8 ms·

> Hard to see them doing better than car companies that have been building cars for decades. I'm sure Nokia had the same confidence in 2005.

tobr 6y ago
Past performance is not indicative of future results etc, but you’re right, this is basically exactly what Palm CEO Ed Colligan said about the rumored iPhone a few months before it was revealed[1]: > “We’ve learned and struggled for a few years here figuring out how to make a decent phone,” he said. “PC guys are not going to just figure this out. They’re not going to just walk in.” 1: https://daringfireball.net/2006/11/colligan_head_stuck https://daringfireball.net/2006/11/colligan_head_stuck
- baybal2 6y ago
  And they didn't. Iphone 1 was far from a commercial success. 3GS was the first one that approached the cult status. It tool them 4 generations to get there, and a lot of money.
  - jbullock35 6y ago
    > Iphone 1 was far from a commercial success. I don't think that's true. For example, less than a year after its release, the iPhone accounted for 28% of smartphones sold in the U.S. (and presumably for a greater percentage of smartphone-sale revenue): see https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2008/02/iphone-owns-28-percent-of-us-smartphone-market/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2008/02/iphone-owns-28-perce.... And half a year after that, the news was better still: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2008/10/apple-officially-surpasses-10-million-iphones-sold-in-2008/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2008/10/apple-officially-sur...
    - peddling-brink 6y ago
      There weren't that many smartphones then. Most people were using feature phones.
    - kllrnohj 6y ago
      To put that 10 million sales in 2008 into context, the Motorola Razr sold 140 million devices over a 4 year period ending in 2007. So... by & large nobody had an iPhone or smartphone. They all had Razrs (or other feature-phones) instead.
  - ska 6y ago
    > Iphone 1 was far from a commercial success. That's a difficult statement to support. It set the stage for everything that came after, and it knocked the industry back on its heels. I'm not sure of the margin or unit numbers but for lots of values of "commercial success", that alone is hard to ignore.
  - rangoon626 6y ago
    People were waiting in lines for DAYS to get the first iPhone.
  - onethought 6y ago
    4 years you mean, generating profit the entire time. You have a very high bar for commercial success.
- jandrese 6y ago
  The first couple of generations of the iPod kinda sucked too. It's really hard to get everything perfect in the first generation, probably impossible. Having the agility to iterate on the design quickly so you can capitalize on the initial hype is what Apple does so well.
  - brianwawok 6y ago
    IPod came out before cheap flash storage. I am surprised it worked as well as it did for shoving a laptop hard drive in a music player. Would a car be like that now? Batteries are close to too expensive, but 38k model 3 says we are close...
  - rangoon626 6y ago
    Did they? Not that much about the iPod changed between 2001 and 2005. A simple to use interface, large storage made it great from the start, but windows support it what made it successful.
    - saagarjha 6y ago
      It got smaller. The original iPod was…kind of big.
    - jandrese 6y ago
      They physical wheel was fragile and the internal HDDs weren't quite big enough for a good music library. They were also a little too big and heavy, and they used Firewire as the interface which wasn't well supported at the time (or ever) on PCs.
treis 6y ago
Sure, but Apple had a revolutionary new product. They weren't that great at the nuts and bolts of making a phone, but it didn't matter because the concept of the iPhone was so much better than any phone out there. What is Apple going to bring to the car to match that?
- random5634 6y ago
  Except they were better at making a phone, and then controlling costs in making advanced phones. Nokia could NOT compete. Even Microsoft gave up (despite billions). Even now, with years of competition, their margins are FAR higher than others making smartphones. Eye wateringly higher.
  - baybal2 6y ago
    Nokia self-destructed more than failed, as much as Palm, Sony, and Psion did.
- fiddlerwoaroof 6y ago
  I’ll just say that the main benefit of a Tesla, besides driving and handling really nicely is that the electronics are actually good: it’s entertainment system isn’t a hacky afterthought; also, just plugging into the supercharger and walking away makes the whole “messing with payment methods” paradigm of gas stations seem obsolete.
  - semi-extrinsic 6y ago
    On the flipside, my 2012 "dumb" car with the good third-party bluetooth adapter I got last year is the end-all, be-all of car electronics for me. It can only go downhill from there. To me, car electronics should be like a Kindle is for reading. There is a period after you launch the Kindle but before you start reading where you interact with it like a smartphone or tablet. But then once you get started, the notion that you're interacting with a digital device just disappears. I want my car experience just like that - set up Spotify, Google Maps etc. before I go, then hands off any touchscreen until I stop. And I only use the audio driving instructions from Maps. Come to think of it, the same applies to running - set up music, tracking app etc. on your front porch, don't touch the screen again until you're finished, that's a sign of a good run.
heavyset_go 6y ago
Nokia was in a really good position and squandered it as the market shifted.
- nradov 6y ago
  Nokia's position was weaker than it might have appeared on the surface. They had good hardware and distribution channels but were totally lacking a modern mobile device OS. The Symbian platform was garbage. Nokia never made sufficient investment into a replacement.
  - heavyset_go 6y ago
    I'm someone who enjoyed Maemo and Meego much more than Android or iOS. Nokia sabotaged their position by ditching that platform in favor of Windows Phone.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
pantalaimon 6y ago
A phone can be viewed as a small computer for your pocket. But a car is hardly just a large phone.
- AgentOrange1234 6y ago
  Well, so far...
- sbuk 6y ago
  “We’ve learned and struggled for a few years here figuring out how to make a decent phone,” he said. “PC guys are not going to just figure this out. They’re not going to just walk in.”

tobr 6y ago

Past performance is not indicative of future results etc, but you’re right, this is basically exactly what Palm CEO Ed Colligan said about the rumored iPhone a few months before it was revealed[1]: > “We’ve learned and struggled for a few years here figuring out how to make a decent phone,” he said. “PC guys are not going to just figure this out. They’re not going to just walk in.” 1: https://daringfireball.net/2006/11/colligan_head_stuck https://daringfireball.net/2006/11/colligan_head_stuck

baybal2 6y ago
And they didn't. Iphone 1 was far from a commercial success. 3GS was the first one that approached the cult status. It tool them 4 generations to get there, and a lot of money.
- jbullock35 6y ago
  > Iphone 1 was far from a commercial success. I don't think that's true. For example, less than a year after its release, the iPhone accounted for 28% of smartphones sold in the U.S. (and presumably for a greater percentage of smartphone-sale revenue): see https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2008/02/iphone-owns-28-percent-of-us-smartphone-market/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2008/02/iphone-owns-28-perce.... And half a year after that, the news was better still: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2008/10/apple-officially-surpasses-10-million-iphones-sold-in-2008/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2008/10/apple-officially-sur...
  - peddling-brink 6y ago
    There weren't that many smartphones then. Most people were using feature phones.
  - kllrnohj 6y ago
    To put that 10 million sales in 2008 into context, the Motorola Razr sold 140 million devices over a 4 year period ending in 2007. So... by & large nobody had an iPhone or smartphone. They all had Razrs (or other feature-phones) instead.
- ska 6y ago
  > Iphone 1 was far from a commercial success. That's a difficult statement to support. It set the stage for everything that came after, and it knocked the industry back on its heels. I'm not sure of the margin or unit numbers but for lots of values of "commercial success", that alone is hard to ignore.
- rangoon626 6y ago
  People were waiting in lines for DAYS to get the first iPhone.
- onethought 6y ago
  4 years you mean, generating profit the entire time. You have a very high bar for commercial success.
jandrese 6y ago
The first couple of generations of the iPod kinda sucked too. It's really hard to get everything perfect in the first generation, probably impossible. Having the agility to iterate on the design quickly so you can capitalize on the initial hype is what Apple does so well.
- brianwawok 6y ago
  IPod came out before cheap flash storage. I am surprised it worked as well as it did for shoving a laptop hard drive in a music player. Would a car be like that now? Batteries are close to too expensive, but 38k model 3 says we are close...
- rangoon626 6y ago
  Did they? Not that much about the iPod changed between 2001 and 2005. A simple to use interface, large storage made it great from the start, but windows support it what made it successful.
  - saagarjha 6y ago
    It got smaller. The original iPod was…kind of big.
  - jandrese 6y ago
    They physical wheel was fragile and the internal HDDs weren't quite big enough for a good music library. They were also a little too big and heavy, and they used Firewire as the interface which wasn't well supported at the time (or ever) on PCs.

treis 6y ago

Sure, but Apple had a revolutionary new product. They weren't that great at the nuts and bolts of making a phone, but it didn't matter because the concept of the iPhone was so much better than any phone out there. What is Apple going to bring to the car to match that?

random5634 6y ago
Except they were better at making a phone, and then controlling costs in making advanced phones. Nokia could NOT compete. Even Microsoft gave up (despite billions). Even now, with years of competition, their margins are FAR higher than others making smartphones. Eye wateringly higher.
- baybal2 6y ago
  Nokia self-destructed more than failed, as much as Palm, Sony, and Psion did.
fiddlerwoaroof 6y ago
I’ll just say that the main benefit of a Tesla, besides driving and handling really nicely is that the electronics are actually good: it’s entertainment system isn’t a hacky afterthought; also, just plugging into the supercharger and walking away makes the whole “messing with payment methods” paradigm of gas stations seem obsolete.
- semi-extrinsic 6y ago
  On the flipside, my 2012 "dumb" car with the good third-party bluetooth adapter I got last year is the end-all, be-all of car electronics for me. It can only go downhill from there. To me, car electronics should be like a Kindle is for reading. There is a period after you launch the Kindle but before you start reading where you interact with it like a smartphone or tablet. But then once you get started, the notion that you're interacting with a digital device just disappears. I want my car experience just like that - set up Spotify, Google Maps etc. before I go, then hands off any touchscreen until I stop. And I only use the audio driving instructions from Maps. Come to think of it, the same applies to running - set up music, tracking app etc. on your front porch, don't touch the screen again until you're finished, that's a sign of a good run.

heavyset_go 6y ago

Nokia was in a really good position and squandered it as the market shifted.

nradov 6y ago
Nokia's position was weaker than it might have appeared on the surface. They had good hardware and distribution channels but were totally lacking a modern mobile device OS. The Symbian platform was garbage. Nokia never made sufficient investment into a replacement.
- heavyset_go 6y ago
  I'm someone who enjoyed Maemo and Meego much more than Android or iOS. Nokia sabotaged their position by ditching that platform in favor of Windows Phone.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]

pantalaimon 6y ago

A phone can be viewed as a small computer for your pocket. But a car is hardly just a large phone.

AgentOrange1234 6y ago
Well, so far...
sbuk 6y ago
“We’ve learned and struggled for a few years here figuring out how to make a decent phone,” he said. “PC guys are not going to just figure this out. They’re not going to just walk in.”