badmonk

I wonder how many of the immersion cameras are in use by Apple, their complexity, cost and how quickly they are being ramped up as well as who makes them?

Thanks for the great constructive review DED.  It is sorta surprising that Apple didn’t make a way to hot-swap the battery pack or engineer a “mag-safe” breakaway for the cable.  I have not bought a AVP but was one of the first to demo it at my local Apple store.  The store seemed to be more focused on training multiple employees than on the customer.  That said the light seal selected for me had a lot of light leakage around my nose so even at the store there are issues.

Sorry about your HomePod.  And yes I have had some not great experiences at Apple Stores involving complicated returns.

great article, I want a 1976 era CBGB-like venue for my favorite bands.

slow n easy 

There is absolutely nothing wrong with what Tesla is doing, and it's ridiculous to call Tesla owners guinea pigs. They are required to pay $12,000 or $200/month if they want the car to drive itself, and they have to be almost constantly touching the steering wheel, or the system will deactivate. They also use a strike system, so if you get (I believe 3 strikes) then you are cut off for a week or something like that. So people are required to take their role as a Beta Tester seriously. Also FSD 12 should go to wide release any day now. That is end-to-end AI and an elimination of 300,000 lines of code. It should be a total game changer. Tesla is still the only auto manufacturer where every vehicle they sell is capable of driving on every road in the country by itself. They are so far ahead of everyone else, it's hard to imagine that the other car companies will ever catch up. I'm guessing that they will have to license Tesla's technology. Tesla already gave away their charge port, and every auto company except Stellantis is using it starting in 2025. There is no way that Stellantis can hold out forever or people will stop buying their cars.

Good points but I think Tesla’s auto-drive system flaws are not related to insufficient software but because Elon made the decision to deprecate LIDAR as a cost-savings move.  Any self-driving system based on visible light sensors is invariably going to have holes.  My cars crash avoidance system cuts out in fog at the same time I can’t see.  What’s the point?  I agree with the article’s author that Ai cannot account for human stupidity or variance of others on the road or the perpetual construction complex.

I would also be worried that a forever $12,000 beta-product is eventually going to poke the ire of consumers or regulators or worst of all, the mass-tort legal firms for an over-promise and under-delivery fraud class action.  Tesla has issues going forward.

That said EVs are becoming a low-margin commodity thanks to China.  Apple made the right decision here.  I think the European automakers and EU don’t know what is going to be hitting them in the next decade as these  BYD EVs flood their market as they focus on smart phone app stores.

I think Apple will be able to salvage the work they did here by partnering with an legacy automotive company.  I know it’s not the usual Apple thing but I think they will have something to offer and bring some value to the proposition.

I would also add that Toyota’s plans to not jump on the EV market but instead focus on plug-in hybrids seems like a brilliant idea in retrospect.  If i had to buy today that is the way I would go.  EVs had their own ecological nightmare issues-battery waste, wanton deep sea mining, on-land mineral mining in conflict zones, vehicle weight and tire wear (which contributes to environmental plastic burden) etc, coal for electricity generation.  We just were not aware of them all.

aderutter said:

If Apple is focusing upon markets with larger margins that is great news. Apple might want to disrupt the Hearing Aid market next, I know someone who paid handsomely for some recently that are pretty poor quality despite costing thousands. 

Agree 300%!  I am surprised Apple hasn’t done this, the hearing aid market is extortionate and watching my father suffer with them and lose them to pay $1000 for a replacement was striking.  Now that I have tinnitus and high frequency hearing loss, it occurs to me that this market is ripe for disruption and it represents Apple’s core strengths plus high margins would be maintained even if they underprice the competition.

I know it is not sexy but Apple could position it as a statement of support for the disability market.  As the planet is aging, the market is huge.  Plus the retired well-off community is a core-Apple market.  Apple could provide research into managing tinnitus with sound manipulation, integrating with networked microphones (iPhones, Homepods, iPads, etc).