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This is missing the point that Gassée raises about software culture. It's not just a question of the software folks figuring out how to build car hardware. It's

by abalone 11y ago

This is missing the point that Gassée raises about software culture. It's not just a question of the software folks figuring out how to build car hardware. It's, can the software folks figure out how to make bug free software? Most Silicon Valley "cultures" are geared towards constant rapid innovation at the expense of more bugs. Apple for instance tends to favor adding groundbreaking new features as quickly as possible, followed by a big stability-oriented cleanup release once every few years or so (e.g. Snow Leopard, El Capitan). This results in complaints about software quality, but people deal with the bugs since the features are so desirable. It's a different proposition when bugs = people get hurt. Not a ton of SV companies have operated in those critical environments and those that do (medical) tend to be really "boring" and enterprise-y. This is going to be AS MUCH OR MORE of a shift as learning how to engineer a different kind of hardware.

alkonaut 11y ago
I don't think you can draw any conclusions from buggy OSX software that Apple couldn't write a good robust realtime system for a car. Or that they couldn't build a car. The people who would build car brains for Apple would be hired from Car manufacturers. The analogy would be any non-car software made by car manufacturers. It usually stinks, but isn't made by the same people who build car sw. It stinks because it can, which is because it's cheaper and no one dies because the www build-your-car configurator has bugs. As for actually manufacturing a car: If I was Apple I'd buy a facility like the recently closed Saab plant in Sweden, where there are lots of skilled people and a factory ready to use (It's actually still making cars at small scale for various small manufacturers)
- abalone 11y ago
  Didn't say they couldn't. But Gassée's point is you can't just hire people; there has to be an internal cultural shift as well about how to make software. That is arguably a harder change than just learning about a new type of hardware. It means every release is a stability release (times ten).
- kamaal 11y ago
  >>The people who would build car brains for Apple would be hired from Car manufacturers. From the perspective of the car makers they too can hire software brains from software companies. Do you seriously think, a motor, chassis and four wheels are all there is to make a car? Or its easy to manufacture cars in bulk. By any reasonable argument, learning how to write software(skills for which are common place today) is far easy than learning to build and manufacture millions of cars.
  - alkonaut 11y ago
    > Do you seriously think, a motor, chassis and four wheels are all there is to make a car? Or its easy to manufacture cars in bulk. I don't think it's that easy, but I do think that once you are at the bulk manufacturing step you have already reached most of the way to the goal. If you have a working car prototype that passes all the regulations in dozens of countries, you have a network of retailers that can sell it and service it and so on (Not a small feat!) then the biggest problem has been overcome already. It keeps getting repeated that Apple can't just "go to Foxconn" to get their car built, but that seems to overlook that "car brains" have essentially been produced by the likes of Bosch for most cars for ages, and that there are manufacturers like Magna-Steyr that have manufactured cars for the highest bidder for a long time. So again: there are huge hurdles to overcome to launch a new car, but two that I don't think apple should worry so much about are 1) Bulk manufacturing and 2) "software development culture".
    - Drdrdrq 11y ago
      Besides, Tesla did it - why not Apple too?
nostrademons 11y ago
There is a good chunk of the software industry that's been doing safety-critical software for 40 years. Think of avionics, medical devices, nuclear reactors, auto control software. It's true that this sector is not generally associated with Silicon Valley. However, the programmers exist, and there's a large body of accumulated lore in how to write bug-free software. The big question is: can Apple/Google/Tesla hire them? It's not like the guys who build iCalendar are suddenly going to be working on self-driving cars, it's more that Apple's going to import people that have worked in similar industries to form the nucleus of their self-driving car groups. And my money is that they'll be successful: working conditions and compensation are much better at SV giants than at your typical enterprisey software consultancy that subcontracts for Boeing and Detroit. Come to think of it, I wonder if Google's Alphabet restructuring was largely to enable the groups within it that need to work in a bug-free environment to develop bug-free cultures.
- abalone 11y ago
  I hear you but you're missing Gassée's key point. You can't just hire/acquire. There has to be a cultural fit too. Acquisitions without cultural fit don't necessarily work. "I am one of the many who believe culture always wins. Culture eats strategy for breakfast, it causes mergers and acquisitions to fail and, above all, it resists virile executive calls to change. Culture evolves slowly, as if having its own independent will, or not at all." How do you think the culture of those safety-critical companies compares to Apple's today? (But yes, like Alphabet maybe Apple is restructuring internally to better cultivate this culture.)
  - nostrademons 11y ago
    I figure that Google/Apple are both going to set up autonomous divisions within the company to work on their car stuff. When you have a division with few interactions with the rest of the company, it has a chance to develop its own culture, and usually takes on the personality of the leader and senior people. Android had a very Apple flavor before Sundar took it over (Andy Rubin started his career at Apple, then worked at Apple spin-off General Magic). Google+ had a very Microsoft flavor under former Microsoft exec Vic Gundotra. Both of these moderated as they came in closer contact with the rest of the organization, but in their early days, there were pretty steep walls protecting them from the rest of the company.
snowwrestler 11y ago
I question the premise that car software needs to be bug free. For example, there are car models on the road right now, which have sold millions of units, that are running software that is known to be terribly written and buggy. The Toyota Camry, for instance. To succeed in the marketplace, the software in new cars just needs to be no worse than the car software currently in the marketplace. That is a much lower bar. It's worth remembering that people made the exact same arguments about the iPhone: "this isn't a desktop computer that you can just reboot, a phone is safety critical--a 911 call MUST go through." Not a concern anymore.

by abalone 11y ago

alkonaut 11y ago

I don't think you can draw any conclusions from buggy OSX software that Apple couldn't write a good robust realtime system for a car. Or that they couldn't build a car. The people who would build car brains for Apple would be hired from Car manufacturers. The analogy would be any non-car software made by car manufacturers. It usually stinks, but isn't made by the same people who build car sw. It stinks because it can, which is because it's cheaper and no one dies because the www build-your-car configurator has bugs. As for actually manufacturing a car: If I was Apple I'd buy a facility like the recently closed Saab plant in Sweden, where there are lots of skilled people and a factory ready to use (It's actually still making cars at small scale for various small manufacturers)

abalone 11y ago
Didn't say they couldn't. But Gassée's point is you can't just hire people; there has to be an internal cultural shift as well about how to make software. That is arguably a harder change than just learning about a new type of hardware. It means every release is a stability release (times ten).
kamaal 11y ago
>>The people who would build car brains for Apple would be hired from Car manufacturers. From the perspective of the car makers they too can hire software brains from software companies. Do you seriously think, a motor, chassis and four wheels are all there is to make a car? Or its easy to manufacture cars in bulk. By any reasonable argument, learning how to write software(skills for which are common place today) is far easy than learning to build and manufacture millions of cars.
- alkonaut 11y ago
  > Do you seriously think, a motor, chassis and four wheels are all there is to make a car? Or its easy to manufacture cars in bulk. I don't think it's that easy, but I do think that once you are at the bulk manufacturing step you have already reached most of the way to the goal. If you have a working car prototype that passes all the regulations in dozens of countries, you have a network of retailers that can sell it and service it and so on (Not a small feat!) then the biggest problem has been overcome already. It keeps getting repeated that Apple can't just "go to Foxconn" to get their car built, but that seems to overlook that "car brains" have essentially been produced by the likes of Bosch for most cars for ages, and that there are manufacturers like Magna-Steyr that have manufactured cars for the highest bidder for a long time. So again: there are huge hurdles to overcome to launch a new car, but two that I don't think apple should worry so much about are 1) Bulk manufacturing and 2) "software development culture".
  - Drdrdrq 11y ago
    Besides, Tesla did it - why not Apple too?

nostrademons 11y ago

There is a good chunk of the software industry that's been doing safety-critical software for 40 years. Think of avionics, medical devices, nuclear reactors, auto control software. It's true that this sector is not generally associated with Silicon Valley. However, the programmers exist, and there's a large body of accumulated lore in how to write bug-free software. The big question is: can Apple/Google/Tesla hire them? It's not like the guys who build iCalendar are suddenly going to be working on self-driving cars, it's more that Apple's going to import people that have worked in similar industries to form the nucleus of their self-driving car groups. And my money is that they'll be successful: working conditions and compensation are much better at SV giants than at your typical enterprisey software consultancy that subcontracts for Boeing and Detroit. Come to think of it, I wonder if Google's Alphabet restructuring was largely to enable the groups within it that need to work in a bug-free environment to develop bug-free cultures.

abalone 11y ago
I hear you but you're missing Gassée's key point. You can't just hire/acquire. There has to be a cultural fit too. Acquisitions without cultural fit don't necessarily work. "I am one of the many who believe culture always wins. Culture eats strategy for breakfast, it causes mergers and acquisitions to fail and, above all, it resists virile executive calls to change. Culture evolves slowly, as if having its own independent will, or not at all." How do you think the culture of those safety-critical companies compares to Apple's today? (But yes, like Alphabet maybe Apple is restructuring internally to better cultivate this culture.)
- nostrademons 11y ago
  I figure that Google/Apple are both going to set up autonomous divisions within the company to work on their car stuff. When you have a division with few interactions with the rest of the company, it has a chance to develop its own culture, and usually takes on the personality of the leader and senior people. Android had a very Apple flavor before Sundar took it over (Andy Rubin started his career at Apple, then worked at Apple spin-off General Magic). Google+ had a very Microsoft flavor under former Microsoft exec Vic Gundotra. Both of these moderated as they came in closer contact with the rest of the organization, but in their early days, there were pretty steep walls protecting them from the rest of the company.

snowwrestler 11y ago

I question the premise that car software needs to be bug free. For example, there are car models on the road right now, which have sold millions of units, that are running software that is known to be terribly written and buggy. The Toyota Camry, for instance. To succeed in the marketplace, the software in new cars just needs to be no worse than the car software currently in the marketplace. That is a much lower bar. It's worth remembering that people made the exact same arguments about the iPhone: "this isn't a desktop computer that you can just reboot, a phone is safety critical--a 911 call MUST go through." Not a concern anymore.