[paxys]

I know being late to the game and doing the tech "right" in terms of design and usability is kinda Apple's thing, but lately it seems like they have been only picking areas that weren't successful for a reason, like insurmountable technical difficulties or lack of customer interest, and no amount of Apple's design or marketing magic can fix that. See – self driving, AR/VR, smart speakers, folding phones, now home robotics. I know for a fact that they have been hiring a bunch of engineers from Google's Everyday Robots division (which shut down last year), but I really can't see why the same people will be successful under a new corporate overlord.

[npunt]

One thing about Apple is things can make sense for them to explore that don't make sense for others to. They have a big enough ecosystem, enough cash to do R&D on an idea for decades, and a culture of killing things that aren't good enough that make them an ideal place to determine whether ideas are a conceptual dead end versus just haven't been executed well enough (or tied to the right ecosystem to make them work).

Foldables make sense for Apple to explore because even if it's ~5% likely to be able to be productized, the return is measured in the tens of billions.

Smart speakers were comparatively cheap and are probably profitable, so even if they're not a huge market they made sense.

AR/VR remains to be seen. Meta's still learning how to build hardware and operating systems and still learning how to sell actual products, so they're probably not the right ones to test concept risk when they already have so much execution risk. They also don't have the leverage or insertion point that Apple does if e.g. AR/VR turns into an alternative to computers & iPhones instead of an alternative to consoles. It may also be that Vision Pro is just a prelude to AR that ship in ~2035 but lays so much groundwork that nobody stands a chance at competing by the time the tech is ready, letting Apple secure the next trillion dollar product.

Cars were expensive and cancelled, that's the one that required Apple to stretch the most in terms of both brand and execution.

In your Google example, remember they invented transformers and yet did nothing with them. Any failure in Google's robotics efforts are likely due to Google having an absolutely horrible record of shipping and standing behind products. I wouldn't trust a Google robot because I wouldn't trust a Google product.

[PopePompus]

Yup, Google has the attention span of a gnat. I've used Pixel Phones for years, and I wouldn't be even slightly surprised to see that entire product line dropped tomorrow. I'm very glad to see Apple's Vision Pro, because I believe that if it succeeds it will be wonderful, and if it fails it means the AR/VR product category will never (well, not for a very long time at least) be anything but an unimportant niche product, as it is now.

[mamamis]

I wonder if it is because of how its promotion package works. A middle manager thinks up of a product and executes in it. It launches, the manager get a promotion, and then it gets kill for not getting enough users. By then the manager got their pay raise and no longer needs the project.

[dwaite]

> One thing about Apple is things can make sense for them to explore that don't make sense for others to. They have a big enough ecosystem, enough cash to do R&D on an idea for decades, and a culture of killing things that aren't good enough that make them an ideal place to determine whether ideas are a conceptual dead end versus just haven't been executed well enough (or tied to the right ecosystem to make them work).

While Apple can do this, it isn't their typical mode of operation. For instance, they tend to accuhire companies specifically around getting an execution-oriented team for particular product areas, like developer tools (TestFlight) or weather (Dark Sky) or assistants (Siri).

This does mean building compelling product demos can determine how long a feature-under development can get extended.

> Foldables make sense for Apple to explore because even if it's ~5% likely to be able to be productized, the return is measured in the tens of billions.

Foldables make sense for Apple to explore also because even if foldable phones are a bad idea (and I kinda suspect they are), they make tons of other devices in different form factors which may have an entirely different set of trade-offs for flexible/foldable displays.

[npunt]

Agree foldables are a good way to do product discovery!

Yeah small M&A is great for advancing/derisking R&D for a given part or tech. They also embed / work closely with manufacturing partners. Nevertheless they're also doing a lot on their own R&D work; a bunch of Vision Pro stuff is homegrown and there's always new potential techs we never see that show up in patent applications showing their R&D is moving along at a healthy clip, e.g. this radar based tracking system from two days ago [1].

I think folks like Google and Meta talk a lot more about their R&D where Apple is very tight lipped, since part of Apple's magic is the part of R&D that's figuring out how to take janky half-working parts, polish them relentlessly, and combine the right ones together into something that makes sense as a product.

[1] https://www.patentlyapple.com/2024/04/apple-wins-patent-for-...

[sidibe]

> They have a big enough ecosystem, enough cash to do R&D on an idea for decades

They can but do they? For all their flightiness on products, the company that actually does this is Google. They've poured money into very long term, questionable return projects at a rate Apple doesn't seem willing to do

[joshstrange]

They just shut down their car project that spent $10,000,000,000 over 10 years. That’s $1,000,000,000 a year, $1 Billion dollars a year for 10 years on an ultimately shuttered project.

> They can but do they?

Yes, they do.

[astrange]

Apple is beholden to normal shareholders; Google is owned by Brin and Page, and the only reason it does those weird projects is they like them.

[jauntywundrkind]

Not playing everywhere is an existential risk. Because IT is so integrative, if anyone gets a huge leg up in any sector, Apple risks getting shut out in a lot of other sectors.

Spatial Computing/iVision is, for example, a claim in vr. It gives them some exposure to the market, some ability to extend & integrate their existing application/computing ecosystem into this medium. Ditto for all the other pieces; they're all integrative. Smart speakers work with airplay. iWatch works with iPhone works with iOS. The close integration lets them rebuff innovation in any other field: no one small can come along and build the next VR headset or the best watch to compete with Apple in any of these sectors, because no one can integrate like Apple. No one else has all the products. You have to have complete over the horizon horizontal control to keep your intense market power, and Apple is invested above all in there never being a chink in that armor, in making sure they can completely dictate the shape of all products by producing & owning all the products themselves. This is Apple.

Hence, Apple has to dabble everywhere. It maintains the most, it prevents real competition from forming, and it earns them a couple % revenue here and there to boot.

Expressing an entirely different brand of cynicism, I'd also ask: where else could Apple look to expand into? None of these sectors has been a runaway success. But it's not like Apple's missing the boat on some massive new tech that a huge new Total Addressable Market. It's been absent from Crypto and AI but generally it's just expanding wherever there's any opportunity, and why not when you have the cash & when any sector could become huge?

[nxobject]

That's true, _and_ I think there's a tendency to think that Steve Jobs only launched things he knew were immediate hits – when products that look influential in retrospect, like iPods and the MacBook Air, took a few years to really take off.

[nxobject]

For what it's worth, I don't know whether we'll ever know all of the Jobs-era skunkworks projects that were shut down before they ever saw the limelight. The lid on the rumors was much tighter back then.

[ksec]

Because they Need to do R&D and spend some money on this category. They also have way too much cash with Execs having very little idea of where Apple should be heading. Tim Cook has zero product understanding. That means he has to rely on engineers. Most of the original product people that were with Apple ( the design team ) has all left Apple. So what makes a successful company more successful? The sales and marketing people.

[ssivark]

A substantial fraction of households that can afford Apple devices likely owns several of them. So if Apple wants to multiply their revenue, they need to create products with wide appeal with margins (in raw numbers -- not just percentages) comparable to their current offerings i.e. margins of $1000+ per household. That might help understand the kind of products they are pursuing.

Apple is uniquely situated (cash surplus, deep tech + manufacturing expertise, consumer product + marketing expertise) to take on such multi-year product-oriented R&D. Even if one out of N (serious) attempts pays off, the scale of success will justify the amortized ROI.

[7thaccount]

I also can't imagine a home robotics use case that I would get excited over. Can anyone think of anything? I would guess any new product would be more complex, less efficient, and a security risk. It'll be cool and trendy for a few months and then die off. Just like the Alexa and Google speakers that can tell you the weather or adjust your lights...is it REALLY that useful outside of entertaining your nieces and nephews? My guess is that they'll make some revenue from collecting user data and selling it to data brokers or something.

Edit: someone below said laundry folding robot. I'd see that as useful.

[judah]

The company that builds a robot that can do household chores will be very, very rich.

I want a bot that can do laundry (load washer, load dryer, fold, put away), do the dishes (rinse, put in dishwasher, put clean dishes away, wash pots & pans), vacuum floors, dust, clean up messes, empty garbage bins, take out the trash, mow my lawn, trim bushes, clean tables, mop floors, make meals, cleans toilets and sinks and bathrooms.

Currently myself and my wife split these duties, and kids help a bit. But it's still a ton of work for us. I would love to offload all that and more to a robot.

[tkgally]

Exactly. And add one more thing: Help with the care of the elderly and invalids.

As it happens, I turned sixty-seven today. While I am in good shape now, it's reasonable to assume that I might need personal care at some point in the not too distant future. A humanoid robot assistant that could handle many of those tasks would be great.

I have no idea when or whether that will become possible, though.

[another2another]

If there was a smallish vehicle (thing? I'm thinking johnny #5) that could:

hold and carry things you give it (without spilling), and carry then set them down where you ask.

or pick things up from the ground for you.

Then that would probably be a great help for lots of older people.

I'm not that old myself, but I've seen lots of older people who are otherwise self-sufficient struggle with some of these things as mobility starts to suffer.

If it could also talk to you and give sass back, then that would also be a bonus.

[freitzkriesler2]

Pretty much this. We pay a cleaning service for the privilege to vacuum and dust.

A robot that does it for me that I can buy for $15k and last a decade? Id be all over it.

[onlyrealcuzzo]

Robots can already vacuum and mop floors pretty decently for <$2k.

No one is building a robot to dust your antique china collection anytime soon.

[freitzkriesler2]

Meh those robots don't do a good job with young children . The amount of debris they have to work around isn't worth it.

[duped]

Maids will be cheaper than robots for at least a decade

[PopePompus]

I don't want to pay someone to clean up my messes. That is not the kind of relationship I want to have with another human. But I'd happily pay for a machine that did it.

[duped]

I understand that this is coming from a place of privilege, but I was raised with regular maid service cleaning our home as a child and it's just something you learn to live with. You pick up after yourself for the easy things like throwing out garbage and picking up your clothes on the floor so the maids can do the heavy work like deep cleaning everything that's not in the way. And it's not necessarily unaffordable for biweekly cleaning.

You don't hire a maid service to clean up after you, you do it because they do a better job at all the stuff you really don't want to.

[swat535]

You would literally be making the same argument for any other breakthrough tech:

Why invent a dishwasher? You can have someone do it! Why have automated elevators? You can have someone do it! Why have automated farming systems? You can hire cheap Mexicans to do it!

We like to invent technologies to help make people's lives easier.

[fragmede]

That person doesn't have a better job available to them though, so without that job, you're sentencing them to destitution, which seems like a worse outcome for them. Fortunately you don't have to see it though.

[wdh505]

Are you willing to pay for privacy as a premium?

[duped]

I don't think whatever Silicon Valley cooks up will be more private than a human who has fallible memory

[layer8]

Human-sized robots (arguably needed for some of the tasks you list, being able to walk stairs, etc.) will be creepy due to how physically imposing they’ll be, and with a risk of being dangerous due to how massive they’ll need to be. For example falling over due to malfunction/collision/tripping, and potentially crushing a small child. I don’t see such a product happening for home use.

[bobbylarrybobby]

If a robot is adept at washing dishes and folding laundry, it suggests our technology is good enough that they should have a decent shot at remaining upright indefinitely, or falling gracefully and righting themselves afterwards.

[PopePompus]

Perhaps the entire kitchen sink could be redesigned with robotic dish washing in mind. No bipedal Boston Dynamics style robot washing your dishes and taking out the trash - just two arms built into the sink with automated drains and soap dispensing to wash dishes, put them in a rack, and do nothing else. I'd pay quite a bit for that.

[jdlshore]

How is that different than a dishwasher? The problem is collecting the dishes and putting them away, not washing them. Unless you’re imagining something to scrub pots and pans?

[adam_arthur]

Can just be a pair of hands and a camera on extendable/retractable wires, with a wheeled base. Probably much cheaper than making a humanoid.

[lobochrome]

Self driving cars seem tame in comparison.

[PopePompus]

I don't think so. To my knowledge, nobody has ever been killed by a Roomba. The robot problem is a lot less scary if there are essentially no life-and-death consequences for random innocent bystanders.

[fragmede]

a robot arm capable of doing the dishes is also capable enough to manipulate a knife (commonly found in kitchens) in a stabbing motion. Not intentionally, of course, but the sci-fi story of this going bad writes itself. That doesn't mean we shouldn't do it, I'll be the first in line to buy a robot arm sink dishwasher, but robotics is dangerous, even when not piloting a several ton vehicle down the road.

[nostromo]

I'm shocked by your comment. Everyone that doesn't enjoy cleaning, cooking, doing laundry, mowing the lawn, or taking out the trash would LOVE a home robot that really works.

Of course, these are very hard problems to take on -- much harder than a "smart" light switch -- but the market is absolutely there.

[CharlieDigital]

    > Everyone that doesn't enjoy cleaning, cooking, doing laundry, mowing the lawn, or taking out the trash would LOVE a home robot that really works.

We are far, far away from any of the remaining tedious parts of those things being done competently by a robot.

- Dishes: dishwashers already do the majority of the labor intensive part.

- Laundry: the washer already does the labor intensive part.

- Mowing: if you don't trust robot cars, you shouldn't trust a moving robot with blades attached.

- Taking out the trash: I don't see buying a multi-thousand dollar robot to save me the 20 seconds it takes to walk the garbage out.

Even robot vacuums are kinda terrible.

[V99]

Traversing a rectangle of grass at 2mph in a backyard is absurdly simpler than self-driving cars on open roads, and the absolute worst-case is something like a foot or pet injury.

There are multiple companies that already sell automatic lawn mowers in the $1000+ range. Some you bury a boundary wire around the target area, others figure it out with cameras.

[TheLoafOfBread]

Unless it is not a rectangle and there trees randomly in the way and wife's flowers on the sides.

[Clamchop]

Robot vacuums are great! They have limitations but they work really well within that envelope in my experience.

[fragmede]

How far is "far far away" to you? The recent robot demos (linked below) make me thing it's not that far off. I think within my lifetime, certainly. Within the decade, at most. I expect someone to announce something concrete within a couple of years.

https://www.figure.ai/

https://wholebody-b1.github.io/

https://ok-robot.github.io/

https://mobile-aloha.github.io/

[CharlieDigital]

Are those supposed to convince me that spending thousands on a robot will make my life measurably better?

Because they're not; the exact opposite in fact. That Spot missing the shoe on the first grab, being loud, and taking up more space than a German Shepard (without the floofy companionship) is case in point how far away we are.

[fragmede]

I not sure why you think I'm trying to convince you that you should spend any of your money on something you don't want.

[LightBug1]

Upvote for robot vaccums - even value ones are pretty good these days (imo)

[KerrAvon]

If they were invented today, dishwashers would be the same product but be called dish-washing robots. It's essentially what they are. Being mobile isn't essential to robotness.

[LightBug1]

AI Powered Robotic Cleansing Assistants ...

Breakthrough technology.

[7thaccount]

Thank you for being the voice of reason:)

Sure I'd like a personal robot butler to walk the dog and a dozen other annoying tasks, but apple isn't going to figure that out short of AGI or a quantum leap forward in more traditional approaches. What we're going to get is something like the Roomba, which was already useless in my tight house. I can't imagine too many things that would be relatively achievable that I would care about.

I guess I wasn't very clear above lol.

[ikekkdcjkfke]

Everything that can be automated, should be automated

[Moto7451]

Food prep.

There are already products for infants that will prep baby food. It’s harder to do something more complicated than that. Meal kit type meals that take grocery store ingredients as an input would likely do well with the well to do 30+ crowd that is in the middle of having kids and home remodels and is upset at how much delivery restaurant food they eat.

I’m definitely not projecting ;).

I think there’s likely a market for just the iBabyFood maker let along coming closer to an automated chef that’s “smarter” than buying a meal kit.

My experience with smart vacuums is that the more “AI” they add to them the worse they get. I’ve switched brands a few times and have always preferred the dumber models. I’m sure old iPhone tech and some computer vision know how would make a “Roomba killer” possible but I don’t know how many people are going to by the Beats by Dre Vacuum. Maybe a lot?

As things become more solarized a cross “platform” energy management system would be useful. Load controllers exist but often they’re tied to solar batteries or EVSEs. In my case I could avoid the cost of a panel update if there was a good system for load control that also wouldn’t upset my family. I.e. if they need to handle a transfer switch they will not be happy. More like, “if I’m running the jacuzzi and it’s winter, gate the AC but not the heat pump. If it’s summer gate the heat pump Aux heat but not the heat pump itself”

Most load controllers are focused on making a generator or battery run critical loads and don’t really work for larger more electrified homes on 200A panels.

[burkaman]

I don't personally find them exciting but robotic vacuum cleaners are pretty popular, I guess they could make an expensive one of those and be successful.

[exe34]

I imagine an ageing population with social isolation might be the golden ticket for this kind of work.

[rustcleaner]

>I also can't imagine a home robotics use case that I would get excited over.

Well, there's always the all-in-one washer/dryer combo which also does auto-foldi...

>Edit: someone below said laundry folding robot. I'd see that as useful.

I mean there is the automated chef kitchen machine the size of a large fridge which cooks dozens of meals which all intersect with the unit-prepared ingredients. Essentially a compact home version of what you'll all soon be seeing at fast food joints all over.

I myself am flipping out about Flippy™!

[hackable_sand]

Disability augments.

[ravelfan]

We need a word/concept for technology that has just slightly more utility than a Minsky/Shannon's useless machine but that small amount of utility obfuscates the actual uselessness of the technology.

[nostromo]

I like that Apple is taking on big hard futuristic problems, like AR/VR, AI, and home robotics.

But from a business perspective it seems unlikely to be successful. Apple could "easily" sell a luxury car and TVs and print many billions of dollars right away. They wouldn't need unproven tech -- they could just use their design skills along with vertical integration to have very nice products that people would want to buy. Apple should eschew some of Silicon Valley's obsessions, like self-driving cars, which most people do not care about at all, and instead focus on their strengths.

[azinman2]

Sounds like you’ve never been in a Waymo. It’s so much better than an Uber it’s not even funny, and that’s worth many billions right there.

[layer8]

Apple just recently cancelled their car project after ten years of R&D and spending over $10 billion.

[PopePompus]

But Waymo is essentially building an automated taxi service, not self driving cars to be sold to consumers. Replacing taxis would probably never produce the margins that Apple expects. Self driving cars would only make sense for Apple if they could produce what Elon Musk has claimed Tesla would produce (and probably never will) - level 4+ driving.

[rain_iwakura]

that failure is much more a leadership issue than a talent issue. Google was founded by PhD students and it shows. (I am one.) It's like a giant lab where things get prototyped and innovations are pushed, but where product ends up sidelined by bloated admin (how many levels are there and why does it feel like an MMORPG i.e World of Warcraft) and lack of clear capitalist vision (I'm actually anti-capitalist but even I can admit to this LOL). Honestly, it sounds exactly like a university. I used to think Google was slated to be the king of AI back when I starting out because they had ALL the talent (even OpenAI is its offshoot if you consider early employees and Ilya himself). I feel like it was so lateral that it was a loose federation of small tribes of smart people that live under the same banner, but not a tight organization where each team had its purpose within a giant mechanism. But as the saying goes too many cooks spoil the broth.

Apple is WAY different internally. For all its dreariness and corpo atmosphere (not allowed to talk to each other, teams siloed and laser focused on shipping a specific product) they have much clearer vision of what will sell and what not, usual company missteps (AR glasses) notwithstanding.

[petre]

Good luck to them. Xiaomi has been already doing it for years at approachable prices. They now also have a car, the Su 7, a project which Apple gave up on. Of course, it possibly comes with th CCP/PLA embedded spyware.