Right, but Apple aren’t a motor vehicle startup. They have no applied experience in vehicles. Patchworking together acquired companies can’t make up for that.
That is what is called a leap of faith.
One should never say “never”, but that kind of faith is bound with the family of notions which includes, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over but expecting a different result.”
Although I replied to you explicitly, I was responding to at least a few commenters, yours but being just one, and explicitly said so.
Since you brought up automakers Toyota and VW, what would be their incentive to “partner” with Apple when they’re managing just fine with engineering electric and zero emission vehicles? Why would they want to partner with an Apple or a Google or a Microsoft when they’re able to focus on their own console/dash/infotainment systems, integral with their own systems, as it suits their product’s design and engineering constraints — constraints they know best?
How is this different from Apple “designing” all components internally and not, say, commissioning Garmin for location-based services on their devices?
The more important thing to ponder is why whole adoption of Apple CarPlay and Android Auto are, quietly, being superseded by matured, integrated systems designed and engineered by the major automotive makers themselves. (GM come to mind here, but there are others.) Time may tell, but automotive makers turning to Google and Apple may have been a stop-gap to fill the void of demand as they caught up to designing and engineering their own, integrated dash/console/infotainment systems.
Apple entered when the mobile phone industry was still nascent, when most people still relied on a land line. Apple entered with the iPhone at the same time the tech industry had been, doggedly, trying to reach a “convergence” solution for cellular communications, organizing personal info on the go (PDAs), and a handheld internet data device. Moreover, Apple had been designing and engineering battery-operated handheld devices for a half-dozen years when they announced the iPhone (and Google had been working Android since acquiring Android in 2005).
Apple are still not a designer of headphones. That’s why they turned to Beats by Dr. Dre. If you mean disposable, ecologically toxic earbuds, then yes, they have designed wireless earbuds. This does not endow them — or endear them — as the new Sennheiser on the block. On this latter point, yes, this is an opinion.
Sure, it can be. So too is standing up and walking up to a hill to see a sunrise from a different angle. To quote from a practitioner in my field:
“Everyone designs. Design occurs anytime you deliberately change an environment to make things better. When you decide what seat to take in an auditorium you’re designing your experience. When you rearrange the furniture in a room or draft an email, you’re designing.”
You’re also engineering your own experience when you change anything in your settings or find an adaptive use for an object.
What we forget is design (and engineering) is not exclusive to Apple or their design team.
But having a computer company with no experience in motor vehicle engineering — mechanical engineering — in 2024, and expect that vehicle to “just work” and to comply with regulations, is as wishful as having, say, Kenmore or Singer announce they’re going to build an computer to compete directly with the Mac.
Right. But a bunch of designers in Cupertino aren’t, en masse, mechanical engineers. An automobile absolutely requires the training, knowledge, and experience of mechanical engineering to make it work.
So they got a hall pass for try out an idea on localized areas with limiting restrictions. OK.
And? How does this translate directly to regulatory approval by NCAP, NHTSA, IIHS, ASEAN, and so on, much less the U.S. DOT or Transport Canada, to operate legally on all roads across all regions? The line between your conjecture and this benchmark isn’t a simple, A-B, one-and-done pit stop.
Anyway. I’m done. And so too is the Apple Car.
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