Everyone is working on the self driving car, but the technology isn’t there yet. Apple isn’t really in the business of inventing the hardware...
If Apple was one of the top companies in self driving, that would be different. But with companies like GM (automakers) doing so much better (than Apple) it’s kind of a waste of resources.
You're so wrong it's disgusting.
Apple has been working on this before the self-driving bandwagon. Far from "me too".
Also you and neither of us here can say who's doing better than Apple when we have no idea what they've done or what they're doing.
Apple could have released a crappy car 3 years ago as a "me too" project but it's far from that and Apple only releases polished products.
Hello Apple fanboy,
From AppleInsider ”Fresh statistics from California's Department of Motor Vehicles reveals Apple's self-driving car testbed as the worst performing system on the road in terms of disengagements, or instances when the vehicle is forced to exit autonomous mode and return control to a human pilot.”
”From December 2018 through November 2019, Apple's fleet of heavily modified Lexus RX450h SUVs recorded an average of 871.65 disengagements for every 1,000 miles traveled, putting the company in last place among 28 firms testing autonomous vehicles on California roads.”
“On the other end of the spectrum was Google's Waymo, which managed an impressive 0.09 disengagements per 1,000 miles, or one disengagement every 11,154 miles, over the same period. GM Cruise vehicles were able to log an average of 5,204 miles between disengagements”
Last time I checked 871.65 vs. 0.09 disengagements per 1,000 miles is really really terrible. Now... we can probably make up some excuses, but the fact Project Titan is under new management, and the fact this isn’t the first time hundreds of employees have been layer off. I think anyone can do the math on how the project is going.
This again? We've covered this multiple times in the past couple of weeks. It's obvious that the way Apple is reporting "disengagements" is completely different from everyone else making the interpretations of the data very, very suspect.
I guess that will save about $30million/yr in salaries. Hire some more people to the Siri team to finally catch up with Amazon/Google.
Amen to that. As a whole, Siri is terrible. After almost 9 years I’d expect it to have reached a level of pristine refinement. As it stands, every time I use Siri, I have to meditate a little to prepare myself for the intense disappointment and frustration. Dictation and voice recognition are absurdly poor.
Everyone is working on the self driving car, but the technology isn’t there yet. Apple isn’t really in the business of inventing the hardware...
If Apple was one of the top companies in self driving, that would be different. But with companies like GM (automakers) doing so much better (than Apple) it’s kind of a waste of resources.
You're so wrong it's disgusting.
Apple has been working on this before the self-driving bandwagon. Far from "me too".
Also you and neither of us here can say who's doing better than Apple when we have no idea what they've done or what they're doing.
Apple could have released a crappy car 3 years ago as a "me too" project but it's far from that and Apple only releases polished products.
Hello Apple fanboy,
From AppleInsider ”Fresh statistics from California's Department of Motor Vehicles reveals Apple's self-driving car testbed as the worst performing system on the road in terms of disengagements, or instances when the vehicle is forced to exit autonomous mode and return control to a human pilot.”
”From December 2018 through November 2019, Apple's fleet of heavily modified Lexus RX450h SUVs recorded an average of 871.65 disengagements for every 1,000 miles traveled, putting the company in last place among 28 firms testing autonomous vehicles on California roads.”
“On the other end of the spectrum was Google's Waymo, which managed an impressive 0.09 disengagements per 1,000 miles, or one disengagement every 11,154 miles, over the same period. GM Cruise vehicles were able to log an average of 5,204 miles between disengagements” Last time I checked 871.65 vs. 0.09 disengagements per 1,000 miles is really really terrible. Now... we can probably make up some excuses, but the fact Project Titan is under new management, and the fact this isn’t the first time hundreds of employees have been layer off. I think anyone can do the math on how the project is going.
As for the project being “me too”..
”Google's development of self-driving technology began in January 17, 2009[3]at the company's secretive X lab run by co-founder Sergey Brin.”
VS
“The [Project Titan] project was rumored to be approved by Apple CEO Tim Cook in late 2014 and assigned to Vice President Steve Zadesky, a former Ford engineer as project in-charge.”
Pretty much everyone (including Qualcomm) is working self-driving cars. Raise your hand if you want to be a passenger in a self-driving car in the snow or heavy rain. I think the answer is “hell no!” for at least another decade. Apple can do consider innovation in the auto space, but they’re burning cash for no reason (with self driving cars). That’s my conclusion, at it looks like that’s the conclusion on management.
By the way, nobody still thinks Apple is still working on building a “car”. There’s no evidence that was ever their goal... they’re using Lexus’s in their testing.
I guess that will save about $30million/yr in salaries. Hire some more people to the Siri team to finally catch up with Amazon/Google.
Amen to that. As a whole, Siri is terrible. After almost 9 years I’d expect it to have reached a level of pristine refinement. As it stands, every time I use Siri, I have to meditate a little to prepare myself for the intense disappointment and frustration. Dictation and voice recognition are absurdly poor.
The problem with siri technology is that it doesn’t improve linearly or even improve at all no matter how much effort you put into it. Improvements require a new approach and discarding all previous (siri) technology.
Everyone is working on the self driving car, but the technology isn’t there yet. Apple isn’t really in the business of inventing the hardware...
If Apple was one of the top companies in self driving, that would be different. But with companies like GM (automakers) doing so much better (than Apple) it’s kind of a waste of resources.
I would like to see what AR assisted driving would look like, it wouldn’t surprise me if Apple shifted resources in that direction. It would be very handy if Apple could project where the lanes are in poor weather. I remember there was talk of implanting markers in the roads years ago...
The invention of hardware is Apples business and has been since their start.
Right at the moment there isn't a "top" company in self driving cars. To put it bluntly they all suck. At the rate things are progressing it will be a decade or more until a viable and SAFE self driving car can be purchased by the average person. WE really have no idea who will actually deliver that car.
Poor weather is one of the biggest obstacles to self driving cars. Seriously if you can't get a car to drive itself in poor weather how would you trust any "projected" information? As far as planting markers in the road, do you really think the public is going to be willing to pay for such crap when they almost universally reject the idea of a self driving car. The last thing we need is for our government to be supporting another special interest group and draining wealth from the general public.
I guess that will save about $30million/yr in salaries. Hire some more people to the Siri team to finally catch up with Amazon/Google.
Amen to that. As a whole, Siri is terrible. After almost 9 years I’d expect it to have reached a level of pristine refinement. As it stands, every time I use Siri, I have to meditate a little to prepare myself for the intense disappointment and frustration. Dictation and voice recognition are absurdly poor.
Well hopefully Titan has an entirely different set of engineers than the Siri team. The only thing I have to disagree with here is voice recognition which I find to be really good on Siri. At least for me Siri gets what I say nearly 100% of the time, that is the translated text is a 100% match much of the time. It is what Siri does after that that is a joke throughout the world.
My latest frustration with Siri:
me> Siri I'm looking for a Ford dealer in the Rochester NY area.
Siri> displays text that matches exactly!
Siri> gives me a list for dealers almost 600 miles away.
It goes downhill from there. Now the problem here is that Rochester isn't small town it is a rather large city. More so Siri actually translated my speech into the proper text even spelling Rochester right.
In any event self driving cars can not tolerate mistakes like this. AI technology in general just isn't there and honestly I think major break throughs are required to actually make a safe self drivng car. In a nut shell all this talk about the driving systems giving up and turning over control to the human are misguided because the car must be able to handle these issues on its own. Relying upon the human to take over when an exception happens is not feasible.
Projects like this are fine when the money comes in like water. But when there's a downturn, even a slight one like last December, it's time to reevaluate. Is it likely to yield a profit in a reasonable timeline? If not, over the side it goes. Apple will likely keep some part of it going at minimal cost, just to be able to intigrate with others systems, but the idea of an AppleCar is not going to happen (IMO it never was. At most this woiuld have been a system installed on other people's cars. Like CarPlay is now.)
I wonder what downturn you meant. At Apple? In tech companies? All economy is doing exceptionally well. For example Fintech booms. It is not just theory - people are moving in all directions.... well at least IT on East Coast. Maybe Silicon Valley innovation dried out a bit or QA suffers out there and hence market reception is colder giving worse financial results, but I could expect that is just Sillicon Valley that needs to improve rather than others.
At this point, one can't be faulted for believing that this project seems to have all the markers of -- and same fate as -- the AppleTV and a TV by Apple...
That Project Titan is just “a hobby”?
Not entirely “a hobby” but Cook’s interest probably started on self-driving cars after developing Apple Maps and creating CarPlay, and talking to car manufacturers.
I believe the interest in self-driving cars stems from Cook's desire to shift Apple to a better balance between products and services.
Autonomous ride sharing will be one of the biggest services coming.
I guess that will save about $30million/yr in salaries. Hire some more people to the Siri team to finally catch up with Amazon/Google.
Amen to that. As a whole, Siri is terrible. After almost 9 years I’d expect it to have reached a level of pristine refinement. As it stands, every time I use Siri, I have to meditate a little to prepare myself for the intense disappointment and frustration. Dictation and voice recognition are absurdly poor.
Well hopefully Titan has an entirely different set of engineers than the Siri team. The only thing I have to disagree with here is voice recognition which I find to be really good on Siri. At least for me Siri gets what I say nearly 100% of the time, that is the translated text is a 100% match much of the time. It is what Siri does after that that is a joke throughout the world.
My latest frustration with Siri:
me> Siri I'm looking for a Ford dealer in the Rochester NY area.
Siri> displays text that matches exactly!
Siri> gives me a list for dealers almost 600 miles away.
It goes downhill from there. Now the problem here is that Rochester isn't small town it is a rather large city. More so Siri actually translated my speech into the proper text even spelling Rochester right.
In any event self driving cars can not tolerate mistakes like this. AI technology in general just isn't there and honestly I think major break throughs are required to actually make a safe self drivng car. In a nut shell all this talk about the driving systems giving up and turning over control to the human are misguided because the car must be able to handle these issues on its own. Relying upon the human to take over when an exception happens is not feasible.
I'm glad that it picks up your words more clearly than mine. Perhaps my speech needs to be more deliberate. My biggest frustration is the AI of Siri that will literally change a coherent sentence into something completely nonsensical. To the point where I will see my words translate accurately on the screen as it builds the sentence, and then it will suddenly and "intelligently" change some of the words to form a completely unintelligible statement.
So much potential in Siri that seems to have been brushed aside as "good enough"...
I would like to see what AR assisted driving would look like, it wouldn’t surprise me if Apple shifted resources in that direction. It would be very handy if Apple could project where the lanes are in poor weather. I remember there was talk of implanting markers in the roads years ago...
BMW/mini did some experiments with VR/AR driving where the cameras on the outside of the vehicle were used to make the car appear transparent to the driver essentially eliminating blind spots. Since true autonomous driving is still out of reach, Apple could focus on AR glasses that make driving more fun and safe.
Everyone is working on the self driving car, but the technology isn’t there yet. Apple isn’t really in the business of inventing the hardware...
If Apple was one of the top companies in self driving, that would be different. But with companies like GM (automakers) doing so much better (than Apple) it’s kind of a waste of resources.
I would like to see what AR assisted driving would look like, it wouldn’t surprise me if Apple shifted resources in that direction. It would be very handy if Apple could project where the lanes are in poor weather. I remember there was talk of implanting markers in the roads years ago...
The invention of hardware is Apples business and has been since their start.
Right at the moment there isn't a "top" company in self driving cars. To put it bluntly they all suck. At the rate things are progressing it will be a decade or more until a viable and SAFE self driving car can be purchased by the average person. WE really have no idea who will actually deliver that car.
Poor weather is one of the biggest obstacles to self driving cars. Seriously if you can't get a car to drive itself in poor weather how would you trust any "projected" information? As far as planting markers in the road, do you really think the public is going to be willing to pay for such crap when they almost universally reject the idea of a self driving car. The last thing we need is for our government to be supporting another special interest group and draining wealth from the general public.
There’s an argument whether or not people will accept autonomous systems (I say they will), but it cannot be argued that most people reject something they haven’t even experienced yet.
Everyone is working on the self driving car, but the technology isn’t there yet. Apple isn’t really in the business of inventing the hardware...
If Apple was one of the top companies in self driving, that would be different. But with companies like GM (automakers) doing so much better (than Apple) it’s kind of a waste of resources.
You're so wrong it's disgusting.
Apple has been working on this before the self-driving bandwagon. Far from "me too".
Also you and neither of us here can say who's doing better than Apple when we have no idea what they've done or what they're doing.
Apple could have released a crappy car 3 years ago as a "me too" project but it's far from that and Apple only releases polished products.
Hello Apple fanboy,
From AppleInsider ”Fresh statistics from California's Department of Motor Vehicles reveals Apple's self-driving car testbed as the worst performing system on the road in terms of disengagements, or instances when the vehicle is forced to exit autonomous mode and return control to a human pilot.”
”From December 2018 through November 2019, Apple's fleet of heavily modified Lexus RX450h SUVs recorded an average of 871.65 disengagements for every 1,000 miles traveled, putting the company in last place among 28 firms testing autonomous vehicles on California roads.”
“On the other end of the spectrum was Google's Waymo, which managed an impressive 0.09 disengagements per 1,000 miles, or one disengagement every 11,154 miles, over the same period. GM Cruise vehicles were able to log an average of 5,204 miles between disengagements”
Last time I checked 871.65 vs. 0.09 disengagements per 1,000 miles is really really terrible.
If you had actually read the article about the disengagements, you'd know we don't really know how they work exactly, and whether or not it could be due to a more conservative approach. But congratulations on pretending you know something about nothing.
From reading the source article from the SF Chronicle, it seems this is the same layoff we heard about last month, only now officially submitted to the state. This AI article makes it sound like it's an additional set of layoffs.
"The layoffs were disclosed, along with new details, in a letter this
month to the California Employment Development Department. CNBC reported last month that layoffs were occurring
in the self-driving car division, known as Project Titan. Tom Neumayr,
an Apple spokesman, confirmed that the letter to the state referenced
the same layoffs."
I am curious if California has different reporting requirement for layoff, I know the feds only require public notice of a layoff when it exceed 10% of the workforce. Not sure why we are hearing about 190 people being downsizes for a company who employees 110K.
From reading the source article from the SF Chronicle, it seems this is the same layoff we heard about last month, only now officially submitted to the state. This AI article makes it sound like it's an additional set of layoffs.
"The layoffs were disclosed, along with new details, in a letter this
month to the California Employment Development Department. CNBC reported last month that layoffs were occurring
in the self-driving car division, known as Project Titan. Tom Neumayr,
an Apple spokesman, confirmed that the letter to the state referenced
the same layoffs."
I am curious if California has different reporting requirement for layoff, I know the feds only require public notice of a layoff when it exceed 10% of the workforce. Not sure why we are hearing about 190 people being downsizes for a company who employees 110K.
I was a bit surprised at that myself. If there's truly 5K people in the Titan program a layoff of fewer than 200 seems like something they wouldn't be required to or bother reporting. Maybe there's not as many involved as has been presumed? That report of Apple employing 5000 people for it, which I don't think came from Apple anyway, may not be accurate?
I guess that will save about $30million/yr in salaries. Hire some more people to the Siri team to finally catch up with Amazon/Google.
Amen to that. As a whole, Siri is terrible. After almost 9 years I’d expect it to have reached a level of pristine refinement. As it stands, every time I use Siri, I have to meditate a little to prepare myself for the intense disappointment and frustration. Dictation and voice recognition are absurdly poor.
Well hopefully Titan has an entirely different set of engineers than the Siri team. The only thing I have to disagree with here is voice recognition which I find to be really good on Siri. At least for me Siri gets what I say nearly 100% of the time, that is the translated text is a 100% match much of the time. It is what Siri does after that that is a joke throughout the world.
My latest frustration with Siri:
me> Siri I'm looking for a Ford dealer in the Rochester NY area.
Siri> displays text that matches exactly!
Siri> gives me a list for dealers almost 600 miles away.
It goes downhill from there. Now the problem here is that Rochester isn't small town it is a rather large city. More so Siri actually translated my speech into the proper text even spelling Rochester right.
Weird, this seems to work normally in my area. Both with your verbose phrasing, and with a shorter version (“ford dealers near me”), tho slightly different.
I may be old, but self-driving cars are 25 years away...the immediate future is electric cars.
Tesla Model 3 is out selling Lexus, MB, Audi, Infiniti, BMW equivalent cars combined!
When they get the Model Y (a SUV based on the Model 3 chassis) out, they will clean up!
And then their pickup will kill the F150 pickup.
Audi, MB, Jag, Porsche, BMW do not have an answer to Tesla....they are years behind!
Best.
P.S. Any owner of a car that currently gets less than 35 MPG, E.G., Bentleys, Hummers, Jeeps, SUV's, trucks, etc., should have to BBQ their dinner in their living room with all the windows shut! B/C that's what they are doing to us! Tools!
Incidentally, Tesla just announced their $35K Model 3.
This is considered a watershed move for the company and for the widespread adoption of electrics, however look at the note from their own site: “To achieve these prices while remaining financially sustainable, Tesla is shifting sales worldwide to online only.”
That sounds like a company teetering on the edge of destruction, not marching toward profitability.
Comments
Improvements require a new approach and discarding all previous (siri) technology.
So much potential in Siri that seems to have been brushed aside as "good enough"...
Since true autonomous driving is still out of reach, Apple could focus on AR glasses that make driving more fun and safe.
Tesla Model 3 is out selling Lexus, MB, Audi, Infiniti, BMW equivalent cars combined!
When they get the Model Y (a SUV based on the Model 3 chassis) out, they will clean up!
And then their pickup will kill the F150 pickup.
Audi, MB, Jag, Porsche, BMW do not have an answer to Tesla....they are years behind!
Best.
P.S. Any owner of a car that currently gets less than 35 MPG, E.G., Bentleys, Hummers, Jeeps, SUV's, trucks, etc., should have to BBQ their dinner in their living room with all the windows shut! B/C that's what they are doing to us! Tools!
This is considered a watershed move for the company and for the widespread adoption of electrics, however look at the note from their own site:
“To achieve these prices while remaining financially sustainable, Tesla is shifting sales worldwide to online only.”
That sounds like a company teetering on the edge of destruction, not marching toward profitability.
I think that it is game over, at least for the next couple of years -- which is an eternity in this business -- for the wannabes.