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Apple Is Said to Be Rethinking Strategy on Self-Driving Cars
- awqrre 10y agoWho would want an Apple-controlled car? probably lots of people but not me...
- ams6110 10y agoWho would want a software controlled car? Probably lots of people but not me. I'm keeping my completely mechanical, manual shift cars as long as I can.
- beachstartup 10y agoyou still run a carburetor?
- asimuvPR 10y agoI dont run one now but will soon. Old tech can still be fast.
- lostlogin 10y agoIt really isn't usually - a top 60s sports car is generally bested by pretty much any modern car in terms of speed, reliability, comfort etc. But noise, smell and style matter and older cars have that. Then the bill arrives and depression sets in.
- beachstartup 10y agoi was being snarky and pointing out that you don't run a mechanical car. if it's fuel injected, it's controlled by software. ...unless it's mechanical fuel injection.
- denzell 10y agoIt's hard to see what compelling offering they could bring having started so late in the game, considering what the pioneers like Google have been doing.
- aaronbrethorst 10y agoRewind to December 2006 and I could just as easily imagine someone saying the same about smartphones. It's early days in self-driving cars, and Apple has a lot of talent, a ton of cash, and (generally) a huge amount of desire to nail the user experience in ways other companies cannot or will not. Clearly their project is experiencing issues, but I wouldn't count them out.
- intrasight 10y agoThere's tons of capital and talent elsewhere also. Late is late.
- aaronbrethorst 10y agoAnd the Nokia 9000[1] launched 11 years before the iPhone. Post-Mac, when has Apple ever been first on anything? They weren't first on MP3 players, smartphones, tablets, online music stores, or smart watches, either. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_9000_Communicator https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_9000_Communicator
- intrasight 10y agoIt's not an issue of being first or not. It's about being late. They weren't late to those other parties.
- aaronbrethorst 10y agoYou keep calling them "late" without explaining how or why. What key metrics would you look for to dub them 'not late'? How are the Ubers and Googles of the world doing in comparison? You may be right, but I want specifics.
- kctess5 10y agoI understand Apples standard secrecy policies, but in developing a self driving car it feels highly counter-productive. It's hard to test software and gather data in the real world while simultaneously keeping everything under wraps.
- karma_vaccum123 10y agoDo you know what it takes to admit that you are late to the game? Courage.
- jagger27 10y agoTo me it doesn't seem likely that Apple can do to the car what they did to the smartphone. It is such a strange "me too" move that it's almost as if a big shareholder or some exec saw one of those Apple stickers in a car's rear window and decided it would look better as a real badge. Apple's value add isn't immediately clear, that's for sure.
- avn2109 10y agoApple's value add is the same as it has been since the very first iPod: User Experience. Apple is a UX company; they've been successful because everything they did was laser focussed on the UX. Right now buying and operating a car kinda sucks in a lot of ways [0] because GM doesn't have anyone whose job it is to subordinate all business functions to UX. Steve Jobs did that at Apple and maybe today somebody is still carrying the torch. The fact that Apple has a culture of design and implementation oriented around UX is the value add. Imagine the process of purchasing and repairing your car feeling like an Apple store. Imagine Jony Ive designing the fit and finish of the car hardware, inside and out. Imagine a center-console human interface that was designed by someone with taste [1]. All of this is going to be packaged seamlessly with that beautiful attention to detail in subsystems integration that makes my grandma want an iPad, just because it feels amazing, even though it does literally nothing useful. Obligatory disclaimer: For political reasons I strongly disagree with Apple's walled garden philosophy, and it makes me so angry that the best laptops available run closed source OS's natively. But I have to admit that Cupertino's hardware, shopping process, and unboxing experience is beautifully designed, and that their focus on UX does lead to a nice experience if you stay within their ecosystem. [0] e.g. http://blog.dilbert.com/post/147352433956/how-not-to-buy-a-chevy-truck http://blog.dilbert.com/post/147352433956/how-not-to-buy-a-c... but really just talk to anyone who has been near a dealership or repair shop [1] We have been stuck in the center console design dark ages for decades, even in luxury automotive.
- codethief 10y ago> and unboxing experience I'm trying to imagine what the unboxing experience of an Apple car would be like. :-)
- eddieh 10y agoI'm a lifelong Apple fan. I own almost everything they sell, but I don't want an Apple car. Not even a little bit. I'm not even curious to see what they do. I just am not interested. With phones it was obvious that Apple could improve them. TV and smartwatches were obvious too. I fail to see how Apple's expertise can translate from personal electronics to something like a car. I'm not even interested in what the other smartcar people are up to. Cars are boring and should be completely utilitarian. I'd rather not even own a car.
- Fricken 10y agoI don't think Apple wants you to own a car either. Their billion dollar investment in Didi Chuxing and pursuit of autonomy points to something else.
- cstejerean 10y agoI on the other hand really enjoy using my car and I would love for it to be even better. Most cars have terrible usability for most of their functionality. Terrible touch screens, sluggish performance, confusing settings, it's a mess. However I feel like Tesla is the Apple of cars and it's not clear what value Apple would provide above and beyond Tesla. But perhaps more competition in that space would be a good thing. Or maybe Apple has the scale to take what Tesla started and bring it to the next level. Maybe they should buy Tesla instead.
- eddieh 10y agoTesla replaced the tactile controls with a big touch screen. In my mind that is going backwards. The great thing about cars is the physical tactile controls that can be used without looking. Aftermarket stereos always have a worse interface than the OEM interface. Granted, I don't have a car with a touchscreen, but I would specifically look for a car with physical tactile controls if I was in the market. Disclaimer: not a Tesla fan at all.
- cstejerean 10y agoI don't have a Tesla but my Dodge Charger also uses the touch screen for most controls. I don't have a problem with it. It still had physical buttons and knobs for things that matter. I have physical buttons on the wheel for phone/medial controls, and physical buttons for adjusting temperature. There are a few more physical buttons. Everything else I do on the touch screen and it works great. And this is on a much smaller touch screen than the Tesla. Touch screen per se is not an issue as long as the important controls are not buried deep in the UI.
- ansy 10y agoWhy does Apple need its cars to be autonomous to do well in this space? There are plenty of people who would drive an Apple electric car even if it doesn't drive itself. And since when was Apple any good at building the platform for someone else's hardware? Motorola ROKR E1? Apple CarPlay?
- adamnemecek 10y ago> There are plenty of people who would drive an Apple electric car even if it doesn't drive itself. I don't think that that's true.
- ansy 10y agoBecause so few non-autonomous cars are sold per year?
- adamnemecek 10y agoWe are talking about theoretically?
- wmf 10y agoIt depends when the car is going to be released. In 2020 self-driving may be a must-have feature.
- traskjd 10y agoThe new strategy should be: Tesla is "Apple Cool" already, and at the head of the pack. Apple has ungodly amounts of cash kicking around and could easily (at least cash wise), buy Tesla. This feels like an obvious "buy don't build" scenario.
- ejcx 10y agoI feel like this would work well but both parties would never agree. Elon gets ungodly amounts of money and mass production experience to execute his vision. Apple gets to make a ton of money if it works out. But would Elon join one of the big cos when he thinks he could be a big co? I don't think so?
- traskjd 10y agoThat's why I said "(at least cash wise)" :-) Having Elon focus on SpaceX would be a win IMO. I'm not sure when you're talking $20bn+ acquisitions that the founder/CEO would stick around beyond being an adviser.
- Strom 10y agoThere are also other new things that Elon has mentioned he would likely do after Tesla, with building an example hyperloop being one.
- toodlebunions 10y agoI could actually see it happening if there was another strong recession before Tesla got bigger. Aside from that, no.
- setpatchaddress 10y agoWhy? I can't imagine Apple cares about anything that Tesla would bring to the table.
- bsbechtel 10y agoMaybe Apple realized they couldn't one day remove the steering wheel and expect people to still buy Apple cars.
- gnarbarian 10y agoI figured they're backing out because they couldn't convince the government to switch to the proprietary Apple iroads standard which are 3x the price, and incompatible with every other car.
- oska 10y agoThere are hints that Tesla may be looking to remove the steering wheel on the model 3.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- Jerry2 10y agoThis was obviously a controlled leak by Apple... it was released in after-hours on a Friday and was leaked to an Apple friendly journalist. I think the scale of this downsizing is being underestimated. I think Apple car is dead.
- draw_down 10y agoOk. Why do you think that?
- Fricken 10y agoIt's not dead. With dollar signs in their eyes Apple went balls to the wall with Project Titan. 2013ish everyone looked at the Google car and thought 'OMG, it isn't some pie in the sky thing, this is real, we need to act now and act fast.' Remember how much hype there was around deep learning then- it seemed like it could do anything. Now Tesla, Uber, Apple and the carmakers are all figuring out just how hard a problem autonomy really is. Project Titan initially set out with a (rumoured and ridiculous) 2019 production goal. Now they're like, 'okay more like 2025 if not later', and adjusting their strategy accordingly.
- revelation 10y agoIt's dead? But it hadn't even begun yet! This is the Apple of 2016, leaking that it's killing moonshot projects it didn't ever announce. Meanwhile you can't buy a MacBook with a '16 processor..
- openingceremony 10y agoThe '16 processor is more Intel's fault than anything with late delivery on Kabylake, if new Mac's are announced at the rumoured October event I would assume they are Skylake.
- hyperbovine 10y ago> MacBook with a '16 processor The beauty of running a non-Microsoft os is... nobody cares.
- deleted 10y ago
- IBM 10y agoThis report refers to the earlier Bloomberg report but basically contradicts it [1]. In that report they said the strategy was shifting towards making the underlying tech for self-driving rather than a car, but that never made any sense to me. The value in the business to Apple will be in the design, interior, and performance of the vehicle. Self-driving technology is going to be a commodity; buyers are certainly not going to be evaluating the self-driving capabilities when deciding which car to buy. The most important part is making a nice car, the self-driving tech is an implementation detail (and it will be like deciding whether to use Bluetooth and/or Wi-Fi for a wireless protocol like AirPlay). Many companies are working on self-driving tech, including Uber which Apple is indirectly an investor in now (and won't be competing with each other, like Google). There will be plenty of time to work on it internally, license/buy it or collaborate with someone like Uber. Their development efforts should be focused on everything else (like manufacturing processes to enable scale and avoid Tesla's problems), that's what their business will really be about. [1] http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-07-28/apple-taps-blackberry-talent-as-car-project-takes-software-turn http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-07-28/apple-taps...
- Fricken 10y agoWell, you'd think it would be smart to license someone elses software but Tesla, GM, Ford, Uber, Mobileye, a couple dozen startups and any number of other players are all pursuing their own proprietary autonomous drivng OSs. The data is invaluable. Google, on the other hand, who intended from the beginning to license it's OS out to carmakers has yet to secure any meaningful partnerships.
- Donwangugi 10y agoThis. Apple is already a luxury brand and has the money to make what Tesla cannot: a truly no-compromise electric car. Teslas, while perhaps faster than traditional ICE vehicles, have comparably less luxurious interiors. Additionally, Apple has such brand power that they could release a car tomorrow and have a guaranteed level of sales. Few companies would have the cash, expertise and brand value to develop such a product.
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- cclements 10y agoI really think companies like Apple and Google can execute like nobodies business in the car market, but then I see how uniformly terrible software made by car companies is, and wonder if they didn't think the same... Here's to hoping they knock it out.
- cclements 10y agoI really think companies like Apple and Google can execute like nobodies business in the car market, but then I see how uniformly terrible software made by car companies is, and wonder if they didn't think the same... Here's to hoping they knock it out.
- Animats 10y agoAnybody who was laid off want to talk about what Apple was doing? They had a thousand people on this. Doing what?
- draw_down 10y agoNot sure what the upside would be there. I'd dummy up too.
- rarepostinlurkr 10y ago"Anyone feel like breaking their legal documents for my personal curiosity?"
- grogenaut 10y agoI can't wait till Porsche makes their self driving vehicle: - Porsche Self Driving: there's no substitute to getting there faster - Optimum signaling (lying) to other cars about size - Pre-emptive lane changes to get other cars to yield to it ... etc Soeone is going to game the system and make cars that if not advertised to, known to be bad actors in that they'll take advantage of others to move faster through traffic. Especially if one of the favorite fantasy's, swarm driving comes true. Someone is also going to realize if they pulse their sensors in a certain way they can get other cars to move, slow down, speed, up, etc that will be to their advantage. Self driving cars aren't going to be some communist utopia where everyone gets there equally, it's going to be Darwinian capitalist just like everythign else. I mean if the car drives you what does any nice car have to differentiate itself from any other than the nicest tv, leather, etc. You might as well ride in an RV at that point. Who cares if your car is fast and sweet like a tesla? if everything is self driving in a utopia you can't acutally make use of that. It's about as useful as the top end speed of a ferrari in manhattan.
- bdamm 10y agoAlso, paying everyone else at the stop sign to let you go first. Making room for your lane change. High speed transactions at their finest.
- mootothemax 10y agoIf the tech exists for cars to negotiate access like this, stops signs won't exist any longer. It'll be easier for perfect, non-stop merging to take place.
- pound 10y agostop signs are there not to help decide who passes intersections in which order. they are there to slow down traffic in areas where pedestrians can get on the road.
- lifeisstillgood 10y agoOf course this will have to exist for emergency services vehicles, but if you use the "I am an emergency vehicle get out of the way" pulse and it's not true, you get arrested. And if there is a market for paying people('s cars) to give way so you can make your meeting, I swear most people will ignore the market just to piss off the wanker in the braces. But yes I can see there would be a market. Now, how are we doing on payment processing?
- Roritharr 10y agoIn my last comment towards the Apple Car i talked about it being the best out of a bunch of bad choices when it comes to capital intensive businesses ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12161248 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12161248 ) . This seems to me like the recognition of the fact that its not fun competing in the space where the large margins are to be found in the services and components, less in the assembly and sales aspect.
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- sunstone 10y agoWell this is Apple's first big new product foray in the post Jobs era and it's flopped. It's flopped for a reason Jobs would never tolerate, a lack of a unique vision that focuses on a consumers simple human need for a product that requires an immense but reachable extension of current technologies. This is not a good sign for Apple. It's been several years and there's been nothing innovative big or small out of the behemoth. Elon Musk has run off with Jobs' mantle and Apple is left dithering on a mountain of cash. Now Amazon's Echo/Alexa is a product that would have had Jobs smiling. At least that's how it looks to me though I would be happy to be proved wrong.
- Longhanks 10y agoThere is not even one single proof of what Apple even tried to do. Stop assuming they failed. You're not an insider. These are all just rumors.
- agumonkey 10y agoAnd Apple has been doing product research for years even in early years, with phones and other desk devices that never saw the light of day. Apple has cash, they tried something, old news.
- perseusprime11 10y agoWhat was Apple planning to bring to self-driving cars that Tesla cannot or other car companies cannot bring? I struggle to understand the unique capabilities that Apple would have brought to bear. Was this a moonshot project? or Was it just something to get back at Tesla?
- nickhalfasleep 10y agoNow I have to wait a bit longer to say: "Siri, take the wheel!".