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Apple would disagree. They were not first to market with music players, or mobile phones. They looked at what others did, saw their opening, and when they were

Apple would disagree. They were not first to market with music players, or mobile phones. They looked at what others did, saw their opening, and when they were ready they came in and absolutely dominated the market with products that had been designed with the benefit of knowing where others had made mistakes.

Brakenshire 8y ago
That's what VW is attempting to do with the MEB platform.
r00fus 8y ago
They monopsonized the supply chain with their decades of supply chain expertise. There was a lot of mechanics involved in releasing the iPod - e.g. 1.8" hard drive and later flash memory. Tesla is the Apple here, they're already vertically integrating.
- cptskippy 8y ago
  The hard drive wasn't an Apple innovation. Neither was the battery tech. They brought the wheel interface and were willing to gamble that people would pay a premium for a bunch of very expensive components that resulted in a comparatively small player. The closest thing to an iPod at the time it launched was the Rio players which were flash based and had capacities in tens of megabytes or the Creative HDD players which were battery hogs the size of 2 CD players stacked on top.
  - prepend 8y ago
    Creative had the Nomad Jukebox [0] at 6GB. It used a larger drive and was about the size of a discman, not double. The battery was awesome and lasted all day. The iPod was more expensive, but they ended up with being able to both buy and rip music. The size helped using the new smaller drive. But they took off because of their music, I think. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creative_NOMAD https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creative_NOMAD
    - cptskippy 8y ago
      The Nomad Jukebox is 1.5 inches thick, in 2001 most portable CD players were under an inch thick and there were a few competing for thinnest with the IO-Data HyperHyde being .55 inches thick. The battery in the Nomad at the time of the iPod launch was four standard AA cells, and you're right that they could last all day if you used Alkalines. You could use NiMH batteries but they were pretty awful; their main selling point in 2002ish was that they had no memory effect compared to NiCADs; not that they lasted as long as Alkalines. The iPod launched a full 2 years before the iTunes Music store. At launch you could not buy music for the iPod and it still sold like hotcakes. The iPod had a high capacity rechargeable battery, FireWire (400mbps) and could fit in the front pocket of a pair of jeans. The Nomad Jukebox was the closest thing at the time and it used four AA batteries, USB 1.1 (12mbs) and was praised for passing the jacket test (e.g. fitting in an oversized jacket pocket).
      - prepend 8y ago
        At launch the iPod was not widely bought. It wasn’t it was released for windows and launched the iTunes Store that it got popular. Check out the sales curve [0] and it didn’t get significant until 2004 when it became the top seller in October and exploded in 2005. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ipod_sales_per_quarter.svg https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ipod_sales_per_quarter....
        cptskippy 8y ago
        In 2002, the first full year of sales, it managed to capture 11% of the market[1] with 475 thousand units and ranking 3rd in a market of only around 4.2 million[2]. That's not nothing. The market tripped to 12.5 million units in 2003 and Apple's market share continued to grow. By 2009 they had almost 80% of the market. [1] https://www.macobserver.com/tmo/article/Apple_iPod_Number_One_In_Music_Player_Market https://www.macobserver.com/tmo/article/Apple_iPod_Number_On... [2] https://www.macworld.com/article/1053499/ipodtimeline.html https://www.macworld.com/article/1053499/ipodtimeline.html
- benj111 8y ago
  For others 'monopsonized' isn't a typo. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopsony https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopsony TIL
cptskippy 8y ago
The iPod is decidedly and dramatically simpler than an automobile in every way. The hardest part of the iPod was a commodity part the purchased (e.g. HDD). What Apple did correctly was determine that the market would pay a lot more for an MP3 player if it was all around better than the competition. Then they kept up momentum by iterating and improving their design before the competition had a chance to respond. In the audio player market, MP3 Players had significant advantages over CDs and other mediums that drove rapid adoption and since Apple was best in class they quickly developed a monopoly. The Car market is very different, EVs do not have significant advantages over ICE and there is not rapid adoption so it's hard for a monopoly to develop. EVs currently have range-over-time limitations compared to ICE as well as much lower margins with much higher costs. Those limitations are being addressed but until they are, there's only so much makers can do to tempt buyers.
- novaRom 8y ago
  >> EVs do not have significant advantages over ICE Disagree. Advantage 1: EV can be charged virtually everywhere with access to electricity (like parking lots), no gas stations, no gas transportation necessary. Advantage 2: low maintenance costs. Electrically powered engines are simpler with fewer mechanical elements Advantage 3: EVs are very quiet, so lower noise pollution Some disadvantages are short driving range and long recharge time.
  - roland35 8y ago
    A few of those advantages are limited somewhat: 1) Electricity access is plentiful but you need high power if you want to charge in a reasonable timeframe 2) There are fewer moving parts but there is one part that degrades every time you use it, the battery That said I really want to get a cheap used EV as my next car!
  - navigatesol 8y ago
    >no gas stations, no gas transportation necessary. In many parts of the world, being able to transport fuel to where it's needed is a huge advantage. We are a long way from a global electricity infrastructure.
Retric 8y ago
The iPad won via software not hardware. More importantly it was keeping everything working from low level firmware to UI seamlessly. In cars software is far more than the infotainment system. Consider, to increase charge speeds Tesla reolized you should use battery power to heat the batteries as you drive to the charging station. Thinking just in terms of swapping a gas tank for batteries is not going to result in that kind of integration. Tesla is also looking to integrate super capacitors for regenerative breaking and peak acceleration. Again, that’s a step up from tossing a larger battery pack into a Prius and calling it a day.
leesec 8y ago
Phones are a lot easier to manufacture than cars. There are so many more factors that need to get straightened out in the process.
scythe 8y ago
Apple was the (second) mover in the currently-dominant space of smartphones with capacitive touch screens, which has also been their most profitable division (IIRC) for most of the past decade. (LG (Prada) beat them to it by a few months but botched the marketing and software.) To wit, Wikipedia's "multi-touch in popular culture" section is divided into "before 2007" and "after 2007": before 2007, multi-touch was the exclusive domain of futuristic sci-fi: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-touch#Popular_culture https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-touch#Popular_culture
dv_dt 8y ago
Tesla is already past the Apple point of releasing the iPod. Tesla basically recognized that a range of tech across the tech tree needed for EVs was sufficiently mature that they could produce a systemic leap in EV cars as a system (all while the individual elements of the system were sufficiently mature as to get to a better whole). Tesla cars are basically the iPhone, while the big automakers are scrambling a bit to make their iPhone clones.

Brakenshire 8y ago

That's what VW is attempting to do with the MEB platform.

r00fus 8y ago

They monopsonized the supply chain with their decades of supply chain expertise. There was a lot of mechanics involved in releasing the iPod - e.g. 1.8" hard drive and later flash memory. Tesla is the Apple here, they're already vertically integrating.

cptskippy 8y ago
The hard drive wasn't an Apple innovation. Neither was the battery tech. They brought the wheel interface and were willing to gamble that people would pay a premium for a bunch of very expensive components that resulted in a comparatively small player. The closest thing to an iPod at the time it launched was the Rio players which were flash based and had capacities in tens of megabytes or the Creative HDD players which were battery hogs the size of 2 CD players stacked on top.
- prepend 8y ago
  Creative had the Nomad Jukebox [0] at 6GB. It used a larger drive and was about the size of a discman, not double. The battery was awesome and lasted all day. The iPod was more expensive, but they ended up with being able to both buy and rip music. The size helped using the new smaller drive. But they took off because of their music, I think. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creative_NOMAD https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creative_NOMAD
  - cptskippy 8y ago
    The Nomad Jukebox is 1.5 inches thick, in 2001 most portable CD players were under an inch thick and there were a few competing for thinnest with the IO-Data HyperHyde being .55 inches thick. The battery in the Nomad at the time of the iPod launch was four standard AA cells, and you're right that they could last all day if you used Alkalines. You could use NiMH batteries but they were pretty awful; their main selling point in 2002ish was that they had no memory effect compared to NiCADs; not that they lasted as long as Alkalines. The iPod launched a full 2 years before the iTunes Music store. At launch you could not buy music for the iPod and it still sold like hotcakes. The iPod had a high capacity rechargeable battery, FireWire (400mbps) and could fit in the front pocket of a pair of jeans. The Nomad Jukebox was the closest thing at the time and it used four AA batteries, USB 1.1 (12mbs) and was praised for passing the jacket test (e.g. fitting in an oversized jacket pocket).
    - prepend 8y ago
      At launch the iPod was not widely bought. It wasn’t it was released for windows and launched the iTunes Store that it got popular. Check out the sales curve [0] and it didn’t get significant until 2004 when it became the top seller in October and exploded in 2005. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ipod_sales_per_quarter.svg https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ipod_sales_per_quarter....
      - cptskippy 8y ago
        In 2002, the first full year of sales, it managed to capture 11% of the market[1] with 475 thousand units and ranking 3rd in a market of only around 4.2 million[2]. That's not nothing. The market tripped to 12.5 million units in 2003 and Apple's market share continued to grow. By 2009 they had almost 80% of the market. [1] https://www.macobserver.com/tmo/article/Apple_iPod_Number_One_In_Music_Player_Market https://www.macobserver.com/tmo/article/Apple_iPod_Number_On... [2] https://www.macworld.com/article/1053499/ipodtimeline.html https://www.macworld.com/article/1053499/ipodtimeline.html
benj111 8y ago
For others 'monopsonized' isn't a typo. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopsony https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopsony TIL

cptskippy 8y ago

The iPod is decidedly and dramatically simpler than an automobile in every way. The hardest part of the iPod was a commodity part the purchased (e.g. HDD). What Apple did correctly was determine that the market would pay a lot more for an MP3 player if it was all around better than the competition. Then they kept up momentum by iterating and improving their design before the competition had a chance to respond. In the audio player market, MP3 Players had significant advantages over CDs and other mediums that drove rapid adoption and since Apple was best in class they quickly developed a monopoly. The Car market is very different, EVs do not have significant advantages over ICE and there is not rapid adoption so it's hard for a monopoly to develop. EVs currently have range-over-time limitations compared to ICE as well as much lower margins with much higher costs. Those limitations are being addressed but until they are, there's only so much makers can do to tempt buyers.

novaRom 8y ago
>> EVs do not have significant advantages over ICE Disagree. Advantage 1: EV can be charged virtually everywhere with access to electricity (like parking lots), no gas stations, no gas transportation necessary. Advantage 2: low maintenance costs. Electrically powered engines are simpler with fewer mechanical elements Advantage 3: EVs are very quiet, so lower noise pollution Some disadvantages are short driving range and long recharge time.
- roland35 8y ago
  A few of those advantages are limited somewhat: 1) Electricity access is plentiful but you need high power if you want to charge in a reasonable timeframe 2) There are fewer moving parts but there is one part that degrades every time you use it, the battery That said I really want to get a cheap used EV as my next car!
- navigatesol 8y ago
  >no gas stations, no gas transportation necessary. In many parts of the world, being able to transport fuel to where it's needed is a huge advantage. We are a long way from a global electricity infrastructure.

Retric 8y ago

The iPad won via software not hardware. More importantly it was keeping everything working from low level firmware to UI seamlessly. In cars software is far more than the infotainment system. Consider, to increase charge speeds Tesla reolized you should use battery power to heat the batteries as you drive to the charging station. Thinking just in terms of swapping a gas tank for batteries is not going to result in that kind of integration. Tesla is also looking to integrate super capacitors for regenerative breaking and peak acceleration. Again, that’s a step up from tossing a larger battery pack into a Prius and calling it a day.

leesec 8y ago

Phones are a lot easier to manufacture than cars. There are so many more factors that need to get straightened out in the process.

scythe 8y ago

Apple was the (second) mover in the currently-dominant space of smartphones with capacitive touch screens, which has also been their most profitable division (IIRC) for most of the past decade. (LG (Prada) beat them to it by a few months but botched the marketing and software.) To wit, Wikipedia's "multi-touch in popular culture" section is divided into "before 2007" and "after 2007": before 2007, multi-touch was the exclusive domain of futuristic sci-fi: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-touch#Popular_culture https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-touch#Popular_culture

dv_dt 8y ago

Tesla is already past the Apple point of releasing the iPod. Tesla basically recognized that a range of tech across the tech tree needed for EVs was sufficiently mature that they could produce a systemic leap in EV cars as a system (all while the individual elements of the system were sufficiently mature as to get to a better whole). Tesla cars are basically the iPhone, while the big automakers are scrambling a bit to make their iPhone clones.