rare comment

jm6032 said:

macxpress said:

Kinda late to the party...

I think it's more fundamentally flawed. Here you have a group of auto makers (competitors), none of which have seriously impressed me with the ability to create UI software, who probably haven't even agreed on what hardware platform to use, now saying they are going to "agree" on some kind of digital hardware, generic software, connectivity...

I assert they will be arguing with each other five years from now while Apple and Google will be three versions ahead of them...and counting... I expect each auto manufacturer will have worked around this consortium and negotiated with Apple and Google directly. And, they are bringing more argumentative players to the table and each of them wants to own the empire. Oh, yea, this is going to end well...

Smart Device feels a lot like CurrentC

macxpress said:

paxman said:

macxpress said:

Kinda late to the party...its already taken off on both sides (Android Auto and CarPlay). What will they offer to make others switch and stop supporting this? I think in the end all they're going to do is piss off customers (like Toyota already has) and people just won't buy their products.

If Smart Device Link is the default set-up, and 'it just works', and works well, I'd think most people will just go with it. If you step into your car the first time and it informs you that it has detected your phone and asks if you'd like to set it up it would be tempting to say 'yes'. I wouldn't be surprised if most people think they have CarPlay working.  If in order to get CapPlay working you have to go into a convoluted settings menu structure in order to enable it it will further discourage.  

Just being a devils advocate here.

I believe to enable CarPlay all you have to do is plug it in and it comes up. There are no special settings to setup or go through. Its pretty much plug n pray. If SmartLink is supposed to work with your phone and stuff I don't see it as it "just working". There are way too many different kinds of phones it will have to support vs Android Auto and CarPlay are just built into the phone's OS. Maybe I'm missing something?

I think paxman is saying that Smart Device could succeed IF two things are true: (a) it works well and (b) CarPlay is hidden behind menus, etc. Paxman isn't saying CarPlay is difficult to use - he's saying that automakers could purposely make CarPlay difficult to use in order to encourage to encourage use of Smart Device. (b) is possible. (a) seems unlikely given what we have seen to date from the OEMs.

macxpress said:

Lets just keep throwing shit at the wall and see what sticks! Then claim we were right!


If I were Apple, I'd be laughing my ass off watching people try and predict sales of their products. I hope Apple stops showing individual sales of all of their products eventually. They can just say we made X amount of money on X amount of revenue and leave it at that. Let everyone else try and figure this all out. LOL 

Amazon seems to do this without much trouble and is spared a lot of the second guessing.

"Combined with a relatively high price compared to the fitness trackers most people seem to be opting for, and it becomes something of a luxury for the mass markets Apple needs to woo in order to make this thing as successful as their other product lines. " I agree that Apple Watch's price is far higher than fitness trackers. I also agree people see Apple Watch as a luxury but I think this is accessible/aspirational luxury pricing that has a good precedent for working in the mass-market: iPods. Mid-line iPods have typically been about $200 (for example, the third generation iPod Nano 8GB or the original iPod Mini 4GB at $250). Apple Watch starts at $269 (for 8GB). So Apple Watch seems to be in the right pricing zone for the "gift" segment of the Apple line up. It will simply take some time for people to realize the Edition was an aberration. The Apple Watch is Apple's replacement for the iPod. For more on watch pricing, see: http://q10a1.blogspot.com/2015/03/apple-watch-pricing.html

monstrosity said:

This utterly sucks, I have recently been through 5 different routers from other vendors , all of which were complete shit. Two weeks ago I gave the AirPort Extreme a go and all my wifi problems are now fixed. 

Very disappointing. It's hard for me to compare performance as we went all Apple routers many years ago but I find it hard to believe there is another router-maker who offers the combination of ease of use (with a great app), features (especially airplay with the 3.5mm analog and optical jack - uh oh), and reliability (some of our routers have been working for 10 YEARS(!)). This is especially disappointing as I thought the right move would have been to add iTunes to the Express and offload music from the phone to the router (this is almost trivial for Apple to do as the Apple TV does this already and the Express already has the jacks and connectivity). For more on this, see: http://q10a1.blogspot.com/2012/01/airport-express.html. You'll note that I was wrong on so many counts here as Match is also not long for this world I fear. I guess I'll buy a bunch of these and stockpile until mesh networks become super reliable.