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Robotics is way too hard and they should look elsewhere IMHO. Software has this beautiful property of being magical: if you can imagine it, it can be written,

Robotics is way too hard and they should look elsewhere IMHO. Software has this beautiful property of being magical: if you can imagine it, it can be written, given sufficient effort. The physical reality puts constraints that you often can't work around with decades-long, distributed research... which isn't really profitable or timely for a business to do. There are countless cases of companies trying to "solve" problems in the physical world with ingenuity carried over the virtual one. Self-driving cars come to mind as one topical and recent example, even if I do believe in their success in the long enough term. Sometimes examples are more catastrophic failures, like Theranos... which is why I'm generally short on promises of "healthcare tech" in general. And as much as I enjoy my Apple devices and appreciate the second-to-none ingenuity of their hardware, I think a lot of their value proposition comes from software. They would do well to refocus these greenshoot innovation efforts to software categories that are dominated by subpar experiences and reinventing them from a fresh perspective. Easier wins and no shortage of profits to be made near term...

ghaff 2y ago
Our home appliances (and industrial robots) are very optimized specific devices. Don't get me wrong. A washing machine or refrigerator is magical relative to the prior art. But there's nothing even on the horizon that remotely replaces my housekeeper coming every few weeks (and even she requires me organizing some things ahead of time).
massysett 2y ago
Apple’s value proposition is marrying hardware with software rather than, say, writing software for commodity hardware.
- ASalazarMX 2y ago
  Their REAL proposition is capturing and corraling users through software and hardware, and so far it's been working too good it's starting to find resistance. Any practical robot they manage to make will be surely tightly tied to their other hardware, software, and new suscription tiers.
tpmoney 2y ago
>Robotics is way too hard and they should look elsewhere IMHO. >Software has this beautiful property of being magical: if you can imagine it, it can be written, given sufficient effort. >The physical reality puts constraints that you often can't work around with decades-long, distributed research... which isn't really profitable or timely for a business to do. I imagine plenty of people thought and said that about phones when Apple was rumored to be getting into that space. Certainly the Motorola ROKR partnership probably put most people off the idea of Apple and the phone space. Obviously prior success doesn't indicate future success, but at the same time Apple's biggest successes have often been in the space of building hardware that breaks though those physical constraints of reality in a way that is finally sufficient to push it towards mass market appeal.
- airstrike 2y ago
  No, because a phone is a pretty limited "physical reality". It exists in a little box. It doesn't really interact with the outside world. It's just a transporter of software in the physical reality, but it doesn't interact with it other than through light and sound.

ghaff 2y ago

Our home appliances (and industrial robots) are very optimized specific devices. Don't get me wrong. A washing machine or refrigerator is magical relative to the prior art. But there's nothing even on the horizon that remotely replaces my housekeeper coming every few weeks (and even she requires me organizing some things ahead of time).

massysett 2y ago

Apple’s value proposition is marrying hardware with software rather than, say, writing software for commodity hardware.

ASalazarMX 2y ago
Their REAL proposition is capturing and corraling users through software and hardware, and so far it's been working too good it's starting to find resistance. Any practical robot they manage to make will be surely tightly tied to their other hardware, software, and new suscription tiers.

tpmoney 2y ago

>Robotics is way too hard and they should look elsewhere IMHO. >Software has this beautiful property of being magical: if you can imagine it, it can be written, given sufficient effort. >The physical reality puts constraints that you often can't work around with decades-long, distributed research... which isn't really profitable or timely for a business to do. I imagine plenty of people thought and said that about phones when Apple was rumored to be getting into that space. Certainly the Motorola ROKR partnership probably put most people off the idea of Apple and the phone space. Obviously prior success doesn't indicate future success, but at the same time Apple's biggest successes have often been in the space of building hardware that breaks though those physical constraints of reality in a way that is finally sufficient to push it towards mass market appeal.

airstrike 2y ago
No, because a phone is a pretty limited "physical reality". It exists in a little box. It doesn't really interact with the outside world. It's just a transporter of software in the physical reality, but it doesn't interact with it other than through light and sound.