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Apple Developing Self-Driving Campus Shuttle Service as Part of Scaled Back Car Effort
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I'm missing the whole point of self-driving cars.
For seniors or people with physical challenges, self driving cars would really enhance the quality of their lives, so develop on. Guess alcoholics
would benefit too, but I can't see why anyone from 16 to 60 is going to want to be driven around.
Driving is fun. It's freedom. Owning a unique car is great. Ever go to a car show? I don't understand why all the investment not only of money, but in trying to convince the public that this is something we want. I mean, do we really?
To me it's like someone trying to convince you to stop using the potty, and go back to wearing diapers.
For seniors or people with physical challenges, self driving cars would really enhance the quality of their lives, so develop on. Guess alcoholics
would benefit too, but I can't see why anyone from 16 to 60 is going to want to be driven around.
Driving is fun. It's freedom. Owning a unique car is great. Ever go to a car show? I don't understand why all the investment not only of money, but in trying to convince the public that this is something we want. I mean, do we really?
To me it's like someone trying to convince you to stop using the potty, and go back to wearing diapers.
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Maybe it will be as amazing as CarPlay!
So I can check out macrumor forums without worrying about running over people.
Something in the NY Times piece doesn't quite add up. They say the staff working on automotive design was reduced, and the staff working on autonomous driving tech has since increased. If Apple was indeed working on a branded automobile, would it not have used autonomous driving tech? Why would the size of that team have anything to do with the hardware project, and why would the tech side getting bigger have anything to do with the hardware team being made smaller?
Apples developing the OS without any hardware to run it on. Perhaps this is Apple choosing the 'windows' model for the automobile market, or maybe they just want to define the goals beforehand to stop the design team going off on massive utopian tangents.
So....
"Apple even looked into reinventing the wheel. A team within Titan investigated the possibility of using spherical wheels -- round like a globe -- instead of the traditional, round ones, because spherical wheels could allow the car better lateral movement."
Really? Is that so? "Apple even looked into reinventing the wheel" Did They
So the team were totally unaware at all about this concept from Goodyear shown to the public a year and a half ago ?
Goodyear... You know. The actual people who actually MAKE tyres for cars
"Apple even looked into reinventing the wheel. A team within Titan investigated the possibility of using spherical wheels -- round like a globe -- instead of the traditional, round ones, because spherical wheels could allow the car better lateral movement."
Really? Is that so? "Apple even looked into reinventing the wheel" Did They
So the team were totally unaware at all about this concept from Goodyear shown to the public a year and a half ago ?
Goodyear... You know. The actual people who actually MAKE tyres for cars
You're right, you are completely missing the point. Humans are generally sh*tty at driving. Our attention is easily distracted. We easily miss things in the environment and kill or maim others. Most people are not driving around for fun. They are driving to get to work or run errands or something else just as mundane. Most traffic jams could be avoided by better more cooperative driving. Mass transit is certainly one solution that many countries do much better than US. Pay more taxes to spend billions on infrastructure for more mass transit would still not result in a car culture changing. Change the car instead.
"Nearly 1.3 million people die in road crashes each year, on average 3,287 deaths a day. An additional 20-50 million are injured or disabled. More than half of all road traffic deaths occur among young adults ages 15-44"
It's more like putting diapers on you because you only think you are potty trained.
Besides that, when you are that aging person that has their car taken away from them and becomes dependent on others for your mobility, crow about your freedom then.
How many billions of dollars have to be wasted on...trying new things that might pan out and change the world?
So glad not everybody thinks like you
Nah, the Apple haters that make these comments expect everything to be a failure regardless of how public Apple have been.
Regardless of the negative comments herein, I think it is now a solid plan.
Why?
It allows for the abstraction to be rendered over an Apple wholy-designed platform, and/or over partner car-maker platforms.
And, last point: On Bob Mansfield I trust.
Why?
- Design-Build automation from the top-down, from the unknown-to-the-known. Over a virtualized, abstracted car management layer of engine, power, steering and suspension, brake, and environment control systems.
- Render the abstracted car layer over the bare-metal car system. Akin to a Car SDK.
It allows for the abstraction to be rendered over an Apple wholy-designed platform, and/or over partner car-maker platforms.
And, last point: On Bob Mansfield I trust.
So who are we - customers who invested only billions - to complain ?
As a spin-off (from the spherical wheels ?) we now have Carpool Karaoke...
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(as I can imagine with Bob Mansfield coming in at this stage)
As a spin-off (from the spherical wheels ?) we now have Carpool Karaoke...
[doublepost=1503484824][/doublepost]
Because a project that has not conceptually finished yet, can't be managed with specific (financial, operational) targets. Micro-management and a broader vision seem to have collided.
(as I can imagine with Bob Mansfield coming in at this stage)
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I would rather they pump the brakes a bit on this project than move forward without a clear direction. I don't think there is any rush to be first or any issue with other companies leading the charge in this area as we are still in it's infancy. See what works and how you can make a difference and then come out with something where it makes sense. No need to rush to be involved in every area of technology out there.
No selfdriving car will escape the maze they got themselves in with this project...
Ok. Initially, Maps was bad in some parts of the world. But now it's on par so they did learn from their mistakes and invested a lot.
Same with iCloud. The first few years it was bad. Almost as unreliable as MobileMe. But again, it has become very robust. Still painfully slow, but at least user data is not dissappearing or getting corrupted anymore.
So I do think an Apple Car would be awesome. You'd think they at least realise human lives depend on it. So I would not judge based on Maps 1.0 from 5 years ago.
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That.
I have no idea how it's fun to drive around in 150 year old technology burning fossil fuels that destroy our planet while queuing bumper to bumper.
Our roads are getting so full we do need to switch to automated driving or we're heading to a total grid lock.
So yes to electric autonomous cars. In a 100 years people will not understand how we allowed these polluting weapons in our cities.
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The impression I get from John Gruber’s post on this (and it sounds like he might have some inside info) is Apple made the decision to nail the software first and then worry about a car to marry it up with.
I think most commuters would love it. If you commute in stop and go traffic in major cities there is no "freedom". You stare for an hour at the taillights of the cars in front of you, work for 10 hours, and stare at a different set of taillights for an hour going home. Freedom would be being able to browse the web, read email, video chat with friend, etc during the commute.
If you want the wind in your hair freedom experience, buy a convertible to drive to the beach on the weekend and use an autonomous vehicle during the week.
And don't forget humans suck at driving. 45,000 traffic deaths per year in the US (1.2 m worldwide), 95% caused by human error.
Makes sense, sounds like a smart idea. Not something you want to rush. Let other companies do that.
It's much more informed than you give credit for. Nearly all manufacturers have autonomous models in the pipeline for the near future. Apple dragged their feet and lost almost all momentum. Probably the board wanted to ride the current wave of profits longer and not start having losses in the auto dept.