the Apple Watch, a solution in search of a problem, can be justified as a way to control a market that might become useful in a few years.
to you, a person who doesnt use one. to us, it's a useful gadget that offers value. activity tracking is our #1 use case, which is why we put off getting a fitbit once the rumors of the AW came out. I'm not disappointed with it. on top of that a wireless iPod (tying into activity uses), on top of that is contactless payments (again, tying into activity uses since we dont jog w/ wallets or phones). lastly is an improved way of dealing w/ the notifications i care about.
those are real solutions to real use cases. that they aren't yours doesnt mean they aren't anyone's. (simple concept, but one so many techies fail to grasp)
Apple should "intervene" in the slow performance and bugs of iOS software. Just stop making stuff and fix your software!
All my iPhone's with iOS before 7 and 8 were fast and fine. iOS 7 and 8 actually made me think of getting an Android based phone in the future
Guys like you are always making threats. Listen up, none of us care what you do, least of all Apple. And as for you claims, baloney. So yeah, go right ahead and switch to Android and see how happy you are in a year. Otherwise you’re just blowing smoke.
"Intervention" by Apple in the automobile industry makes a lot more sense.
It's better to have all car makers integrate Apple systems in every make/model than to make an entire Apple Car.
Apple can further intervene in the automobile industry like they are doing with CarPlay today and with ApplePay in the payment industry.
Today we have the CarPlay entertainment kit, tomorrow driver assistant kit, and then self-driving kit.
Cars first, then airplanes, then space ships and space stations etc...
Go Apple! Go! Go! Go!
Sure because we see all this evidence that the auto industry is rushing to partner with Apple on car technologies. That's why every car on the market is implementing and touting CarPlay as a feature. /s
I see little evidence that the auto industry really wants to partner with Silicon Valley. They want to do their own thing. They don't want to be like computer hardware OEMs that find it hard to differentiate because they're all shipping the same software. Apple is all about a consistent experience and in most cases building the entire widget. Ford isn't going to want their dashboard to look just like Toyota's or Honda's. Plus how many car companies tout other people's stuff in their cars? Apple's not going to want to be some nameless piece of technology in somebody else's car.
I understand the skepticism around Apple building is owned car. But I'm also skeptical that Apple will be able to successfully sell technology components to the auto industry at large. According to that Wall Street Journal rumor earlier this year The product VP running Apple's car project (who, according to the Official Board, works for Jony Ive) was authorized by Tim Cook to hire 1,000 people for this project. I don't think you need 1,000 people for CarPlay on steroids. Also, 9to5Mac's reporting on some of the people hired suggest that this work is more than just CarPlay on steroids. Also, when's the last time we've heard Apple even talk about CarPlay? They re-branded it as CarPlay in March 2014 and yet we haven't heard a lot about it since. Hardly talked about at any of Apple's keynote events and I don't believe Apple had a presence at any of the auto shows so far this year. That leads me to believe Apple is working on something much bigger and CarPlay is a band aid solution right now.
You're right. The should focus on debugging iOS. But hey if you can't deal with a few issues that WILL be fixed, hop off the train and report back in a year your android experience.
I'll never touch that OS. My GF Had the GS4 and it was such a horrible experience
The problem is once they've gotten rid of all the bugs they're releasing a new bug filled version. Therein is the problem with yearly updates
The problem isn't annual updates, the problem is introducing novelty for the sake of novelty.
ITunes keeps getting worse and less intuitive with each "overhaul"; OS X file system organization gets more and more obscure and cluttered as if Apple had hired all the bad Windows system engineers, e.g, when books moved from iTunes to iBooks, the were transitioned from a well organized folder with files that had meaningful names into a cluttered hidden mess with meaningless random file names; the files instantly became useless outside of iBooks; similarly the mess in /private/var/folders/... which is utterly undocumented, outside each user's home folder, a potential security risk because who know what remains there after an app and user documents are deleted, etc.
Systems are routinely starved for RAM, and with compressed swap, things have gotten really slow and there seems to be a limit to swap now, too. OS X needs at least 16GB to run comfortably, more if you need anything like Parallels, Fusion, VirtualBox,...
iOS devices crash for lack of RAM, because RAM is limited to lower power consumption which is limited due to battery size constraints due to the absurd obsession with the thinness of devices. If the get any thinner, you'll have to wear gloves so you don't get cuts...
I rather have a thicker device I don't have to recharge twice daily and that doesn't crash due to RAM limits... (Try to install 1500 apps on a 128GB iPhone 6 plus, and see if you can get that thing to work reliably. Apple knows about it, and we have the fourth point release in the works, and it's still not fixed, cause software cannot increase RAM...)
So Apple has lots of things it should do, incl. not screwing with the Pro market and killing Aperture before Photos is anywhere nearly as capable.
Still, being nearly a trillion dollar company, that doesn't mean it doesn't have the resources to pursue car related projects as well. It's an issue of disconnect between management and engineering, marketing and "peacock evolution" tendencies dominate right now.
"Peacock evolution" is when an originally important trait (nice healthy, shiny feathers) evolve ad absurdum where they are no longer an advantage but a liability.
In Apple's case it's the obsession with thinner and simpler: things should be as simple and as thin as possible WITHOUT restricting users or distorted data models. If one oversimplifies the truth, it turns into a lie; if one makes things too thin, the bend, break, have less than thrilling battery life, etc.
Apple needs to break is script: "...is the thinnest...", "...is even simpler..." and start figuring out what's actually *best*, most powerful, most expressive, etc.
Sure because we see all this evidence that the auto industry is rushing to partner with Apple on car technologies. That's why every car on the market is implementing and touting CarPlay as a feature. /s
I see little evidence that the auto industry really wants to partner with Silicon Valley. They want to do their own thing. They don't want to be like computer hardware OEMs that find it hard to differentiate because they're all shipping the same software. Apple is all about a consistent experience and in most cases building the entire widget. Ford isn't going to want their dashboard to look just like Toyota's or Honda's. Plus how many car companies tout other people's stuff in their cars? Apple's not going to want to be some nameless piece of technology in somebody else's car.
I understand the skepticism around Apple building is owned car. But I'm also skeptical that Apple will be able to successfully sell technology components to the auto industry at large. According to that Wall Street Journal rumor earlier this year The product VP running Apple's car project (who, according to the Official Board, works for Jony Ive) was authorized by Tim Cook to hire 1,000 people for this project. I don't think you need 1,000 people for CarPlay on steroids. Also, 9to5Mac's reporting on some of the people hired suggest that this work is more than just CarPlay on steroids. Also, when's the last time we've heard Apple even talk about CarPlay? They re-branded it as CarPlay in March 2014 and yet we haven't heard a lot about it since. Hardly talked about at any of Apple's keynote events and I don't believe Apple had a presence at any of the auto shows so far this year. That leads me to believe Apple is working on something much bigger and CarPlay is a band aid solution right now.
For once, I agree with you.
Apple's success is driven by its adherence to its basic philosophy of "making the best products." Tesla is at the very least proof of concept of this type of approach. So far, boards and shareholders have apparently not been too much of a stumbling block in this.
I'm for the older concept of "investing" as meaning more "trust" than "profiteering." Apple getting into manufacturing cars is a very bold move. But in the bigger scheme of things, like Elon Musk has expressed often, something has to be done NOW in a big way to halt the pollution on the planet. ICE cars are a huge contributor. So the sooner EVs can proliferate the better.
Apple has plenty of resources to lend to the situation, and could very well be more of a partner in symbiotic projects than a competitor, as such.
Apple going into cars doesn't fit the company's pattern of success. It got away with selling computers priced far higher than DOS ones because a GUI was better. It is doing well against Windows now because OS X is better designed and Apple hardware is more reliable. The iPod filled a need for a useful music player and the iPhone filled a huge gap. When it came out, most cell phones were ill-designed junk. I know. I owned several. Success with the iPhone could be parlayed into success with tablets, since the two ran the same apps. Even the Apple Watch, a solution in search of a problem, can be justified as a way to control a market that might become useful in a few years.
Not so cars. There's an enormous variety of cars on the market and many are well-designed for their specific niche. Consumers can get almost any combination of features they want except one: dead simple to operate and fix. That's why I drive a car that's 35 years old. Nothing is computerized and very little is electrical. It is easy to fix and costs almost nothing to maintain.
Somehow I can't see Apple moving into the simple to operate and fix market. I suspect that it wants to compete in a high-end market that has had many decades to sharpen its expertise. BMW and Mercedes aren't like Microsoft. They didn't get to the top of their markets by stumbling into a near-monopoly. They earned their status.
Very well said. I'd add that all the wishes and hopes that Apple will manufacture automobiles are just that, wishes and hopes. They have no basis in any practical reality. The worst part about all these car-making rumors is that they obscure what Apple likely is doing, which is developing CarPlay into compelling technology that most of the existing manufacturers will adopt. That will be hard enough, but at least it's something Apple knows how to do, unlike the business of bending sheet metal.
The problem isn't annual updates, the problem is introducing novelty for the sake of novelty.
like what, specifically? I'm enjoying the new features in iOS -- texts & calls on my mac or iPad? yes, please.
ITunes keeps getting worse and less intuitive with each "overhaul";
people say this yet I'm still able to use iTunes and load music on my devices. weird. what am i doing wrong?
OS X file system organization gets more and more obscure and cluttered as if Apple had hired all the bad Windows system engineers, e.g, when books moved from iTunes to iBooks, the were transitioned from a well organized folder with files that had meaningful names into a cluttered hidden mess with meaningless random file names;
same as Photos, but thats the use case -- it's designed to be a manager and database of your stuff; its not designed for you to poke around in its file system. this is because its designed for normal people, not techies. most people most of the time dont need or want to do that. they want to work in the app.
OS X needs at least 16GB to run comfortably, more if you need anything like Parallels, Fusion, VirtualBox,...
absolute nonsense. I'm an enterprise dev, I'm a .NET systems programmer and i work in VMWare daily, you dont need more than 16gb. try getting a SSD if you're having performance issues.
iOS devices crash for lack of RAM, because RAM is limited to lower power consumption which is limited due to battery size constraints due to the absurd obsession with the thinness of devices.
i simply cannot remember the last time one of our iOS devices crashed. no memory.
In Apple's case it's the obsession with thinner and simpler: things should be as simple and as thin as possible WITHOUT restricting users or distorted data models. If one oversimplifies the truth, it turns into a lie; if one makes things too thin, the bend, break, have less than thrilling battery life, etc.
you dont understand. those nifty computers in the movies, the ones that are thin as paper? you can't there from here, without making things as thin/small as possible. thats how you develop new processes. the Watch would not be possible if Apple wasnt able to apply techniques and materials learned while shrinking down the iPhone.
Apple needs to break is script: "...is the thinnest...", "...is even simpler..." and start figuring out what's actually *best*, most powerful, most expressive, etc.
nah. today they're both -- thinnest and best, most powerful, etc. i think apple's priorities and direction is doing just fine. it is surely why they're the biggest, best selling, most profitable public firm in human history *and* have the best consumer satisfaction ratings. YMMV
The problem isn't annual updates, the problem is introducing novelty for the sake of novelty.
ITunes keeps getting worse and less intuitive with each "overhaul"; OS X file system organization gets more and more obscure and cluttered as if Apple had hired all the bad Windows system engineers, e.g, when books moved from iTunes to iBooks, the were transitioned from a well organized folder with files that had meaningful names into a cluttered hidden mess with meaningless random file names; the files instantly became useless outside of iBooks; similarly the mess in /private/var/folders/... which is utterly undocumented, outside each user's home folder, a potential security risk because who know what remains there after an app and user documents are deleted, etc.
Systems are routinely starved for RAM, and with compressed swap, things have gotten really slow and there seems to be a limit to swap now, too. OS X needs at least 16GB to run comfortably, more if you need anything like Parallels, Fusion, VirtualBox,...
iOS devices crash for lack of RAM, because RAM is limited to lower power consumption which is limited due to battery size constraints due to the absurd obsession with the thinness of devices. If the get any thinner, you'll have to wear gloves so you don't get cuts...
I rather have a thicker device I don't have to recharge twice daily and that doesn't crash due to RAM limits... (Try to install 1500 apps on a 128GB iPhone 6 plus, and see if you can get that thing to work reliably. Apple knows about it, and we have the fourth point release in the works, and it's still not fixed, cause software cannot increase RAM...)
So Apple has lots of things it should do, incl. not screwing with the Pro market and killing Aperture before Photos is anywhere nearly as capable.
Still, being nearly a trillion dollar company, that doesn't mean it doesn't have the resources to pursue car related projects as well. It's an issue of disconnect between management and engineering, marketing and "peacock evolution" tendencies dominate right now.
"Peacock evolution" is when an originally important trait (nice healthy, shiny feathers) evolve ad absurdum where they are no longer an advantage but a liability.
In Apple's case it's the obsession with thinner and simpler: things should be as simple and as thin as possible WITHOUT restricting users or distorted data models. If one oversimplifies the truth, it turns into a lie; if one makes things too thin, the bend, break, have less than thrilling battery life, etc.
Apple needs to break is script: "...is the thinnest...", "...is even simpler..." and start figuring out what's actually *best*, most powerful, most expressive, etc.
I lost interest in taking you seriously when you wrote, ``(Try to install 1500 apps on a 128GB iPhone 6 plus, and see if you can get that thing to work reliably. Apple knows about it, and we have the fourth point release in the works, and it's still not fixed, cause software cannot increase RAM...)''
You can say the same crap with any traditional operating system.
The problem is once they've gotten rid of all the bugs they're releasing a new bug filled version. Therein is the problem with yearly updates
And when the 7 years between XP and Vista were up, and the guy running the division (suddenly forgot his name, but he isn't there anymore) was asked how many bugs Vista contained, he said; "68,000".
You don't get any more bugs with a yearly revision than you do with much bigger revisions every few years.
Apple's success is driven by its adherence to its basic philosophy of "making the best products." Tesla is at the very least proof of concept of this type of approach. So far, boards and shareholders have apparently not been too much of a stumbling block in this.
I'm for the older concept of "investing" as meaning more "trust" than "profiteering."
yes. this is a type of business management, great article on it here:
And when the 7 years between XP and Vista were up, and the guy running the division (suddenly forgot his name, but he isn't there anymore) was asked how many bugs Vista contained, he said; "68,000".
You don't get any more bugs with a yearly revision than you do with much bigger revisions every few years.
It's a much more complex OS with drivers for an endless amount of peripherals.
You don't get any more bugs with a yearly revision than you do with much bigger revisions every few years.
i won't deny that very tight deadlines can contribute to bugs, but the reality is as long as there is software, there will be bugs. they happen because we developers are only human. and the more complex the systems and endpoints, the greater the chance for unexpected scenarios (bugs).
the only software w/o bugs is software nobody uses.
Apple going into cars doesn't fit the company's pattern of success. It got away with selling computers priced far higher than DOS ones because a GUI was better. It is doing well against Windows now because OS X is better designed and Apple hardware is more reliable. The iPod filled a need for a useful music player and the iPhone filled a huge gap. When it came out, most cell phones were ill-designed junk. I know. I owned several. Success with the iPhone could be parlayed into success with tablets, since the two ran the same apps. Even the Apple Watch, a solution in search of a problem, can be justified as a way to control a market that might become useful in a few years.
Not so cars. There's an enormous variety of cars on the market and many are well-designed for their specific niche. Consumers can get almost any combination of features they want except one: dead simple to operate and fix. That's why I drive a car that's 35 years old. Nothing is computerized and very little is electrical. It is easy to fix and costs almost nothing to maintain.
Somehow I can't see Apple moving into the simple to operate and fix market. I suspect that it wants to compete in a high-end market that has had many decades to sharpen its expertise. BMW and Mercedes aren't like Microsoft. They didn't get to the top of their markets by stumbling into a near-monopoly. They earned their status.
That's not really true. The Apple II was no more expensive than other computers of its type, and the first Macs were less expensive than the average IBM PC.
They became more expensive over time as manufacturers began to move to China, a trend started, I think it was, by Leader, long gone. When Scully turned down the licensing proposal from Microsoft, he then raised the price of the Mac by 10%, a bad idea. But Apple's computers were on,y more expensive because Apple doesn't make cheap models. In fact, in many reviews over the years. It's been said that when you add the option to Windows pcs that the Mac came with, the cost would be the same, or higher.
You have no way of knowing what Apple may be doing. They may be working on their own car, and they may not be. Either way, we're in the dark. If they are, you can bet that what you're saying will be wrong, just as everyone else who has said what you're saying over the years was wrong.
And the iPhone, by far their most important product, was derided heavily after it was announced, and for the first year after it came out. Jobs said that all they wanted was 10% of the smartphone share, which, at the time, was just 10% of cellphone sales. So that was just 1% of the cell phone market.
There ware 80 million cars sold around the world last year. If Apple got 1% of that, it would be 800 thousand cars. If the average price for an Apple car was, say, $47,000, which would be in keeping with Apple's more expensive than the cheap junk we can't do much with, but not really expensive products that we can, that would total $37,600,000,000,
...That will be hard enough, but at least it's something Apple knows how to do, unlike the business of bending sheet metal.
It turns out, milling laptops out of single billets of aluminum and making your own alloys is pretty hard, but they do it. Stamping sheet metal is pretty well understood, having been done for decades. It's so well understood that it used to be, many marques changed the tools and stampings every year, so that each model year looked different. This seems like a problem that isn't hard, it just requires plants and some money for tooling.
CarPlay is pretty good (albeit with some bugs particularly around switching audio sources between the apps) and I look forward to seeing whatever an intervention could produce.
There ware 80 million cars sold around the world last year. If Apple got 1% of that, it would be 800 thousand cars. If the average price for an Apple car was, say, $47,000, which would be in keeping with Apple's more expensive than the cheap junk we can't do much with, but not really expensive products that we can, that would total $37,600,000,000,
I think Apple could work with that.
That's sales. What's net minus COG, FOB, etc.? What's their margin? Things don't get built/shipped/imported/sold for free, right?
enjoy your android, especially when it's not supported after a year. our iOS devices work fine with great performance.
I just ran into a bug in mobile Safari when trying to do something here in landscape mode. Had to turn to portrait mode to accomplish it. Never had that problem before iOS 8. This is a problem is seen reported elsewhere. Fix your app, Apple.
It's a much more complex OS with drivers for an endless amount of peripherals.
It doesn't matter. That's still 68,000 bugs they knew about, plus the many thousands they didn't, iOS is still a very complex OS. Hopefully, it doesn't have nearly that many bugs, but the high profile ones it does have, here and there, make it seem buggy to a few people. But Apple corrects most of these, with a few here and there they don't get to for some reason.
Every piece of software above a certain complexity level is going to contain bugs. There have been many articles about this in the professional journals, for years and years. The systems we use are not mainframes, which have few bugs. If we didn't demand new features on a regular basis, which we do, no matter how much a tiny group may deny it, then companies could take more time, release software with far fewer features every several years, and we would have more reliable software.
The same thing is true of hardware, though that, generally, is easier to debug in the design process. Though, even there, many companies have a major disconnect between design and production. Fortunately, the way Apple does that, they do not.
But this isn't what we want. Most people will settle for complaining about bugs while demanding major new features every year.
That's not really true. The Apple II was no more expensive than other computers of its type, and the first Macs were less expensive than the average IBM PC.
They became more expensive over time as manufacturers began to move to China, a trend started, I think it was, by Leader, long gone. When Scully turned down the licensing proposal from Microsoft, he then raised the price of the Mac by 10%, a bad idea. But Apple's computers were on,y more expensive because Apple doesn't make cheap models. In fact, in many reviews over the years. It's been said that when you add the option to Windows pcs that the Mac came with, the cost would be the same, or higher.
You have no way of knowing what Apple may be doing. They may be working on their own car, and they may not be. Either way, we're in the dark. If they are, you can bet that what you're saying will be wrong, just as everyone else who has said what you're saying over the years was wrong.
And the iPhone, by far their most important product, was derided heavily after it was announced, and for the first year after it came out. Jobs said that all they wanted was 10% of the smartphone share, which, at the time, was just 10% of cellphone sales. So that was just 1% of the cell phone market.
There ware 80 million cars sold around the world last year. If Apple got 1% of that, it would be 800 thousand cars. If the average price for an Apple car was, say, $47,000, which would be in keeping with Apple's more expensive than the cheap junk we can't do much with, but not really expensive products that we can, that would total $37,600,000,000,
I think Apple could work with that.
Well said. I'd add, the old memes 'Apple doesn't know this or that market' or 'the market cannot be improved upon' are a proven false time and time again with Apple. Only when Apple bring out a new concept of a car (and assuming it does) that is a paradigm changer will people say,' Oh that was obvious' and only then will Google and Samsung copy it (as in change their directions to Apple's). Actually, correction, Google and Samsung will have started work as soon as the rumors start and fine tune whatever they have as more leaks occur. Gatorguy will then start trotting out historical data showing Google was ahead all the time.
i won't deny that very tight deadlines can contribute to bugs, but the reality is as long as there is software, there will be bugs. they happen because we developers are only human. and the more complex the systems and endpoints, the greater the chance for unexpected scenarios (bugs).
the only software w/o bugs is software nobody uses.
As I said in my response above to dasanman69, people make demands on these companie's that result in less testing that would be ideal, because of wanting a constant stream of new features.
While business and government want slower upgrades, and fewer features released each time, the public is just the opposite. We don't seem to be happy if there isn't some new gizmo in software and hardware every few months. It's because we're easily bored with what we get. Once we know what a device will do, we want something more to play with. I admit to being that way too. If it weren't for my wife, I'd buy a new phone every year. I really wanted to buy an Apple Watch this year, but I'll wait for the next, no doubt highly improved one next year. But I do get a new iPad every year.
Back to cars. I do believe that Apple can offer improvements over what we see today. They are spending big bucks on battery research, hiring some top people away from other battery firms, and automobile firms.
Tesla seems to be a great company, but they on,y sold a $billion in cars last year, losing $290 million in the process, with Musk stating that they will become profitable in 2020.
And for all the publicity he gets, Tesla does no battery research of any note of its own. For their cars. They buy inexpensive batteries from Panasonic. Their new announcement of these expensive batteries for home and industry are just large standard Li-on batteries, no better than those from anyone else. Li-on isn't even good for the purpose he's selling them for. His cars have little range, though he advertises them as 200 miles. That son.y true, barely, if you don't use it as a standard car.
So if Apple does come out with a car in 2020, or so, they may very well have something better than what's on the road then. And if they think that they won't, they won't come out with it.
But it's also possible that Apple isn't planning to be one a car company, I believe that if they aren't, what they may be doing instead, is working on a realtime OS to run the car, such as mobile Linux and QNX. If so, Apple may be doing what they a,ways seem to do, but on a much bigger scale. So possibly they believe than in order to understand how a car works. They need to design, and build one themselves. Perhaps they are only interested in the future of electric cars. So their OS will be for just that. But this is a possibility. It would t be the first time Apple went all out this way.
Comments
to you, a person who doesnt use one. to us, it's a useful gadget that offers value. activity tracking is our #1 use case, which is why we put off getting a fitbit once the rumors of the AW came out. I'm not disappointed with it. on top of that a wireless iPod (tying into activity uses), on top of that is contactless payments (again, tying into activity uses since we dont jog w/ wallets or phones). lastly is an improved way of dealing w/ the notifications i care about.
those are real solutions to real use cases. that they aren't yours doesnt mean they aren't anyone's. (simple concept, but one so many techies fail to grasp)
Apple should "intervene" in the slow performance and bugs of iOS software. Just stop making stuff and fix your software!
All my iPhone's with iOS before 7 and 8 were fast and fine. iOS 7 and 8 actually made me think of getting an Android based phone in the future
Guys like you are always making threats. Listen up, none of us care what you do, least of all Apple. And as for you claims, baloney. So yeah, go right ahead and switch to Android and see how happy you are in a year. Otherwise you’re just blowing smoke.
Sure because we see all this evidence that the auto industry is rushing to partner with Apple on car technologies. That's why every car on the market is implementing and touting CarPlay as a feature. /s
I see little evidence that the auto industry really wants to partner with Silicon Valley. They want to do their own thing. They don't want to be like computer hardware OEMs that find it hard to differentiate because they're all shipping the same software. Apple is all about a consistent experience and in most cases building the entire widget. Ford isn't going to want their dashboard to look just like Toyota's or Honda's. Plus how many car companies tout other people's stuff in their cars? Apple's not going to want to be some nameless piece of technology in somebody else's car.
I understand the skepticism around Apple building is owned car. But I'm also skeptical that Apple will be able to successfully sell technology components to the auto industry at large. According to that Wall Street Journal rumor earlier this year The product VP running Apple's car project (who, according to the Official Board, works for Jony Ive) was authorized by Tim Cook to hire 1,000 people for this project. I don't think you need 1,000 people for CarPlay on steroids. Also, 9to5Mac's reporting on some of the people hired suggest that this work is more than just CarPlay on steroids. Also, when's the last time we've heard Apple even talk about CarPlay? They re-branded it as CarPlay in March 2014 and yet we haven't heard a lot about it since. Hardly talked about at any of Apple's keynote events and I don't believe Apple had a presence at any of the auto shows so far this year. That leads me to believe Apple is working on something much bigger and CarPlay is a band aid solution right now.
The problem isn't annual updates, the problem is introducing novelty for the sake of novelty.
ITunes keeps getting worse and less intuitive with each "overhaul"; OS X file system organization gets more and more obscure and cluttered as if Apple had hired all the bad Windows system engineers, e.g, when books moved from iTunes to iBooks, the were transitioned from a well organized folder with files that had meaningful names into a cluttered hidden mess with meaningless random file names; the files instantly became useless outside of iBooks; similarly the mess in /private/var/folders/... which is utterly undocumented, outside each user's home folder, a potential security risk because who know what remains there after an app and user documents are deleted, etc.
Systems are routinely starved for RAM, and with compressed swap, things have gotten really slow and there seems to be a limit to swap now, too. OS X needs at least 16GB to run comfortably, more if you need anything like Parallels, Fusion, VirtualBox,...
iOS devices crash for lack of RAM, because RAM is limited to lower power consumption which is limited due to battery size constraints due to the absurd obsession with the thinness of devices. If the get any thinner, you'll have to wear gloves so you don't get cuts...
I rather have a thicker device I don't have to recharge twice daily and that doesn't crash due to RAM limits... (Try to install 1500 apps on a 128GB iPhone 6 plus, and see if you can get that thing to work reliably. Apple knows about it, and we have the fourth point release in the works, and it's still not fixed, cause software cannot increase RAM...)
So Apple has lots of things it should do, incl. not screwing with the Pro market and killing Aperture before Photos is anywhere nearly as capable.
Still, being nearly a trillion dollar company, that doesn't mean it doesn't have the resources to pursue car related projects as well. It's an issue of disconnect between management and engineering, marketing and "peacock evolution" tendencies dominate right now.
"Peacock evolution" is when an originally important trait (nice healthy, shiny feathers) evolve ad absurdum where they are no longer an advantage but a liability.
In Apple's case it's the obsession with thinner and simpler: things should be as simple and as thin as possible WITHOUT restricting users or distorted data models. If one oversimplifies the truth, it turns into a lie; if one makes things too thin, the bend, break, have less than thrilling battery life, etc.
Apple needs to break is script: "...is the thinnest...", "...is even simpler..." and start figuring out what's actually *best*, most powerful, most expressive, etc.
Sure because we see all this evidence that the auto industry is rushing to partner with Apple on car technologies. That's why every car on the market is implementing and touting CarPlay as a feature. /s
I see little evidence that the auto industry really wants to partner with Silicon Valley. They want to do their own thing. They don't want to be like computer hardware OEMs that find it hard to differentiate because they're all shipping the same software. Apple is all about a consistent experience and in most cases building the entire widget. Ford isn't going to want their dashboard to look just like Toyota's or Honda's. Plus how many car companies tout other people's stuff in their cars? Apple's not going to want to be some nameless piece of technology in somebody else's car.
I understand the skepticism around Apple building is owned car. But I'm also skeptical that Apple will be able to successfully sell technology components to the auto industry at large. According to that Wall Street Journal rumor earlier this year The product VP running Apple's car project (who, according to the Official Board, works for Jony Ive) was authorized by Tim Cook to hire 1,000 people for this project. I don't think you need 1,000 people for CarPlay on steroids. Also, 9to5Mac's reporting on some of the people hired suggest that this work is more than just CarPlay on steroids. Also, when's the last time we've heard Apple even talk about CarPlay? They re-branded it as CarPlay in March 2014 and yet we haven't heard a lot about it since. Hardly talked about at any of Apple's keynote events and I don't believe Apple had a presence at any of the auto shows so far this year. That leads me to believe Apple is working on something much bigger and CarPlay is a band aid solution right now.
For once, I agree with you.
Apple's success is driven by its adherence to its basic philosophy of "making the best products." Tesla is at the very least proof of concept of this type of approach. So far, boards and shareholders have apparently not been too much of a stumbling block in this.
I'm for the older concept of "investing" as meaning more "trust" than "profiteering." Apple getting into manufacturing cars is a very bold move. But in the bigger scheme of things, like Elon Musk has expressed often, something has to be done NOW in a big way to halt the pollution on the planet. ICE cars are a huge contributor. So the sooner EVs can proliferate the better.
Apple has plenty of resources to lend to the situation, and could very well be more of a partner in symbiotic projects than a competitor, as such.
Apple going into cars doesn't fit the company's pattern of success. It got away with selling computers priced far higher than DOS ones because a GUI was better. It is doing well against Windows now because OS X is better designed and Apple hardware is more reliable. The iPod filled a need for a useful music player and the iPhone filled a huge gap. When it came out, most cell phones were ill-designed junk. I know. I owned several. Success with the iPhone could be parlayed into success with tablets, since the two ran the same apps. Even the Apple Watch, a solution in search of a problem, can be justified as a way to control a market that might become useful in a few years.
Not so cars. There's an enormous variety of cars on the market and many are well-designed for their specific niche. Consumers can get almost any combination of features they want except one: dead simple to operate and fix. That's why I drive a car that's 35 years old. Nothing is computerized and very little is electrical. It is easy to fix and costs almost nothing to maintain.
Somehow I can't see Apple moving into the simple to operate and fix market. I suspect that it wants to compete in a high-end market that has had many decades to sharpen its expertise. BMW and Mercedes aren't like Microsoft. They didn't get to the top of their markets by stumbling into a near-monopoly. They earned their status.
Very well said. I'd add that all the wishes and hopes that Apple will manufacture automobiles are just that, wishes and hopes. They have no basis in any practical reality. The worst part about all these car-making rumors is that they obscure what Apple likely is doing, which is developing CarPlay into compelling technology that most of the existing manufacturers will adopt. That will be hard enough, but at least it's something Apple knows how to do, unlike the business of bending sheet metal.
people say this yet I'm still able to use iTunes and load music on my devices. weird. what am i doing wrong?
same as Photos, but thats the use case -- it's designed to be a manager and database of your stuff; its not designed for you to poke around in its file system. this is because its designed for normal people, not techies. most people most of the time dont need or want to do that. they want to work in the app.
absolute nonsense. I'm an enterprise dev, I'm a .NET systems programmer and i work in VMWare daily, you dont need more than 16gb. try getting a SSD if you're having performance issues.
i simply cannot remember the last time one of our iOS devices crashed. no memory.
you dont understand. those nifty computers in the movies, the ones that are thin as paper? you can't there from here, without making things as thin/small as possible. thats how you develop new processes. the Watch would not be possible if Apple wasnt able to apply techniques and materials learned while shrinking down the iPhone.
nah. today they're both -- thinnest and best, most powerful, etc. i think apple's priorities and direction is doing just fine. it is surely why they're the biggest, best selling, most profitable public firm in human history *and* have the best consumer satisfaction ratings. YMMV
I lost interest in taking you seriously when you wrote, ``(Try to install 1500 apps on a 128GB iPhone 6 plus, and see if you can get that thing to work reliably. Apple knows about it, and we have the fourth point release in the works, and it's still not fixed, cause software cannot increase RAM...)''
You can say the same crap with any traditional operating system.
And when the 7 years between XP and Vista were up, and the guy running the division (suddenly forgot his name, but he isn't there anymore) was asked how many bugs Vista contained, he said; "68,000".
You don't get any more bugs with a yearly revision than you do with much bigger revisions every few years.
yes. this is a type of business management, great article on it here:
The Dumbest Idea In The World: Maximizing Shareholder Value
It's a much more complex OS with drivers for an endless amount of peripherals.
i won't deny that very tight deadlines can contribute to bugs, but the reality is as long as there is software, there will be bugs. they happen because we developers are only human. and the more complex the systems and endpoints, the greater the chance for unexpected scenarios (bugs).
the only software w/o bugs is software nobody uses.
That's not really true. The Apple II was no more expensive than other computers of its type, and the first Macs were less expensive than the average IBM PC.
They became more expensive over time as manufacturers began to move to China, a trend started, I think it was, by Leader, long gone. When Scully turned down the licensing proposal from Microsoft, he then raised the price of the Mac by 10%, a bad idea. But Apple's computers were on,y more expensive because Apple doesn't make cheap models. In fact, in many reviews over the years. It's been said that when you add the option to Windows pcs that the Mac came with, the cost would be the same, or higher.
You have no way of knowing what Apple may be doing. They may be working on their own car, and they may not be. Either way, we're in the dark. If they are, you can bet that what you're saying will be wrong, just as everyone else who has said what you're saying over the years was wrong.
And the iPhone, by far their most important product, was derided heavily after it was announced, and for the first year after it came out. Jobs said that all they wanted was 10% of the smartphone share, which, at the time, was just 10% of cellphone sales. So that was just 1% of the cell phone market.
There ware 80 million cars sold around the world last year. If Apple got 1% of that, it would be 800 thousand cars. If the average price for an Apple car was, say, $47,000, which would be in keeping with Apple's more expensive than the cheap junk we can't do much with, but not really expensive products that we can, that would total $37,600,000,000,
I think Apple could work with that.
...That will be hard enough, but at least it's something Apple knows how to do, unlike the business of bending sheet metal.
It turns out, milling laptops out of single billets of aluminum and making your own alloys is pretty hard, but they do it. Stamping sheet metal is pretty well understood, having been done for decades. It's so well understood that it used to be, many marques changed the tools and stampings every year, so that each model year looked different. This seems like a problem that isn't hard, it just requires plants and some money for tooling.
CarPlay is pretty good (albeit with some bugs particularly around switching audio sources between the apps) and I look forward to seeing whatever an intervention could produce.
There ware 80 million cars sold around the world last year. If Apple got 1% of that, it would be 800 thousand cars. If the average price for an Apple car was, say, $47,000, which would be in keeping with Apple's more expensive than the cheap junk we can't do much with, but not really expensive products that we can, that would total $37,600,000,000,
I think Apple could work with that.
That's sales. What's net minus COG, FOB, etc.? What's their margin? Things don't get built/shipped/imported/sold for free, right?
it's true. when the latest Mac Pro came out people spec'd it out to comparable Dell workstations:
http://www.macworld.com/article/1052381/macproprice.html
http://www.defenseofreason.com/macs-are-less-expensive-than-you-think/
http://www.extremetech.com/computing/173695-apples-new-overpriced-10000-mac-pro-is-2000-cheaper-than-the-equivalent-windows-pc
macbook pro, too:
http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/apple-in-the-enterprise/is-a-macbook-pro-really-more-expensive-than-a-dell-latitude/
I just ran into a bug in mobile Safari when trying to do something here in landscape mode. Had to turn to portrait mode to accomplish it. Never had that problem before iOS 8. This is a problem is seen reported elsewhere. Fix your app, Apple.
It doesn't matter. That's still 68,000 bugs they knew about, plus the many thousands they didn't, iOS is still a very complex OS. Hopefully, it doesn't have nearly that many bugs, but the high profile ones it does have, here and there, make it seem buggy to a few people. But Apple corrects most of these, with a few here and there they don't get to for some reason.
Every piece of software above a certain complexity level is going to contain bugs. There have been many articles about this in the professional journals, for years and years. The systems we use are not mainframes, which have few bugs. If we didn't demand new features on a regular basis, which we do, no matter how much a tiny group may deny it, then companies could take more time, release software with far fewer features every several years, and we would have more reliable software.
The same thing is true of hardware, though that, generally, is easier to debug in the design process. Though, even there, many companies have a major disconnect between design and production. Fortunately, the way Apple does that, they do not.
But this isn't what we want. Most people will settle for complaining about bugs while demanding major new features every year.
Well said. I'd add, the old memes 'Apple doesn't know this or that market' or 'the market cannot be improved upon' are a proven false time and time again with Apple. Only when Apple bring out a new concept of a car (and assuming it does) that is a paradigm changer will people say,' Oh that was obvious' and only then will Google and Samsung copy it (as in change their directions to Apple's). Actually, correction, Google and Samsung will have started work as soon as the rumors start and fine tune whatever they have as more leaks occur. Gatorguy will then start trotting out historical data showing Google was ahead all the time.
As I said in my response above to dasanman69, people make demands on these companie's that result in less testing that would be ideal, because of wanting a constant stream of new features.
While business and government want slower upgrades, and fewer features released each time, the public is just the opposite. We don't seem to be happy if there isn't some new gizmo in software and hardware every few months. It's because we're easily bored with what we get. Once we know what a device will do, we want something more to play with. I admit to being that way too. If it weren't for my wife, I'd buy a new phone every year. I really wanted to buy an Apple Watch this year, but I'll wait for the next, no doubt highly improved one next year. But I do get a new iPad every year.
Back to cars. I do believe that Apple can offer improvements over what we see today. They are spending big bucks on battery research, hiring some top people away from other battery firms, and automobile firms.
Tesla seems to be a great company, but they on,y sold a $billion in cars last year, losing $290 million in the process, with Musk stating that they will become profitable in 2020.
And for all the publicity he gets, Tesla does no battery research of any note of its own. For their cars. They buy inexpensive batteries from Panasonic. Their new announcement of these expensive batteries for home and industry are just large standard Li-on batteries, no better than those from anyone else. Li-on isn't even good for the purpose he's selling them for. His cars have little range, though he advertises them as 200 miles. That son.y true, barely, if you don't use it as a standard car.
So if Apple does come out with a car in 2020, or so, they may very well have something better than what's on the road then. And if they think that they won't, they won't come out with it.
But it's also possible that Apple isn't planning to be one a car company, I believe that if they aren't, what they may be doing instead, is working on a realtime OS to run the car, such as mobile Linux and QNX. If so, Apple may be doing what they a,ways seem to do, but on a much bigger scale. So possibly they believe than in order to understand how a car works. They need to design, and build one themselves. Perhaps they are only interested in the future of electric cars. So their OS will be for just that. But this is a possibility. It would t be the first time Apple went all out this way.