Apple hires ex-Mercedes engineers for 'Apple Car' Special Projects Group
Presumed to be for the "Apple Car," two former Mercedes engineers have been hired by Apple officially to work in the Special Projects Group.
Mercedes-Benz has adde Apple Music to infotainment system. Image Credit: Daimler
Apple is already believed to have poached Porsche's vice president of chassis development, Dr. Manfred Harrer, to work on the "Apple Car." Now a new report says that two more high-profile Mercedes engineers have been recruited.
First spotted by MacRumors, one of the engineers is Dr. Anton Uselmann. Now a product design engineer at Apple, he formerly worked on car projects across mass production, dynamics, vehicle steering, and project management.
Prior to Mercedes, Dr. Uselmann earned his PhD while working for Porsche. By the end of his five years with the car company, he was working as a Function Developer in the Steering Systems group.
The second new hire has not been named, but is also said to have previously worked at Mercedes.
Separately, Mercedes has worked closely with Apple as it adds CarPlay and Apple Music features to its range.
The company is not expected to be involved with the production of the "Apple Car," however. Most recently, Apple has reportedly been speaking with Korean and Japanese firms about assembling the as-yet unannounced vehicle.
Read on AppleInsider
Mercedes-Benz has adde Apple Music to infotainment system. Image Credit: Daimler
Apple is already believed to have poached Porsche's vice president of chassis development, Dr. Manfred Harrer, to work on the "Apple Car." Now a new report says that two more high-profile Mercedes engineers have been recruited.
First spotted by MacRumors, one of the engineers is Dr. Anton Uselmann. Now a product design engineer at Apple, he formerly worked on car projects across mass production, dynamics, vehicle steering, and project management.
Prior to Mercedes, Dr. Uselmann earned his PhD while working for Porsche. By the end of his five years with the car company, he was working as a Function Developer in the Steering Systems group.
The second new hire has not been named, but is also said to have previously worked at Mercedes.
Separately, Mercedes has worked closely with Apple as it adds CarPlay and Apple Music features to its range.
The company is not expected to be involved with the production of the "Apple Car," however. Most recently, Apple has reportedly been speaking with Korean and Japanese firms about assembling the as-yet unannounced vehicle.
Read on AppleInsider
Comments
Don’t know, but I would think as overprices a company such as Samsung that does not have to expend billions of dollars to develop an OS, it gets it free since Android is free, and also copy most of the features, except for some developments as result of its industrial power. Talking of overpriced…., see the price difference and think how much more a all those copycats are making, in detriment of the American ingenuity. And talking also of ingenuity, go back to under your rock… se te vio el plumero!
If you haven't noticed Apple focuses on the premium tier of the markets they get involved in. They aren't making $50 feature phones or $300 notebook PCs. They make lots of money because they stick with the price tiers that generate the biggest margins. Pushing more cheap units off the loading dock isn't Apple's business plan.
Because Apple has a long and distinguished history of rebadging existing products produced by others, slapping a shiny Apple logo on it, and pushing it out the door.
Right.
It's this type of product strategy that helped bring Apple to the brink of bankruptcy in the Nineties. There's no value-add to Apple just slapping their logo onto someone else's kit.
When Steve returned, he knew this behavior was not sustainable and he brought in Tim Cook (and others) to help fix it. They did this by shutting down Apple's own factories and stopping this type of worthless productizing.
Today Apple sits at the top of market capitalization because they don't slap their logo willy-nilly on everything. When they perceive their products no longer are competitive or have any substantial value-add, they get out of the category: standalone MP3 players, consumer computer monitors, printers, wifi routers, etc. Heck, they even recently canned their full-sized HomePod. Remember their digital camera? The Pippin game console? The Newton?
Their first "Apple phone" was a rebadged Motorola ROKR and Steve knew it was a dead end.
When Apple debuted the LaserWriter in 1985, it was a premium product both in features and price ($7000), distinguished by Apple's software innovation. Ten years later, the laser printer was becoming a commodity item and the printer CPU didn't need to do so much.
There's always a chance that Apple will re-enter a product category that it had previously abandoned (the pro display is one of those rare exceptions) but they will only do it when Apple can provide a substantial differentiation from the other category entrants and some noteworthy value-add.
That's what the term means: when the price exceeds the perceived value. The investment community uses the terms "over bought" and "over sold" which mean the same.
Let's say Consumer A buys a dozen eggs for $2.50; they aren't organic, free range, or fed a vegetarian diet. Consumer B might pay $6 for a dozen organic eggs. They do it because they perceive the value to be higher and worth the extra cost. In this case, Consumer A's attribution of value is considerably lower for the organic eggs so they don't buy them. Then Consumer C pays $9 for free range eggs from their farmers market. Maybe Consumer C thinks the egg quality is the same but they attribute some value to the fact that they are helping a local chicken rancher, cutting out the middle man (retail store's cut, wholesaler's cut), and decreasing fossil fuel emissions from bypassing the food distribution network.
There's not wrong for Consumer A to buy a Honda Fit, Consumer B to buy a Chevy Volt, and Consumer C to buy a Tesla Model S.
Note that Apple has been in this exact same situation before. Remember that Apple released the 8GB iPhone at $599 and subsequently cut the price to $399 after enduring a lot of consumer criticism. Apple's perception of value was higher than that of its target audience. Or they were greedy. Or both.
Remember that the concept of price vs. value isn't restricted to physical objects. It could be services as well, a $25 haircut at the barber shop down the street or a $250 cut at some fancy hair salon. Or performances.
How do you compare the value of your 6-year-old niece dancing in the Nutcracker versus a performance of the same work by the Bolshoi Ballet at the opera house? Let's say tickets to both events are $200. Which one will you pay for? One or the other, both, neither?