WoW. The rumoured Apple Car and highly rumoured special projects team of Apple, if rumours are to be believed gets a full-time Project Manager in Bob.
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Apple Appoints Bob Mansfield to Oversee Electric Vehicle Team
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You mean Dan Riccio? From my understanding he was heavily involved In the iPad Pro development, at least in the hardware sense. I believe he also over see's the iPhone and iPod line up. In any case, he has to do something, he is a direct intercessor to Cook.
I hope that the guys at crazyapplerumors are across this. They love Bob. http://crazyapplerumors.com
No money is worth the horrible work-life balance.
Haha, you think the plan was to lose so many managers that you had to pull back a retired guy to handle one of the biggest project that Apple has ever taken on?
I think the problem is there are a lot of Sr. Management at Apple that don't know how to make a car and don't want to hear the advice of people that do. Or, they have hired the wrong people to do the job, in which case Bob probably can't change that.
Musk doesn't seem like the type that would sell... I'd hope he has a number though.
Wow, this is actually pretty interesting news. Mansfield has been a real quiet star for Apple behind the scenes for years. If he gets so excited about asymmetrical fan blades in a Mac Pro, image what he'll do with an auto engine.
I think the original comment was missing a /s at the end or at least that's how I took it. Seemed to be dry wit about actually how this scenario isn't one of plausibility as much as it is already a reality.
It didn't with Scott. It only drove good employees away. He was the equivalent of a troll on these boards; he was most famous for douchey phrases starting with: "Steve would never...". Sound familiar?? That's the battle cry here for every pompous ass that is NOT Steve, yet feel they can channel all his decisions.
Tim is no Steve; but Scott is eons further away.
The car industry is broken and keeps re-packaging the same products year after year with no innovation. If you remember the cell phone market before the iPhone, all the products looked alike and didn't do much. I applaud Apple and Tesla for spending the R&D dollars to come up with the next great thing in automobiles. A lot of the thinking in silicon valley is to find a business area that needs improving and then change it. I'm excited to see what Apple comes up with.
Superb point and I totally agree. Electric vehicles are totally picking up steam now. Apple releasing a product will only escalate that immensely.
Totally, I bet they steal your whole life which was why I thought he retired early
What difference does it make if it's known by consumers? But certainly many consumers are aware of suppliers like AC Delco, Bosch, BASF, and, unfortunately, Takata. There are far many more suppliers that are not household names too. But my point isn't about retail branding. I didn't even mention it. It's about creating a new revenue stream in the automotive industry, similar to how Apple seems to want to also get into the non-consumer segment of the health care industry. It does't mean Apple gives up the consumer segment, anymore than Goodyear does, it means it adds a new customer base.
Why would carmakers allow Apple to co-brand? Where did I even suggest that? But car makers do do that where it benefits them. Carplay for one. BMW, Mercedes sell optional HK stereos. Other makers sell other branded ones because its good marketing. In the 90s when Eddie Bauer was a hot retail name for had an Eddie Bauer Explorer. It has a King Ranch F-100 now. But I don't forsee an Ford-Apple car. What I'm talking about is a Ford built with Apple designed systems. As cars become more and more run by computers it make sense that Apple would want to get into this space.
Why wouldn't they just buy Harmon? I don't know. Why wouldn't they just buy Tesla instead of building a car from scratch if that is what they are doing? Teslas market cap is about $30 billion. Certainly Apple could mount a hostile take over.
Yes, the ROKR was a disaster and Jobs vowed never to partner on manufacturing with another company ever again. And then TC launched CarPlay. So I'm not sure what you point is here? I don't really even think it's all that close an analogy because ROKR was mostly designed by Moto where as CarPlay is mostly designed by Apple then modified by the car with certain limitations by car makers to fit in with their models.
I miss Scott. Great person, really skilled. iOS have just gone downhill after he left..
How much money can Apple make off an expanded CarPlay and how many automakers would partner up when they're all interested in having differentiation and doing their own thing? CarPlay is mainly just a projected UI not something fundamentally integrated into the smarts of the car. Apple may not be working on a traditional vehicle for personal ownership but my guess is they're doing a whole lot more than an infotainment system on steroids.
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My point is I don't see Apple building a product that they can't brand and market as an Apple product. CarPlay is different because it's not that deeply integrated into the vehicle, it's mostly projected UI from the iPhone. Yes Apple has forged more enterprise relationships under Cook but the company is still primarily B2C not B2B. I have a hard time believing the next big thing from Apple will be an apple designed system that sits inside someone else's product. And is Ford going to want the same Apple designed system as Mercedes or BMW or will Apple be designing custom systems for each car maker? When Apple decided to make a smartwatch they didn't go to Omega or Tag or whomever and say 'let's build a watch together; we'll provide the software and guts, you build the watch', they made their own watch.
The general public is pretty ignorant of what's what in the auto industry. Most people would think there was an appreciable difference between an Aston Martin Cygnet and a pedestrian Scion iQ, a Geo Tracker and a Suzuki Sidekick, a Toyota Matrix and a Pontiac Vibe, etc. Badge engineering has always been a thing in the auto industry. Jalopnik has a funny article on it here. To be honest, the tech industry is no better.
My opinion? Nope and sure (if they can make money on the backend, and sell cars on the front end as well. I seriously doubt any car maker would allow Apple to take over their infotainment system because of one simple reason: ecosystem. Automakers want ubiquity. There's no advantage to having your potential car sales tied to the buyer owning an iDevice. That's business suicide. Probably why they went with BB's QNX based systems. They work with everything regardless of what phone you use.
This would do no good for Apple getting embedded in the automotive dashboard. HK just provides audio equipment. Not only that, HK systems are part of a trim level. Get a better or worse trim level and it could be a different system altogether. HK gets you no closer to "owning the dashboard" than CarPlay or Android Auto.
The ROKR... I think Cuban Missles had one of those. It's funny all the people who think Apple is not making a car but a play for the dashboard. Unless that play includes a system that can accept inter-operability with all mobile OSes, that idea is dead in the water.
For me the whole expanded CarPlay is a dead end because one, Apple will want something they can market and brand directly to consumers and automakers aren't really in the habit of doing that (outside of the occasional mention of a Harman Kardon or Bose sound system). Two, I get no sense whatsoever that automakers are looking to Apple (or Google for that matter) to be the brains of their cars. If someone can point to me any automaker that has signaled differently I'd love to read it. And finally I just can't see Apple being satisfied at being a piece of technology in someone else's product. I just don't see the next big thing from Apple being 'hey we design infotainment systems for auto makers. You won't see the Apple logo anywhere but that's us...'
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The car project must be in trouble if they're bringing Bob out of retirement.
+++++++++++++++ Tesla is not broken...Apple does not need to fix it. I think apple would add: Do you really want to start he car? Do you really want to turn the radio on? Enter your apple username and password.....incorrect....submit again.
yay, so much to "innovate his ass on the new MacPro", ...
..., maybe we can finally see some Mac innovations then, ...
..., maybe we can finally see some Mac innovations then, ...
True, and neither was the hockey puck mouse. But they did redeem themselves with a best of breed touchpad.
They're obviously not going to get everything perfect, but look at the big picture; they've set a new bar for entire categories of products, including computers, phones, tablets and MP3 players.
Just imagine if they could do something even half as good for the auto industry... IMO, it's ripe for disruption in that regard because cars are begging for a more intuitive, simple to use interface/ergonomics.
Every time his name comes up, I think about this as well. He was leaving to spend more time with family and then this conversation likely happened...
Apple: Bob, we'd like you to come back and are willing to pay whatever you want.
Bob: No thanks, I'm happily retired.
Apple: We'll make sure that the next 20 generations of your family will never have to work for money ever again.
Bob: What time do I start?