entry level and mid level car, sure. The premium brands would definitely want to get Apple's branding under their wing, and those buyers are already used to paying a premium when they can buy a $30k car.

Re: Apple to wind down electric car effort after decadelong odyssey

#629

Post by type0 »

theturtletalks wrote: post #502
dartos wrote: post #493

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s some Apple fan boy cope.

Nope, just seen it in action over and over. No one thought they would do VR and they did. No one thought they would compete with Netflix and their movies are winning awards now. No one thought they would cannibalize the iPod with a phone and they did. The state of US tech companies is that they will also go into new markets. When Netflix came out, did you really think Amazon and Apple would get into that market? To A…

Apples strategy is to wait and see they are rarely first to put money into something where they can't learn from mistakes of others. iPhone wasn't the first mass produced smartphone and I'd argue Apple is a software company first and foremost, the hardware part is just the means to lock you in.

Re: Apple to wind down electric car effort after decadelong odyssey

#630

Post by asadotzler »

croes wrote: post #344
stonogo wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They absolutely did. Microsoft was late to web and now we have O365, Azure, etc. I'd say, however, that this is less FOMO and more employee-retention. A team shifting from electric cars to generative AI sounds more like a directionless hype squad where you park flight risks who can still add value to other departments while they play with the newest shiny.

O365 is not an example of MS's web strategy, it's just an example of cornering the users. MS has simply done away with the on-premise version of Office and left them with almost no other choice. I don't know if it's worthwhile for car engineers to work on AI. That's how you lose specialists.

That's silly. Desktop Office is a '90s product and O365 is there smart rebuild for the 2010s and beyond, fully embracing the web and SAAS and finally shedding cardboard boxes with CDs inside.

Car engineers working on computer vision and sensors or autonomous driving should be able to slide into Apple hardware and software spaces without too much effort if they're wedded to Apple or Apple makes it lucrative for them to park there while they figure out how to better utilize the talent.

It's almost like you've never been involved in any of this kind of thing but nevertheless needed to participate and be heard. I appreciate that. it happens. But your reply was actually mindless.

Post reply on HN