"A number of FCA subsidiaries have pledged support for Apple's solution, including Alfa Romeo, Chrysler, Dodge and the RAM Trucks brand"
Pledged support in which decade? A year after FCA claimed to be onboard with CarPlay and still no results? Looking at a new Durango for the family but no integrated CarPlay in sight.
The problem is RAM directly impacts the ability of iOS devices to work properly. You can stick your head in the sand and pretend it doesn't matter but that is hardly an adult approach to technology.
Right. So how did NeXTSTEP OS (an antecedent of iOS) ever get by on 16MB of RAM in the NeXT cube? Are you saying the OS was written 20 years before there was enough RAM for it to run "properly"? You can stick your head in the sand and pretend that operating systems aren't tailored to run on the hardware it is designed for, but that is hardly a logical approach to technology.
I agree on the dealers. As to service, I don't know for sure but I bet the vast majority of service requirements vanish along with an internal combustion engine. What's left other brakes, steering and electronics? Perhaps Apple and Tesla could be talking about a joint selling model?
I don't know about you, but I've had a lot of car issues that don't involve the engine. Power windows that fail, door locks that stop locking, latches that don't latch, and the like. But even if were only electronics, you'd still need have a method of providing service because electronics have failure modes too. So what are you going to do when that happens, drive your Apple Car into the Genius Bar?
FWIW, joint ventures make a lot more sense than a freestanding product.
Ahhh …you should try an all-electric car for ease of use and maintenance. There is virtually nothing to maintain. No oil to replace, so no oil filter. No transmission; ditto no transmission fluid. No air filter. No fuel filter. About the only thing to do is replace the brake fluid every year or two. And, it pollutes only 1/4 that of a modern gas-powered car, and I'm guessing, maybe only 1/16 that of a 35 year-old car. Try one!
I see no reason to believe that what you are saying is correct. First of all, as I said, Tesla is building most of their cars themselves, hence the huge learning curve. As you know, Apple doesn't build its own products. Apple will have an experienced auto manufacturer built their car, should they choose to make one. The learning curve isn't going to be so arduous. There is also no reason to believe that aside from capital costs, as usual, that Apple's first cars wouldn't be profitable.
I dn' t happen to think his cars are all that good. They are known for breaking down. They don't come close to meeting the 200 mile battery life spec he has. That makes these cars crap in comparison to equally priced cars out there. So yes, it's electric, but when you're told to not use the heater in the winter, or not to use the air conditioning in the summer, and to go easy on breaking, or to be careful when passing so that you don't go more than about 55 miles per hour, on average, all because that cuts down on the battery charge, then those cars are, as far as I'm concerned, junk.
You might not like dealers, but the vast percentage of cars are sold that way. Apple sells all of its products through dealers as well as through their own website and stores. In fact, most of their sales don't go through their own properties. I do t see that changing with a car. I'm not even sure that Apple would want to set their own dealerships up, meaning sales through an Apple property. I can see them selecting dealers meeting certain specific requirements, the way the have the store withinn a store at Best Buy, and a number of places around the world, such as in China.
I see no reason to believe that what you are saying is correct. I hope it's okay if I borrow your logic.
I'm not going to argue the merits of the Tesla.I don't plan on buying one myself but I don't judge the merits on that basis. I see that they can't make them quickly enough, which is evidence enough for me that others see the merits. I have also driven one, so I have some measure of the appeal.
I think you forget why Apple created its own retail stores, and what that has meant to their brand identity.
I don't know about you, but I've had a lot of car issues that don't involve the engine. Power windows that fail, door locks that stop locking, latches that don't latch, and the like. But even if were only electronics, you'd still need have a method of providing service because electronics have failure modes too. So what are you going to do when that happens, drive your Apple Car into the Genius Bar?
FWIW, joint ventures make a lot more sense than a freestanding product.
Bingo. It's a myth propagated by electric car fans that their cars are more reliable and don't need service.
For proof you only need to look at aftermarket automobile warranties. What do they cover? All mechanical parts of an engine. In fact, they like to list them all because it sounds impressive to see a very long list of technical sounding items that the warranty will cover you for (most of which never actually fail). What don't they cover (or require you to spend more to cover)? Anything ELECTRICAL. Like all the sensors and actuators on your engine. Any computers in your car. And stuff you mentioned like motors for locks, windows, wipers, heating and so on.
Then look at what Tesla charges for their extended warranty and compare that to gasoline vehicles in the luxury segment. FYI Tesla wants $4,000 for an extra 4yr/50,000 mile extended warranty. And $1,900 for 4 years of service. Why is Tesla charging over $500 a year for service if there's nothing to service on an electric vehicle?
Ahhh …you should try an all-electric car for ease of use and maintenance. There is virtually nothing to maintain. No oil to replace, so no oil filter. No transmission; ditto no transmission fluid. No air filter. No fuel filter. About the only thing to do is replace the brake fluid every year or two. And, it pollutes only 1/4 that of a modern gas-powered car, and I'm guessing, maybe only 1/16 that of a 35 year-old car. Try one!
Coolant flushes for the cooling system for the battery, inverter and sometimes motor. And the other 80% of the parts that are shared with any modern automobile.
And what about all those Tesla owners who had the entire drivetrain replaced under warranty (a very expensive repair) because they failed to spend $1 on a clip to properly secure a power cable? Electronic items in cars break down just as often as mechanical items. Vibration, voltage fluctuations, wide temperature extremes and humidity are things vehicle electronics are exposed to that would make short work of household consumer electronics.
Personally I'd like to see Apple decouple their apps from major OS updates so we can get more frequent updates and improvements.
There is a reason iPhone releases bring more excitement than releases from any other phone. Each new phone comes with a new OS. Often, it's the combination of the two that give Apple the edge. Sure, there is merit to your suggestion, but from a marketing perspective, I think that would be a bad move. Apple has a winning strategy. It isn't perfect, but it got them to where they are today.
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
I have to wonder why your experience is so different than mine. My iPhone5 ran fine and my iPhone6 runs far faster and better, always running the latest iOS. One thing that was really slow on the iPhone4 and 5, but is fine on the iPhone6, is the speed at which it will display a large spreadsheet or Word document.
The only major bug I've found recently is not in iOS, but on my Mac. iTunes lost its playlists - not the songs themselves, but all the playlists I had created. But I was able to get them back from a backup. The other bug I find is that every once in a while, WiFi turns itself off and I have to reselect my network. Other than that, I really never have any problems whatsoever on either my iPhone or my late-2008 MacBook Pro. The only reason I'm even considering a new Mac is because its performance when editing video isn't that great in hi-def - the frame rate isn't good enough. Everything else I do, including extensive Photoshop work, is absolutely fine and although this Mac is "thicker" than new ones, I can still easily swap out the hard drive and battery. And because of Apple's quality case design, it still looks almost brand new.
I really can't complain at all.
On the other hand, my son-in-law supports Macs in large organizations and he's having major problems with lockups after Yosemite upgrades. He also has a fairly high rate of new units dead out of the box.
With cars, I just don't see auto manufacturers giving up their dashboards to Apple.
Car manufacturers aren't giving up their dashboards with carplay. CarPlay is meant to augment what comes as standard. The problem is, most car manufacturers have absolutely awful systems for music and navigation, etc. CarPlay is light years better than anything provided by OEMs. It's also just using the car's screen as a dumb terminal. The technology may need to mature a bit, but this is what I want in my next car.
Beyond all of that I'm still perplexed by people that see self driving automobiles as safer! Maybe we will get there one day but I honestly believe that is decades if not centuries away. The problem is the infinitely variable driving conditions one is exposed to in real life. Around here you are sometimes luck to be able to even see the roads after a snow storm, there would be nothing for machine vision systems to latch onto.
Legitimate points. Which is also why we're seeing these automated driving features being rolled out in bits and pieces. Like extensions to cruise control or in areas of accident prevention. To that end, I think you seriously over estimate the driving abilities of the average person. Not to mention distractions like texting while driving, people driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs, or even just normal fatigue.
I do not want to set it to "never remember" any networks, because that would be dumb. I just want MacOS to work like iOS, which handles Wifi password changes very well IMO.
it does. theres just something amiss in your scenario. we cant know what... but OS X works exactly the way youd expect it to when handling wifi access point passwords, normally.
I really believe that the only way to get off gasoline completely is to go nuclear. Of course that freaks people out often the result of being ill informed but I don't see many alternative. As such we would need to develope a clean fusion process with it going into large trucks and trains first.
er, no, the concerns people have regarding nuclear arent due to being ill informed -- theyre due to the disasters we've already seen in its short lifespan so far.
But maybe it's also time to examine the entire automobile usage and ownership model. Most of the time, even on commute days, your car is parked and not being used. Drive to work, leave it there for hours, drive home, leave it there overnight. If you have a neighborhood BBQ over the weekend, or if your friends drive you, maybe you won't drive your own car(s) at all over the weekend. And if you go on a non-driving vacation, your car will sit there unused for the duration.
In some dense urban environments (say NYC) many people don't even own cars. Their houses and apartments don't have garages. There's no car purchase ordeal, no insurance shopping, no trips to the body shop or car dealer for fender bender repairs or regular tune-ups (which themselves may be a thing of the past with all-electric vehicles), and no yearly car registration fees. Oh, and also no need to take that driving test for that drivers' license.
So maybe some kind of on-demand system is the wave of the future. You summon a self-driving car, it shows up, and takes you were you want to go. Like Lyft etc. but without drivers. And if the "car company" (e.g. Apple) has smart enough scheduling, their system could predict heavy usage areas and time periods. So there would be many self-driving ?Cars driving around Apple employees' neighborhoods during the morning rush hour and many ?Cars swarming around Apple HQ during evening rush hour. No waiting, no driving, no garage, no parking hassles, no ownership hassles.
That is a nice practical future. The only thing you overlooked is that humans are not very practical. Many of us like to drive, polish our cars, admire the fine craftsmanship, and marvel at automobiles we will never afford. For the same reason we anguish over the smallest scratch on a new car and take pride in ownership of a fine automobile, I do not see the on demand, Uber style driverless car revolution taking hold in suburbia anytime soon. Also, the car, is in some respects, an extension of the home. It is a place you store things, like childrens' car seats, golf clubs, lock your briefcase in the trunk when you go to lunch or shopping, etc.
People in the cities already take taxis so the most significant characteristic of making them driverless is just taking away jobs. In the city, you really need human drivers, because the complexity and randomness of situations is much greater than driving on predictable suburban roads and highways.
I think the secret of what Apple is up to has to do with why Apple is so interested in hiring Tesla talent, and why Tesla came out with the PowerWall, I believe, a tad early. Just look at how long it'll take Tesla to fulfill pre-orders – mid 2016 – over 1 year away!!).
no doubt -- does Tesla have legions of haters/fans ready to pounce on them for pre-orders taking a year to fulfill!?
Apple has great interest in the home ecosystem and what better way to seriously get into the home than through an enhanced "Applefied" version of the PowerWall – with software hooks into your iOS devices (including the AppleTV)? What Apple is doing with Health Kit and the the watch, they could do with something like a PowerWall and Home Kit.
Apple also has a huge interest in green energy that might come into serious play with consumer-based home appliance(s). They might very well be designing an electric car, but I think their Tesla interest is more related to green energy and a product utilizing Home Kit. We'll see soon enough.
now that could be interesting...apple has been hiring battery experts, and poaching from tesla...could be competition in that space.
The problem is RAM directly impacts the ability of iOS devices to work properly. You can stick your head in the sand and pretend it doesn't matter but that is hardly an adult approach to technology.
your ad hom doesnt prop up your stance whatsoever.
as i said, im a enterprise software dev, and i simply have no reason to care about how much ram is in my iphone -- it's working perfectly. im sure it will get more, everything does, but normal consumers dont have any reason to wonder or worry about the ram in their iphones, let alone claim it needs more right now.
techies like yourself just cant seem to put yourselves into the shoes of normal consumers. forget about specs, and look at how the device is operating. if you can point to some epidemic of iphones not working "properly" then you may have something. but you cant, and you dont.
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.
True statements, but you seem to be implying a conclusion without actually saying it. The conclusion that is implied (to me) by your words is that Apple, starting from scratch, will have a much harder time breaking into the high-end vehicle market than the markets that they have broken into before. I tend to agree, but I would note that Tesla appears to be doing a fine job starting from scratch and with far less resources than Apple could bring to bear. If your overall conclusion is that Apple would be unable to pull this off, then I'm going to have to disagree.
"Marchionne's recent meeting with Cook adds fuel to rumors of a so-called "Apple Car,""
Rorschach test?
I read that as, Fiat's recent meeting with Cook suggests Apple's road to an eventual Apple car will pass through projects like an enhanced and expanded Carplay.
... The only thing you overlooked is that humans are not very practical. Many of us like to drive, polish our cars, admire the fine craftsmanship, and marvel at automobiles we will never afford. ...
Me too. I'm a "car guy." I never buy a (new) car that I don't obsess about, and keep my cars for a long, long time.
But think of it this way. There were thousands if not millions of people who used to love riding horses. And they'd ride them to work, they'd use them to pull carriages, and almost all of that horse culture is now gone. And many related jobs are also gone. Blacksmiths, stagecoach drivers, carriage makers, saddle makers, stable boys, ad nauseam.
Comments
Pledged support in which decade? A year after FCA claimed to be onboard with CarPlay and still no results? Looking at a new Durango for the family but no integrated CarPlay in sight.
The problem is RAM directly impacts the ability of iOS devices to work properly. You can stick your head in the sand and pretend it doesn't matter but that is hardly an adult approach to technology.
Right. So how did NeXTSTEP OS (an antecedent of iOS) ever get by on 16MB of RAM in the NeXT cube? Are you saying the OS was written 20 years before there was enough RAM for it to run "properly"? You can stick your head in the sand and pretend that operating systems aren't tailored to run on the hardware it is designed for, but that is hardly a logical approach to technology.
I agree on the dealers. As to service, I don't know for sure but I bet the vast majority of service requirements vanish along with an internal combustion engine. What's left other brakes, steering and electronics? Perhaps Apple and Tesla could be talking about a joint selling model?
I don't know about you, but I've had a lot of car issues that don't involve the engine. Power windows that fail, door locks that stop locking, latches that don't latch, and the like. But even if were only electronics, you'd still need have a method of providing service because electronics have failure modes too. So what are you going to do when that happens, drive your Apple Car into the Genius Bar?
FWIW, joint ventures make a lot more sense than a freestanding product.
I see no reason to believe that what you are saying is correct. First of all, as I said, Tesla is building most of their cars themselves, hence the huge learning curve. As you know, Apple doesn't build its own products. Apple will have an experienced auto manufacturer built their car, should they choose to make one. The learning curve isn't going to be so arduous. There is also no reason to believe that aside from capital costs, as usual, that Apple's first cars wouldn't be profitable.
I dn' t happen to think his cars are all that good. They are known for breaking down. They don't come close to meeting the 200 mile battery life spec he has. That makes these cars crap in comparison to equally priced cars out there. So yes, it's electric, but when you're told to not use the heater in the winter, or not to use the air conditioning in the summer, and to go easy on breaking, or to be careful when passing so that you don't go more than about 55 miles per hour, on average, all because that cuts down on the battery charge, then those cars are, as far as I'm concerned, junk.
You might not like dealers, but the vast percentage of cars are sold that way. Apple sells all of its products through dealers as well as through their own website and stores. In fact, most of their sales don't go through their own properties. I do t see that changing with a car. I'm not even sure that Apple would want to set their own dealerships up, meaning sales through an Apple property. I can see them selecting dealers meeting certain specific requirements, the way the have the store withinn a store at Best Buy, and a number of places around the world, such as in China.
I see no reason to believe that what you are saying is correct. I hope it's okay if I borrow your logic.
I'm not going to argue the merits of the Tesla. I don't plan on buying one myself but I don't judge the merits on that basis. I see that they can't make them quickly enough, which is evidence enough for me that others see the merits. I have also driven one, so I have some measure of the appeal.
I think you forget why Apple created its own retail stores, and what that has meant to their brand identity.
Bingo. It's a myth propagated by electric car fans that their cars are more reliable and don't need service.
For proof you only need to look at aftermarket automobile warranties. What do they cover? All mechanical parts of an engine. In fact, they like to list them all because it sounds impressive to see a very long list of technical sounding items that the warranty will cover you for (most of which never actually fail). What don't they cover (or require you to spend more to cover)? Anything ELECTRICAL. Like all the sensors and actuators on your engine. Any computers in your car. And stuff you mentioned like motors for locks, windows, wipers, heating and so on.
Then look at what Tesla charges for their extended warranty and compare that to gasoline vehicles in the luxury segment. FYI Tesla wants $4,000 for an extra 4yr/50,000 mile extended warranty. And $1,900 for 4 years of service. Why is Tesla charging over $500 a year for service if there's nothing to service on an electric vehicle?
Coolant flushes for the cooling system for the battery, inverter and sometimes motor. And the other 80% of the parts that are shared with any modern automobile.
And what about all those Tesla owners who had the entire drivetrain replaced under warranty (a very expensive repair) because they failed to spend $1 on a clip to properly secure a power cable? Electronic items in cars break down just as often as mechanical items. Vibration, voltage fluctuations, wide temperature extremes and humidity are things vehicle electronics are exposed to that would make short work of household consumer electronics.
It is a Fiat Jolly.
Personally I'd like to see Apple decouple their apps from major OS updates so we can get more frequent updates and improvements.
There is a reason iPhone releases bring more excitement than releases from any other phone. Each new phone comes with a new OS. Often, it's the combination of the two that give Apple the edge. Sure, there is merit to your suggestion, but from a marketing perspective, I think that would be a bad move. Apple has a winning strategy. It isn't perfect, but it got them to where they are today.
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
I have to wonder why your experience is so different than mine. My iPhone5 ran fine and my iPhone6 runs far faster and better, always running the latest iOS. One thing that was really slow on the iPhone4 and 5, but is fine on the iPhone6, is the speed at which it will display a large spreadsheet or Word document.
The only major bug I've found recently is not in iOS, but on my Mac. iTunes lost its playlists - not the songs themselves, but all the playlists I had created. But I was able to get them back from a backup. The other bug I find is that every once in a while, WiFi turns itself off and I have to reselect my network. Other than that, I really never have any problems whatsoever on either my iPhone or my late-2008 MacBook Pro. The only reason I'm even considering a new Mac is because its performance when editing video isn't that great in hi-def - the frame rate isn't good enough. Everything else I do, including extensive Photoshop work, is absolutely fine and although this Mac is "thicker" than new ones, I can still easily swap out the hard drive and battery. And because of Apple's quality case design, it still looks almost brand new.
I really can't complain at all.
On the other hand, my son-in-law supports Macs in large organizations and he's having major problems with lockups after Yosemite upgrades. He also has a fairly high rate of new units dead out of the box.
I don't think
With cars, I just don't see auto manufacturers giving up their dashboards to Apple.
Car manufacturers aren't giving up their dashboards with carplay. CarPlay is meant to augment what comes as standard. The problem is, most car manufacturers have absolutely awful systems for music and navigation, etc. CarPlay is light years better than anything provided by OEMs. It's also just using the car's screen as a dumb terminal. The technology may need to mature a bit, but this is what I want in my next car.
Beyond all of that I'm still perplexed by people that see self driving automobiles as safer! Maybe we will get there one day but I honestly believe that is decades if not centuries away. The problem is the infinitely variable driving conditions one is exposed to in real life. Around here you are sometimes luck to be able to even see the roads after a snow storm, there would be nothing for machine vision systems to latch onto.
Legitimate points. Which is also why we're seeing these automated driving features being rolled out in bits and pieces. Like extensions to cruise control or in areas of accident prevention. To that end, I think you seriously over estimate the driving abilities of the average person. Not to mention distractions like texting while driving, people driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs, or even just normal fatigue.
it does. theres just something amiss in your scenario. we cant know what... but OS X works exactly the way youd expect it to when handling wifi access point passwords, normally.
er, no, the concerns people have regarding nuclear arent due to being ill informed -- theyre due to the disasters we've already seen in its short lifespan so far.
[...]
But maybe it's also time to examine the entire automobile usage and ownership model. Most of the time, even on commute days, your car is parked and not being used. Drive to work, leave it there for hours, drive home, leave it there overnight. If you have a neighborhood BBQ over the weekend, or if your friends drive you, maybe you won't drive your own car(s) at all over the weekend. And if you go on a non-driving vacation, your car will sit there unused for the duration.
In some dense urban environments (say NYC) many people don't even own cars. Their houses and apartments don't have garages. There's no car purchase ordeal, no insurance shopping, no trips to the body shop or car dealer for fender bender repairs or regular tune-ups (which themselves may be a thing of the past with all-electric vehicles), and no yearly car registration fees. Oh, and also no need to take that driving test for that drivers' license.
So maybe some kind of on-demand system is the wave of the future. You summon a self-driving car, it shows up, and takes you were you want to go. Like Lyft etc. but without drivers. And if the "car company" (e.g. Apple) has smart enough scheduling, their system could predict heavy usage areas and time periods. So there would be many self-driving ?Cars driving around Apple employees' neighborhoods during the morning rush hour and many ?Cars swarming around Apple HQ during evening rush hour. No waiting, no driving, no garage, no parking hassles, no ownership hassles.
That is a nice practical future. The only thing you overlooked is that humans are not very practical. Many of us like to drive, polish our cars, admire the fine craftsmanship, and marvel at automobiles we will never afford. For the same reason we anguish over the smallest scratch on a new car and take pride in ownership of a fine automobile, I do not see the on demand, Uber style driverless car revolution taking hold in suburbia anytime soon. Also, the car, is in some respects, an extension of the home. It is a place you store things, like childrens' car seats, golf clubs, lock your briefcase in the trunk when you go to lunch or shopping, etc.
People in the cities already take taxis so the most significant characteristic of making them driverless is just taking away jobs. In the city, you really need human drivers, because the complexity and randomness of situations is much greater than driving on predictable suburban roads and highways.
no doubt -- does Tesla have legions of haters/fans ready to pounce on them for pre-orders taking a year to fulfill!?
now that could be interesting...apple has been hiring battery experts, and poaching from tesla...could be competition in that space.
your ad hom doesnt prop up your stance whatsoever.
as i said, im a enterprise software dev, and i simply have no reason to care about how much ram is in my iphone -- it's working perfectly. im sure it will get more, everything does, but normal consumers dont have any reason to wonder or worry about the ram in their iphones, let alone claim it needs more right now.
techies like yourself just cant seem to put yourselves into the shoes of normal consumers. forget about specs, and look at how the device is operating. if you can point to some epidemic of iphones not working "properly" then you may have something. but you cant, and you dont.
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.
True statements, but you seem to be implying a conclusion without actually saying it. The conclusion that is implied (to me) by your words is that Apple, starting from scratch, will have a much harder time breaking into the high-end vehicle market than the markets that they have broken into before. I tend to agree, but I would note that Tesla appears to be doing a fine job starting from scratch and with far less resources than Apple could bring to bear. If your overall conclusion is that Apple would be unable to pull this off, then I'm going to have to disagree.
Rorschach test?
I read that as, Fiat's recent meeting with Cook suggests Apple's road to an eventual Apple car will pass through projects like an enhanced and expanded Carplay.
... The only thing you overlooked is that humans are not very practical. Many of us like to drive, polish our cars, admire the fine craftsmanship, and marvel at automobiles we will never afford. ...
Me too. I'm a "car guy." I never buy a (new) car that I don't obsess about, and keep my cars for a long, long time.
But think of it this way. There were thousands if not millions of people who used to love riding horses. And they'd ride them to work, they'd use them to pull carriages, and almost all of that horse culture is now gone. And many related jobs are also gone. Blacksmiths, stagecoach drivers, carriage makers, saddle makers, stable boys, ad nauseam.
Things change.