| The author is correct that Apple is haunted by the iPhone's success. My 2 cents: 1) The car business delivers lower margins than the iPhone. Even if you compare them to those of premium car companies (like Range Rover, Audi, Mercedes, BMW or Lexus). 2) The iPhone didn't had comparable brands to compete against, when it entered the phone market. It came with a hefty price tag. A sum that was never even considered mass-marketable before. The iPhone created the premium sector for phones. It raised the share of income people considered plausible for cellphones. The author is also right in that apple is very good at applying their business model to new markets. But 3) to become premium in the car business either means - lowering their margins - producing cars that aim at a smaller/niche market (Porsche to Ferrari/McLaren), - lowering the costs of the supply chain currently in use by other premium car makers. The last one would be doable, certaintly by Apple. Certaintly with EVs. But I doubt it would be doable without any information leak other than this article. 4) More plausable for apple's margin territory would be an attempt at the user interface of cars. Like appleTv is for television sets or the healthKit-API. The problem with cars is not the getting-from-a-to-b-part, not the status-part or the comfortable-interior-part. The problem with cars is the user interface-part, it's the outdated-touchscreens-part or the connecting-and-charging-and-holding-your-phone-part. It's the car's software that sucks. And for some that sucking software includes the driving-yourself-part. Reaching out to current premium car-makers also points into this UI/API-direction. 5) Also there are a lot of lower hanging fruits out there, easier to tackle than building a premium car. Like VR or building physical television sets, home automation, healthcare - or wait, software. |