I was thinking of the Vision Pro too, though not in this way. If Apple shipped the same FSD that Tesla did, without lying but limitations not clearly shown in the marketing materials, it could be well received and the product viewed as a leading inspirational product showing a glimpse of what it will be.
I would love to see the Vision Pro used for something cool like letting you see into blind spots, but right now there are significant safety considerations, such as:
- 12ms latency possibly not being short enough for driving
- The cameras still being relatively low quality, especially at night
- The FOV being far too narrow to allow peripheral vision
- The screens going black if the headset loses power
I got to use Vision Pro in my local Apple store yesterday, and it's not usable for driving.
Has there been any vaguely reliable suggestion about their planned approach? An entire vehicle? Retrofitting existing vehicles? A layer that is licensed to auto partners? A new category of vehicle?
I don’t see any scenario where Apple doesn’t own the UX. They’re certainly not going to leave that to legacy automakers any more than they left the mobile UX to legacy phone makers. Maybe they buy a startup automaker like they bought PA Semi to jumpstart Apple Silicon.
Are there any doubts that the bulk of future (at least urban) car usage will be car-on-demand rather than individual ownership? If so, something like Uber has differentiated based on quality or capacity, rather than brand of vehicle. And Apple is very much a brand-focused company. So I'm wondering what the educated guesses are about a future that reconciles these two facets. Are we calling an Apple car to the airport in the future? Are they anticipating a large enough gap between self-driving cars and an increased drift away from car ownership that they get 10-20 years from that, and then migrate to car-as-service?
I keep hearing this all the time. May be I am (and a whole generation of me) an aberration, but I have no plans to switch to a car on demand. Let me be clear that I love public transport, like a metro. Something about the small confined space of a car, when dirtied and not kept meticulously clean, is a no-go for me. I take an Uber occasionally and unless the driver is a clean freak, the car ride is not comfortable for me. Occasional ride is ok, but I would not make it my normal mode of transport.
You don't have an abnormal take here at all. Most people are incredibly resistant to this idea. My prediction is that it won't be a choice for the majority of people. Cars are inherently too expensive for each of us to own one, and the experiment of cars will not last as it currently does. If you can continue to afford it then you'll likely be able to, but that isn't going to be the case for th3 vast majority of people.
One use-based charge so you're not having to individually deal with a license, registration, insurance, maintenance and fuel - that will gradually prove more and more attractive. Where I live, just the base cost to have a car before it is even driven is ~$2,000/year. It might be that families phase out their second car or students forgo a car at all, older people give up their car sooner, etc.
If Apple decides to begin manufacturing cars, would their prior experience with manufacturing help or is the domain sufficiently different for there not to be any significant knowledge carryover?
Are there any major or significant AI researchers working at Apple? It seems like I only ever hear about the big industry names moving between other big tech companies, but I'm not aware of anyone impactful in the AI space working at Apple. Maybe one of the key factors is that a lot of AI researchers like to publish their findings and Apple seems to be notoriously secretive? So even if Apple has a lot of top-tier researchers, maybe they're not publishing as much.
They outsource manufacturing so they have no tech there. Given Apple was the Tesla reject bin I'm sure we will see a lot of interesting things come out of this.
And yeah with AI, have a look at what companies they buy out. They won't be creating anything themselves. I'd be more interested to see if they make the mistake of relying on Lidar.
Chances are they're just trying to make something they can sell to existing car manufacturers. Like CarPlay just at a larger scale.
Can you cite your sources on the no tech there [manufacturing]?
As someone who worked for Apple for nearly a decade on the engineering teams launching the iPhone and iPad, I beg to differ. While not the most "exciting" to those of us in Silicon Valley, Apple is a behemoth when it comes to factory. The engineering there is outstanding and even for those of us working higher up in the stack we didn't fully appreciate it until traveling oversees and intimately working within hw ops.
A lot of Apple's new product process is now public, but when the hardware moves from EVT to DVT it is the first time both SW Dev and HW Ops are working together in the factory and while still "owned" by Dev, it will be up to HW Ops to scale, optimize, and propose any key changes that we would not have considered or planned for - dealing with low yields. Once DVT transitions to PVT, Dev is under Ops direction - it's their world and we are there to serve them!
Before dismissing Apple's manufacturing design, engineering, and operations I would recommend learning a lot more if you are at all interested in this space or shipping your own products. Many companies in the valley building HW have adopted most of the principals Apple pioneered and refined in manufacturing...
You don't need to have any prior manufacturing experience to build cars if you don't want it.
The car industry followed the semi industry with the fabless model, where not every brand needs to build a new factory for every model they sell but they often, especially for lower volume models like Fisker, subcontract manufacturing out to dedicated contract car manufacturers like Valmet[1] or Magna Steyr[2] who have their own fabs and experience and make cars for established big brands. They're kind of like the Foxconn of the car industry.
From talking to people working on this project, there's always been some sort of interesting paradox in terms of dealing with the potential of bad PR due to accidents and fatalities linked to self driving versus one of Apple’s most valuable asset: its brand.
Perhaps they will be some calculated outcome in whatever product comes out of that org, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they end up pivoting to high quality cars with assisted driving (at best).
I think I would be quite happy to see them as a technology provider. Like cars have Bose or B&O sound, but for the full infotainment, cabin controls, etc.
However I would expect the auto maker to ensure they don’t go too low on buttons.
I honestly have no idea where all this is going. I’m curious. I think it would also make sense if they came up with good self driving stuff to just license that out to people, but that’s not the kind of thing Apple does. At least until now.
I agree with you that Apple would not want the headlines about their cars killing people. The way Tesla has had to deal with (right or wrong).
I don't think an automaker or Apple would ever consider that arrangement. Both of them want to be the primary intermediaries between customers and everyone else, because that's where the money is and it's a rare event when either are institutionally capable of ceding or sharing control of that relationship with others.
That’s what everyone from Alcatel to Nokia said back in 2004: “We are good with programming the UI for our phones, plus we understand our customers better, because we are people persons. We know that our customers want feature phones with more WAP with locked apps from their operator.”
I’m not keen on having to choose between an Apple or Android type of car, but better than the current state of OEM central consoles.
I think they would have to allow android auto similar to the way that cars with android automotive allow CarPlay to be used unless the car maker interferes.
Would they do that? I would hope so. But I honestly don’t know.
I miss the Bose electromagnetic suspension. I absolutely loathe that they just turned the tech into a truck seat. Who cares if it's slightly more expensive? So's modern-day air suspension.
Headlines skewing reality is a fascinating topic. Average Joe now thinks EVs are more likely to explode than ICEs, but their newly formed intuition is off by an order of magnitude in the wrong direction.
Via CarPlay, Apple can already own the interesting parts of every car, so why get wrapped up in all the messy bits? Seems like they could do just as well buying up someone else who already has the car bits figured out, especially supply chain and distribution.
Traditional model car distribution (dealerships) is something Apple would likely be very unhappy with. Aside from the control of user experience being ceded in that model, nobody likes dealers anyway and bad dealers can stain the reputation of the brand involved.
Any kind of Apple car, whether it be purely Apple or a partnership is almost certainly going to be direct sale, cutting out dealers. It’s hard to imagine them doing anything else.
I would welcome this. There needs to be more direct sale options, I’m tired of looking at EV options to find all the local dealers have stocked only high end trims that they’ve further marked up with the base MSRP nowhere to be found.
> the company was “focusing on autonomous systems, and clearly one purpose of autonomous systems is self-driving cars.”
So autonomous systems != cars
Is Apple's foray into autonomous systems purely for R&D, keeping engineering staff engaged, and spend some cash?
I recall seeing a video of Tim Cook being asked if Apple was building a car and he said something like Apple looks at a lot of things.
To me, and this is just a theory, Apple car was something to keep the media distracted from other developments. For example, Mac Rumors says the Apple Vision Pro was in development for over 10 years. But the first time I heard about the rumor of an VR/AR headset was in 2021.
Cars are a whole different competency then consumer electronics. Regulations, service centers, spare parts—talk about a headache! And imagine the fallout if an Apple car crashes or strands someone in the dead of winter. The automotive industry is notorious for turning brand loyalists into disgruntled critics. I see it all the time- people who swear they will never buy BMW, Merc, Jag, Kia, and Jeep.
Apple likes to squeeze suppliers. Would they be able to squeeze LG Chem or BYD for batteries on this self-driving electric car? Perhaps Apple Car will have a cheap under powered Hyundai 1.6L turbo and the Apple Car Pro will be electric.
The iPhone was Apple's peak. The car will be their undoing.
Can you imagine getting trying to get an Apple car repaired? They'll likely force you to buy your tires from them. Wheels on the Mac Pro cost hundreds, wheels for your Apple car will start at 2k each and will be serial locked to one vehicle.
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[ 4.7 ms ] story [ 120 ms ] threadhttps://cyberplace.social/@GossiTheDog/111873099676770329
- 12ms latency possibly not being short enough for driving
- The cameras still being relatively low quality, especially at night
- The FOV being far too narrow to allow peripheral vision
- The screens going black if the headset loses power
I got to use Vision Pro in my local Apple store yesterday, and it's not usable for driving.
Designed in California. Made in China.
Are there any major or significant AI researchers working at Apple? It seems like I only ever hear about the big industry names moving between other big tech companies, but I'm not aware of anyone impactful in the AI space working at Apple. Maybe one of the key factors is that a lot of AI researchers like to publish their findings and Apple seems to be notoriously secretive? So even if Apple has a lot of top-tier researchers, maybe they're not publishing as much.
And yeah with AI, have a look at what companies they buy out. They won't be creating anything themselves. I'd be more interested to see if they make the mistake of relying on Lidar.
Chances are they're just trying to make something they can sell to existing car manufacturers. Like CarPlay just at a larger scale.
As someone who worked for Apple for nearly a decade on the engineering teams launching the iPhone and iPad, I beg to differ. While not the most "exciting" to those of us in Silicon Valley, Apple is a behemoth when it comes to factory. The engineering there is outstanding and even for those of us working higher up in the stack we didn't fully appreciate it until traveling oversees and intimately working within hw ops.
A lot of Apple's new product process is now public, but when the hardware moves from EVT to DVT it is the first time both SW Dev and HW Ops are working together in the factory and while still "owned" by Dev, it will be up to HW Ops to scale, optimize, and propose any key changes that we would not have considered or planned for - dealing with low yields. Once DVT transitions to PVT, Dev is under Ops direction - it's their world and we are there to serve them!
Before dismissing Apple's manufacturing design, engineering, and operations I would recommend learning a lot more if you are at all interested in this space or shipping your own products. Many companies in the valley building HW have adopted most of the principals Apple pioneered and refined in manufacturing...
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2023-11-01/iphone-ma... https://archive.ph/WdSFX
The car industry followed the semi industry with the fabless model, where not every brand needs to build a new factory for every model they sell but they often, especially for lower volume models like Fisker, subcontract manufacturing out to dedicated contract car manufacturers like Valmet[1] or Magna Steyr[2] who have their own fabs and experience and make cars for established big brands. They're kind of like the Foxconn of the car industry.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valmet_Automotive#Production
[2] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magna_Steyr#Produzierte_Fahrze...
However I would expect the auto maker to ensure they don’t go too low on buttons.
I honestly have no idea where all this is going. I’m curious. I think it would also make sense if they came up with good self driving stuff to just license that out to people, but that’s not the kind of thing Apple does. At least until now.
I agree with you that Apple would not want the headlines about their cars killing people. The way Tesla has had to deal with (right or wrong).
https://www.macrumors.com/2023/12/22/next-generation-carplay...
There’s a very open question of whether any auto maker will actually allow next gen CarPlay to do all that stuff.
I’m not keen on having to choose between an Apple or Android type of car, but better than the current state of OEM central consoles.
WhatsApp started as a .jar app for nokia dumb phones.
Would they do that? I would hope so. But I honestly don’t know.
quite profitably.
Also everyone can make a car, but then you become a competitor and get locked out of all other cars.
Any kind of Apple car, whether it be purely Apple or a partnership is almost certainly going to be direct sale, cutting out dealers. It’s hard to imagine them doing anything else.
I would welcome this. There needs to be more direct sale options, I’m tired of looking at EV options to find all the local dealers have stocked only high end trims that they’ve further marked up with the base MSRP nowhere to be found.
So autonomous systems != cars
Is Apple's foray into autonomous systems purely for R&D, keeping engineering staff engaged, and spend some cash?
I recall seeing a video of Tim Cook being asked if Apple was building a car and he said something like Apple looks at a lot of things.
To me, and this is just a theory, Apple car was something to keep the media distracted from other developments. For example, Mac Rumors says the Apple Vision Pro was in development for over 10 years. But the first time I heard about the rumor of an VR/AR headset was in 2021.
Cars are a whole different competency then consumer electronics. Regulations, service centers, spare parts—talk about a headache! And imagine the fallout if an Apple car crashes or strands someone in the dead of winter. The automotive industry is notorious for turning brand loyalists into disgruntled critics. I see it all the time- people who swear they will never buy BMW, Merc, Jag, Kia, and Jeep.
Apple likes to squeeze suppliers. Would they be able to squeeze LG Chem or BYD for batteries on this self-driving electric car? Perhaps Apple Car will have a cheap under powered Hyundai 1.6L turbo and the Apple Car Pro will be electric.
Can you imagine getting trying to get an Apple car repaired? They'll likely force you to buy your tires from them. Wheels on the Mac Pro cost hundreds, wheels for your Apple car will start at 2k each and will be serial locked to one vehicle.