[mikeash]

Phones is a really weird example here, considering that the two dominant phone players are both SV companies that went into that industry and crushed the incompetent incumbents.

I see no reason to think that Apple could do with cars what they did with the iPhone, but that particular example doesn't make any sense.

[csydas]

I can name a few differences, even if I don't think it's impossible.

Phones were ready for a natural complete upgrade from brick phones to smartphones. The mobile environment was there, all the network components were coming online to make it a really useful device, processors were getting to a good stage for mobile usage where it made sense to make the jump and the jump was right into what Apple already knew pretty well. The phone part of smart phones is pretty minor, quite honestly. Smartphones weren't so much an evolution of dumb phones, they were a complete redesign and replacement thereof. The technology that puts an OS in your hand just did the job of being a phone better than a brick phone did[1], and it came with a bunch of extra features that people didn't know they wanted.

Cars are a little different. Fundamentally, a self-driving car is still a car with an OS attached. It's not so much just figuring out the OS part of it, it's also getting the engineering on a vehicle right, and I'm guessing with autonomous cars there's a lot you have to take into consideration when it comes to the mechanical aspects. It's not quite like the phone situation where you just replace brick phone with smart phone - a smart car is fundamentally the same as a dumb car except that you don't drive the smart car (and in some models, you do). There's a lot more to take into consideration, a much larger spectrum of rules and regulations, and honestly the car part of smart cars is pretty involved. It's not that Apple doesn't have the money to throw at car R&D, it's just it doesn't seem to make a lot of sense to do it.

Again, I don't doubt they could do it, but the barrier of entry just seems higher here, and it's not as natural of a segue for Apple either. They're not just building a tiny computer with an iCar, they'd be building a car with an Apple computer.

[1]I realize that many prefer the brick phones to smart phones and that smart phones are pretty bad at the phone part of being a phone, but ultimately between the myriad of communication apps available, you have more communication options available in your hand than you do with a brick phone, and more ways to do the communication thing.

[TheOtherHobbes]

Apple Car was and is a fundamentally bad idea.

Limited/no cross-sale synergies with other products

Massive up-front costs to establish a manufacturing network

Massive up-front costs to establish a dealer and maintenance network

Strong existing competition which will only get stronger with time

No clear USP ("Made by Apple" is not a USP)

The only way to crush the market would be to make a car that flies and to set up the infrastructure to make flying cars usable for domestic and work commuting.

Since that's not going to happen, the absolute best anyone expects from Apple Car is a me-too car that looks a bit nicer and rounder than the rest. And is available in white, black, pink, and gold. And it absolutely has to self-drive, because that's where the competition will be.

Me-too isn't enough to win in that market.

[snowwrestler]

Apple is undoubtedly looking to change the car market.

If you imagine that people will buy, own, and sell cars the same way they do today, forever, then sure--an Apple car makes no sense. But it's pretty likely that the relationship between cars and people will change at some point, and that is the point at which Apple wants to be ready.

Or rather, just beyond that point--when the new direction is clear, but the early products still suck. That's when Apple likes to get into new markets.

[georgespencer]

> Apple Car was and is a fundamentally bad idea.

Given that the range of possible ideas you're talking about extends from better software to power autonomous cars, through to an entirely autonomous electric car which Apple manufactures in its entirety, and also incorporates potential partnership with another brand such as BMW, it seems hard to believe that someone could dismiss Apple car as "a fundamentally bad idea".

> Limited/no cross-sale synergies with other products.

CarPlay is a fairly good example of this not being true. And if cars become fully autonomous, there's unending cross-sale opportunity for Apple (since people will be doing in cars what they do with Apple products outside of cars).

> Massive up-front costs

Apple has not incurred, as far as any of us know, any costs related to manufacturing, dealer, or maintenance networks.

> Strong existing competition

Strong by what measure? AI? UX for in-car systems? Industrial design?

> No clear USP ("made by Apple" is not a USP)

It is when for many people that's a byword for simplicity, smart features, and elegant design. In any event, it's hilarious that someone's arguing that a car the company has never acknowledged existing "has no USP".

> The only way to crush the market would be to make a car that flies and to set up the infrastructure to make flying cars usable for domestic and work commuting.

Apple has never sought to crush a market. They seek to have the highest share of profit in a market.

> the absolute best anyone expects from Apple Car is a me-too car that looks a bit nicer and rounder than the rest. And is available in white, black, pink, and gold. And it absolutely has to self-drive, because that's where the competition will be.

Yeah, if you arbitrarily cut out user experience and the integration of hardware and software as a competitive advantage, then Apple's car will just get people from A-B in the same way as any other car.

> Me-too isn't enough to win in that market.

Nobody except you is arguing that the Apple car would be "me-too" and completely devoid of any unique advantages which other car manufacturers would seek to emulate.

[mikeash]

I completely agree, however people were saying pretty much the exact same things about Apple's phone efforts about ten years ago. In hindsight, it's clear that smartphones lined up just about perfectly with Apple's core competencies, but before they proved it in the market, people were saying just this sort of thing: the engineering is tough and different, the stuff Apple is good at isn't the stuff that's hard, regulation is far more difficult, it's not just a tiny computer, etc.

Now, just because they were wrong to say it then doesn't mean you're wrong to say it now. I think you're right. I'm just saying that phones are a terrible example to bring up if one is arguing that SV companies can't take over industries with entrenched incumbents.

[csydas]

Please excuse typos as I am on phone in the metro

I appreciate that a lot since I was one of the naysayers. Admittedly I was a bitter PPC Mac user upset that we weren't getting attention on the desktop side but I was still worried.

However, even if hindsight is 20/20, I do feel that a lot of the infrastructure and resources necessary for an iPhone were just there already and apple seized an emerging market. With cars I feel that the regulatory, technical, and physical infrastructure for smart cars isn't there yet for anything disruptive. Driverless cars still appear to need a lot of hand holding, and while there will be an investment payout eventually for folks in the game at the moment, I'm not sure it's as great as they are hoping it as soon as they are hoping. In my mind it makes more sense to have an apple iOS port for cars than an iCar. Or set up the infrastructure that driverless car folk are going to want. Siri taxi for example. Siri pizza delivery. Siri breathalyzer and/or drunk talk analyzer and safe delivery to home.

Basically whereas I feel that in the mobile space controlling the hardware 100% make sense, with the cars maybe it makes more sense to just get the software right. Maybe Apple sees the writing on the wall and figures very tightly controlled hardware so not much testing needed/similar performance.

I do this the differences are great enough Between the car and phone research to warrant the move. But maybe once again I'm just bitter Apple isn't paying attention to their desktop line. :p

[mikeash]

I don't even think the naysayers were particularly wrong. Apple succeeded by fundamentally changing what a smartphone was, not by beating Blackberry and Nokia and such at their own game.

The biggest challenges were being extremely energy efficient to get acceptable battery life out of a tiny battery, and being extremely data efficient to get acceptable costs from expensive cellular carriers. People pointed out, and rightfully so, that Apple wasn't good at either.

They didn't anticipate that Apple would build a phone that was basically a thin shell around a (relatively) huge battery, or that they'd manage to convince a major carrier to offer an "unlimited" data plan. Suddenly, the stuff that the incumbents were good at didn't matter that much.

I don't see any way to do an equivalent move in the automobile industry. I don't think there are any areas that everybody is failing to fundamentally rethink, the way they were with energy and data usage a decade ago, where Apple could jump in and change the whole game. But I wouldn't bet money on it....

[twoodfin]

The biggest challenges were being extremely energy efficient to get acceptable battery life out of a tiny battery, and being extremely data efficient to get acceptable costs from expensive cellular carriers.

I'd reword your first challenge as moving what had been theretofore a desktop OS onto a handheld device with acceptable performance/power consumption. Once that was done, it provided massive leverage for Apple over any of their competitors due to the maturity and flexibility of their toolchain, as well as a wealth of developers both inside and outside the company who could exploit it.

[mikeash]

It's both. They shrank their OS down to fit on a handheld device, but they also massively expanded what a "handheld device" could do. After the iPhone was announced, RIM supposedly couldn't figure out how Apple could possibly be doing all this fancy stuff and still have acceptable battery life. The answer, of course, was that they just made a gigantic battery. Amusing post about it here:

http://www.edibleapple.com/2010/12/28/rim-was-in-disbelief-f...

[honkhonkpants]

The industry did not jump from dumb phones to iPhone. Blackberry pioneered the market and had a stranglehold on it until Apple came along and stomped them.

[samfisher83]

You could say the iphone was the evolution from the ipod, and I would argue samsung is quite important to the android growth.