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Apple Car Design Goals: No Steering Wheel or Brake Pedal, Flat Seats for Sleeping, Large Screens, and More

Marbles1 said:
If Apple is going for a genuine driverless car, where it turns up to your door and someone who cannot legally drive can get in and sleep until they reach their destination, then this is decades away. at least 4 or 5 decades. We're so far away from the kind of AI that can do this, let alone the infrastructure or even the legislation required to support this.

Sure you could have a specific road in one part of (probably California) that gives a trial license on one route, but sharing a lane with manually driven cars is a legal minefield, so even then it would have to be dedicated route like a busway.

Every year we're told a self-driving car is 2-3 years away. Especially by folks like Musk who want us to buy into the idea that it's just around the corner with a software update. It isn't.
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Perhaps making overpriced EVs an option and increasing gas price might play a role in reducing that traffic. Lets assume that 2030 is one of last years when one could buy car running on petrol. That car will have 15-20 years lifespan, even new car. 2040 voila less traffic. I am not thinking about hurdles that might dissapear even sooner.
 
Lets just hope those that write the software for the car aspire to the giddy heights of perfection achieved by the Music app.

/S
 
ipedro said:
That’s ok. There were plenty of slow folks who laughed at the iPod announcement and are now typing laughing emojis on their iPhones, its direct successor.

“It's really hard to design products by focus groups. A lot of times, people don't know what they want until you show it to them.” — Steve Jobs
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It’s weird you call me slow when I’m the first to embrace new products and imagine ways to make them better.

There’s a lot of room for improvement in current cars and I’m sure in 50 years they’ll look nothing like they do today. In some ways I do think the classic steering wheel and pedals are a little outdated. But just because some people don’t agree with your POV doesn’t make them “slow”.
 
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So people think driving becomes a service nowadays. Except, as of now, there’s still someone in the driver seat that is not necessarily controlled by a central overmind. Apple Car design goal is crystal clear: full self driving. Then, how would apple address the issue of software going rouge, remote hacking and others, and what’s the backup plan? I highly doubt it.

CGP Grey talked about it a few years ago imagining a world where self driving is the norm and “monkeys” should never be allowed to drive. While in hindsight it may be true, I just cannot stop but imagine what will happen when the on board software bugs out and how it would behave. Also, how much power government would have towards self driving cars? Sure, it seems like everything is a service nowadays, except, those services Are all provided by big companies. Who in their right mind would put full trust in those companies without any oversight? I’m sure not one of them, even if they are operated by robot. EU is spearheading the initiative to be the oversight which is good, but EU cannot cessation catch everything nor they want. Putting your lives in someone’s hand that you know nothing about in my opinion is the stupidest thing ever. If you die because of their negligence, no compensation paid after that would matter to you.

In short, there has to be a line drawn somewhere where the bare minimum ownership must be maintained and we cannot just blindly submit our lives to stranger’s hands without a second thought. As such, fully automatic driving society won’t happen until at least 10 years later.
 
SFjohn said:
Wow, so many naysayers… Personally I love what Apple is working on and hope it eventually comes to market as a service.
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That iPod thread someone linked showed this well. People were crapping on it left and right and I'd say the iPod was a successful product. Everyone thinks they know better than Apple.
 
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TheRealTVGuy said:
I disagree with this. "The Las Vegas Monorail carries nearly 5 million passengers a year" (https://www.lvmonorail.com/vegas-taxi-alternative/). People board airplanes everyday that are controlled for a majority of the flight by computers. People take taxis everyday where they sit in the back seat. Hundreds of thousands of people strap themselves into roller coasters every year that they have no control of, yet sensors and computers do.

And before any lame argument about, "Well, in each of those scenarios humans are monitoring those vehicles and are ready to step in at a moment's notice..." I would argue that Apple's alleged vehicle would probably contain some sort of E-Stop system that would allow riders to "stop the ride."
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Well, in each of those scenarios humans are monitoring those vehicles and are ready to step in at a moment's notice...
 
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rpmurray said:
Well, in each of those scenarios humans are monitoring those vehicles and are ready to step in at a moment's notice...
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I would argue that Apple's alleged vehicle would probably contain some sort of E-Stop system that would allow riders to "stop the ride".
 
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This reminds me of a form of underfunded infrastructure we already have… begins with a T

Trains, Trams & Metro! Add an iPad to your bag and boom done

#****cars
 
Marbles1 said:
If Apple is going for a genuine driverless car, where it turns up to your door and someone who cannot legally drive can get in and sleep until they reach their destination, then this is decades away. at least 4 or 5 decades. We're so far away from the kind of AI that can do this, let alone the infrastructure or even the legislation required to support this.

Sure you could have a specific road in one part of (probably California) that gives a trial license on one route, but sharing a lane with manually driven cars is a legal minefield, so even then it would have to be dedicated route like a busway.

Every year we're told a self-driving car is 2-3 years away. Especially by folks like Musk who want us to buy into the idea that it's just around the corner with a software update. It isn't.
Click to expand...

You read my mind, whenever I see these ridiculous predictions about driverless cars being a “few years away” I know right away that that person doesn’t have any idea what that would actually take. This is like 2050 stuff, if Apple comes out with a car in the near future it’s gonna have a steering wheel and a brake pedal otherwise they’d have the call it the iKevorkian.
 
Bokito said:
After reading the title I thought this is total BS, but after reading:

The whole report became a whole lot more credible.
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The whole report just become a whole lot more worrisome! 😎

LoveTo said:
Yeah.. It’s going to be very difficult to hide it during testing on public roads, with the test riders panicking and screaming for help while frantically searching for steering wheel and brakes.
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That's called the Tesla Model ___!

It uses the SCE — spontaneous combustion engine!
 
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Red Oak said:
What an over engineered mess Titan is

No one in their right mind is going to get into a vehicle they cannot manually control if necessary

And: whoever spent the resources to do that polished video with drones footage of the car driving through empty roads of Montana should be fired
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All forms of commercial transport would beg to differ.
 
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