mpantone

There's a good chance they are just filing the trademark, possibly to use in the future but not necessarily this year.

Apple really needs to get Apple Intelligence and Siri right before they can tackle home control systems. Let's remember that home control really only pertains to when you are actually in your own home. Technologies like Apple Intelligence and Siri affect all Apple users whether they are at home, at work, at school, on the road, on vacation, etc.

And ideally home control will go through a user's smartphone or smartwatch, the only two things people tend to keep on their person at all times. All these silly rumors of some wall-mounted touchscreen tablet are dopey. No one wants to get out of their home office chair, walk to the living room/kitchen/whatever, to twiddle with some menu on a wall-mounted tablet just to dim the lights or adjust the window blinds. Voice control makes the most sense but for that to happen you need really, Really, REALLY good voice recognition technology. Like 99.99% accurate. Not just for your voice or your spouse's voice, but for ALL voices. No one has that level of accuracy in 2025.

My guess is that Apple executives know all this.

They must get Siri working reliably (again 99.9+%) before they can seriously tackle home control.

MassiveAttack said:

I would not be surprised if Apple becomes a healthcare company one day. 

There is no chance Apple will become a full fledged healthcare company. The regulatory oversight is tremendous and not just the FDA in the USA. There are Apple Watch features that aren't available in other countries because getting local regulatory approval is too difficult. So those features are left off in those countries. And, Apple debuted then dropped pulse oximetry because of their legal action with Masimo. Apple will continue to add health-focused features as informational goodies, not as clinical diagnostic tools.

There are tons of stories of "my Apple Watch alerted me to _____ medical condition that I did not know about" which always leads to a visit to a physician who does the actual investigation. Apple simply does not want to be in that healthcare space. And we haven't even touched on liability exposure.

The best Apple can do is provide wearables that tell the user "readings are out of normal range, go see a doctor". Apple simply cannot put 10+ years of medical schooling, years of training and experience on a $300 device on your wrist and expect medical regulators to rubber stamp it. NOT GOING TO HAPPEN.

Same with banking. Apple does not want to be a bank. Again, regulatory compliance is very, very stringent and Apple does not want to subject themselves to that. Why do you think they use third party financial institutions for Apple Pay Cash and the Apple Card? And previously teamed up with BarclayCard? Hell, Apple hasn't brought the Apple Card to any other market. It's still a USA-only service after all these years.

Apple doesn't want to be in the business of consumer debt. Hell, Goldman Sucks -- their Apple Card partner -- has belated decided that they don't either. And banking is their business.

And Apple doesn't want to be an ISP either, a dumb pipe. Again, the telecommunications industry is heavily regulated and there's not much in the way of innovation. Something like an in-house modem with better battery performance potentially benefits everyone using an iPhone. Something like being an American cellular carrier only affects a small percentage of your userbase. You think Apple wants to be responsible for hundreds of thousands of cellular towers, sending technicians to replace balky transmitters in the middle of a hurricane? NO.

apple4thewin said:

I learned this in the 6th grade. It’s called a “Pocket Veto”. Apple doesn’t do anything about it, so they aren’t agreeing or denying it. So, can Apple really be at fault for it? They could just say they didn’t have the time to check into it.

Yeah, however various courts have ruled that Apple has to open up their walled garden. Just ignoring Epic and letting things stay status quo is not compliant with those orders. Apple is in hot water right now because of their persistent behavior, dragging their feet, etc.

And worse, Apple would have to ignore every single other app review request to make that "Sorry, didn't get around to it" excuse work. By selectively ignoring Epic's app review request is clear evidence of discriminatory behavior toward them. And judges typically dislike it when plaintiffs don't follow court orders.

Note that Apple does not have any "pocket veto" authority here. In the same way, you can't just speed down your street or ignore red traffic lights because you "did't have time to look at signs and lights."

AppleZulu said:

mpantone said:

Nobody sane really thought that Apple Car was going to ship. If you looked at Apple's publicly available autonomous vehicle driving logs available on the California DMV website, they were hardly doing any testing at all. There was a long span of several months when they didn't log a single mile.

Only some of the tech media turned Apple Car into a done deal. Yeah, Apple probably learned something from it, both what to pursue and what not to. For sure some of the gained knowledge would be applicable in other parts of the company. For sure they burned through a lot of R&D dollars on Apple Car/Project Titan/whatever.

Let's remember that the way any Apple Car would be marketed and priced would exclude 99.9% of the planet. Hell, look at Apple Vision Pro at $3500.

The biggest problem with all the Apple Car discussions online was the fact that most people were looking at the project through American blinders, seeing it only from the myopic perspective of the number one car culture on the planet. We know you love walking to your garage, planting your big fat ass in your big fat SUV, attach your iPhone to its MagSafe holder, drive to your company's big fat ass parking lot, and bitch and moan when you have to park more than 50 feet from the front door of your office. We get it. 

The rest of the world does not have a car culture like the USA. Plain and simple. Sure, most people want them but for a lot of people, even in technologically advanced countries like Japan, the personal auto is more of a leisure device. Construction workers in Tokyo go to job sites on the subway, not in Ford F-150s or GMC Sierras. In Europe getting a driver's license can be very expensive. It's not like the USA. I think a California driver's license today is $40. Forty years ago it was $2, about the same as three gallons of gasoline.

In the USA, getting your driver's license is a rite of passage for teens. It is not the case anywhere else. ONLY HERE.

Uhhh. O.K. What does that have to do with CarPlay?

Some people online think that CarPlay is a really, Really, REALLY important feature in a car purchase decision. It's not because the rest of the world doesn't have the same car culture as the USA. It's unlikely that CarPlay Ultra will trickle down to mass-market models. Even regular CarPlay won't make to many of these. We've already seen some auto manufacturers pull back from CarPlay or decide not to pursue it. Full integration makes more sense for premium models, trim lines, and EVs that are essentially computers on wheels.

But the average Honda or GM sold in Indonesia or Bangladesh really doesn't need it that much.

Many of these automobile manufacturers are looking at shaving costs from a global perspective. Putting in the extra engineering effort to address a benefit that really benefits a handful of markets isn't a great value proposition, especially when they aren't making money off of it. Infotainment systems are a cost center. Most companies would prefer to put in the least amount of effort without coming in dead last amongst the competition especially on basic trim levels.

Nobody really needs album art thumbnails on their dashboard.

I realize that many of these basic concepts, particularly how different US car culture is compared to the rest of the world is beyond the comprehension of many people online.

In the end, whatever infotainment/UX standard the Chinese (or possibly Indian) car companies come up with will dominate. Not tomorrow, not next months, but give it 10 years.

As Charlesn mentions, having your own proprietary infotainment system gives you the luxury of monetizing driver data and/or upselling subscription services. There's nothing inherently new about this. Car navi systems requires paid upgrades. Even standalone GPS devices (Garmin, TomTom et al.) required payment for new map data. Even early iPhone GPS navi apps had add-on features like lane guidance.

Most companies would like user data under their own TOS not Apple's. I expect more car companies to follow GM's lead and abandon CarPlay and Android Auto in the next few years.

Nobody sane really thought that Apple Car was going to ship. If you looked at Apple's publicly available autonomous vehicle driving logs available on the California DMV website, they were hardly doing any testing at all. There was a long span of several months when they didn't log a single mile.

Only some of the tech media turned Apple Car into a done deal. Yeah, Apple probably learned something from it, both what to pursue and what not to. For sure some of the gained knowledge would be applicable in other parts of the company. For sure they burned through a lot of R&D dollars on Apple Car/Project Titan/whatever.

Let's remember that the way any Apple Car would be marketed and priced would exclude 99.9% of the planet. Hell, look at Apple Vision Pro at $3500.

The biggest problem with all the Apple Car discussions online was the fact that most people were looking at the project through American blinders, seeing it only from the myopic perspective of the number one car culture on the planet. We know you love walking to your garage, planting your big fat ass in your big fat SUV, attach your iPhone to its MagSafe holder, drive to your company's big fat ass parking lot, and bitch and moan when you have to park more than 50 feet from the front door of your office. We get it. 

The rest of the world does not have a car culture like the USA. Plain and simple. Sure, most people want them but for a lot of people, even in technologically advanced countries like Japan, the personal auto is more of a leisure device. Construction workers in Tokyo go to job sites on the subway, not in Ford F-150s or GMC Sierras. In Europe getting a driver's license can be very expensive. It's not like the USA. I think a California driver's license today is $40. Forty years ago it was $2, about the same as three gallons of gasoline.

In the USA, getting your driver's license is a rite of passage for teens. It is not the case anywhere else. ONLY HERE.