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Apple R&D Spending on Track to Top Record $10 Billion Amid Electric Vehicle Rumors
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"A computer is a general purpose device that can be programmed to carry out a set of arithmetic or logical operations automatically. Since a sequence of operations can be readily changed, the computer can solve more than one kind of problem.
Conventionally, a computer consists of at least one processing element, typically a central processing unit (CPU), and some form of memory. The processing element carries out arithmetic and logic operations, and a sequencing and control unit can change the order of operations in response to stored information. Peripheral devices allow information to be retrieved from an external source, and the result of operations saved and retrieved."
"A car is a wheeled, self-powered motor vehicle used for transportation and a product of the automotive industry. Most definitions of the term specify that cars are designed to run primarily on roads, to have seating for one to eight people, to typically have four wheels with tires, and to be constructed principally for the transport of people rather than goods."
There's not much correlation there, except that a computer could be used by a car.
An modern or future electric car has a lot fewer of those "parts" than traditional ICE cars do. No transmission. No physical connection between the steering wheel and the steering mechanism of the car. A lot more computer-dependent parts, such as collision avoidance systems and navigation systems.
The car of the future is more of a transportation robot. Would it be a stretch for Apple to get into robotics?
Since we are expeculating...selling cars its not without flaws:
Repeat sales - Apple can't expect people to upgrade cars like phones every 2 years
Obsolesce - Apple can't turn away 5-10 year old cars for service like they do with phones/computers
Liability - While Apple can absorb a lot more than others I don't know if investors would be happy with multi-billion dollar claims when issues arrive (and they will)
Infrastructure - Knowing Apple, they will probably would want to go the Tesla route and sell directly - but this might be more difficult than making the car - see how Tesla is being block by the incumbents.
Just think about how much a new player in the car industry can revolutionise the transportation.
No steering wheel, no commands.
Just Air conditioning, radio/sat-nav on a huge monitor (Siri?, hopefully not with Apple Maps) and full autopilot, from the start to the end.
The only problem would be the price imho. If 600€ could be too much for many people to spend in a phone...this car definitely would have costs out of any reasonable scale (Tesla-like). And also with ridiculous margins (Tesla sells every car at loss).
Level 5 Self Driving would make me consider buying one. Self Driving, Self Parking and coming to you after you summon it with your phone would be killer. That and being competitive with a Tesla Model 3 would tilt the scale to the buy side.
Wow , so much money, to put "pro" after the same product and charge $100 extra.
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And take resources away from Apple Watch band development !! Madness!
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And take resources away from Apple Watch band development !! Madness!
I don't understand the ignorance here. Do you guys not see the bigger picture here?
We need to go away from fossil and the best thing to start with would be cars. Cars are a huge factor in pollution and we all breathe the same air. To all of you who said that what apple can do do cars that would be different or better? DOH!!!! Electric!
Tesla is doing the right thing here and I love what Tesla stands for but Apple has much bigger power and it would be massive player in the field. Apple has also got bigger fan support and if Apple jumps in and produces a car then I can guarantee that that will accelerate the move to electric vehicles. THAT itself would be HUGE revolution in itself! There are tons of things Apple could do but I think the car is the best thing at the moment.
Here, look what happened in just few days of car ban
http://www.boredpanda.com/blue-skies-military-parade-no-cars-beijing/
We need to go away from fossil and the best thing to start with would be cars. Cars are a huge factor in pollution and we all breathe the same air. To all of you who said that what apple can do do cars that would be different or better? DOH!!!! Electric!
Tesla is doing the right thing here and I love what Tesla stands for but Apple has much bigger power and it would be massive player in the field. Apple has also got bigger fan support and if Apple jumps in and produces a car then I can guarantee that that will accelerate the move to electric vehicles. THAT itself would be HUGE revolution in itself! There are tons of things Apple could do but I think the car is the best thing at the moment.
Here, look what happened in just few days of car ban
http://www.boredpanda.com/blue-skies-military-parade-no-cars-beijing/
Let's hope that Apple is taking a page out of Tesla's playbook and going mini-model S, and not BMW i3.
Unfortunately for us, there is a lot to suggest Apple will try to make something quirky and ugly (See Marc Newson's car).
On the plus side, Jon Ive is known to have pretty great taste in cars, and to drive some Ferraris.
Unfortunately for us, there is a lot to suggest Apple will try to make something quirky and ugly (See Marc Newson's car).
On the plus side, Jon Ive is known to have pretty great taste in cars, and to drive some Ferraris.
A car is essentially a computer on wheels these days. Just look at Tesla and all of their cars.
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As I said above, cars are essentially computers on wheels now. Just look at Tesla for a perfect example of this.
Too much money on R&D now. iPod, iPhone, iPad all went under $1-2 bln per year and iWatch was $8 bln(!). They'd better have a car, a jet, a TV, and a spaceship under development or it is just a stupid waste of money.
You can do cars Apple, ok, if you really have something revolutionary in mind but first fix your computers and phones. You can't release in time an iPhone 7 with a new design and features (WTF Ive is being paid for??), you didn't release a TV set, iOS is buggy and ugly, laptops and Macs are underpowered, 17" Macbook Pro is missing, Watch is laggy and limited in its capabilities, phones are crippled with 16Gb memory and fragmented features, and finally look at what Microsoft is doing with its laptops, phones and Hololens. That is the future. But you are obessed with Apple Watch bands, rose gold and spend billions on a car project. If you can't deliver and fix your core products then your car will be the same boring, outdated, DOA, crippled, stagnating flop with an ugly design.
You can do cars Apple, ok, if you really have something revolutionary in mind but first fix your computers and phones. You can't release in time an iPhone 7 with a new design and features (WTF Ive is being paid for??), you didn't release a TV set, iOS is buggy and ugly, laptops and Macs are underpowered, 17" Macbook Pro is missing, Watch is laggy and limited in its capabilities, phones are crippled with 16Gb memory and fragmented features, and finally look at what Microsoft is doing with its laptops, phones and Hololens. That is the future. But you are obessed with Apple Watch bands, rose gold and spend billions on a car project. If you can't deliver and fix your core products then your car will be the same boring, outdated, DOA, crippled, stagnating flop with an ugly design.
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Maybe they can use $100k out of that $10B to pay an engineer to build a better macbook pro...just saying
There is a paradigm shift in the automotive industry where every company that ships a product with a transmission and trans-axle is getting it wrong. Over the past forty years, electronic CPUs running software has gradually become more and more a functional contributor to the motion and control of a car every model year.
We have reached a position just a few years ago where software and CPU performance matters more concerning vehicle performance than the mechanical systems. With Tesla and other electric cars, the mechanical function is becoming an accessory to the computer running the show. Tesla knows this, Apple knows this but the every executive from Detroit to the Rhine Valley to Yokohama does not get it.
This will be a fun one seeing another industry disrupted out of a century long habit.
Actually Uber and Lyft do not own any of the cars and they make no large capital intensive investments. The genius of their service is that the drivers pay for and maintain their own car and Uber/Lyft just get a big cut out of the fair from each drive. Their business model doesn't work if they have to buy a bunch of cars (huge spend upfront) and then run them for years before seeing a profit. You don't get internet company stock valuations doing something like that.
Now cab companies do buy their own cars. But that upfront cost is one of the reasons they struggle to compete with Uber/Lyft.
If you think the Hololens is the future, you been watching way too many vintage Walt Disney "Home of the Future" shows lately.
The whole Hololens concepts of a $1000+ headset encompassing most of your sensory system is the future, you don't know the history of humanity. I have worn and used a Hololens, it is an introversion and reality occluding device. It screamed post-doc work gone corporate with no real market surveying with the exception of cocktail parties at the MIT Media Lab.
IMO, it is the wrong approach to an Augmented Reality System. A system that is more social and group oriented works a lot better. Stationary optical projection has a better chance of selling over head worn devices. I know of efforts going that way and where I'm putting my money instead of these Borg-inspired abominations.
Is it only me - or does it look like the more $ Apple puts in R&D the less innovation comes out at the end...? Look at the latest "innovations" - iPhone got a bit smaller again, yipiyay!
but please probably most of the pollution comes from the tyres friction - I don't know how an electric can avoid that, btw. the batteries are so clean, clean, clean ... electric cares are not a solution, they will be a bigger problem
Self driving cars is a lot more hype than reality. Constant surveys have shown, even for the Millennial and younger Digital Natives, is they are not interested in giving up manual driving. Also, totally automated cars for hire can be very prone to vandalism and hacking. If it hasn't been written already, the concept of hiring a self driving car, gettings locked in, cannot get out and are driven to a remote destination to be "taken care of" can make a good scene in a futuristic thriller.
More stupid comments about my life? Someone can't comment something on macrumorss without being personally attacked.
I'm worried you could be right about what's going on behind the scenes after reading of the dysfunctional politics around Siri.
That being said, my car is almost 25 and I plan to keep driving it until it can no longer be driven. Which may be around 2020. Whatever I choose to replace my beloved car is going to have to be special. As a fan of Apple products I am hoping their car will be that special car worthy of replacing my car, which lived up to being a different kind of car from a different kind of company...until the usual corporate BS gutted everything.
The car needs to just work. It needs to be designed and engineered to do its job of getting me from point to point as safely and comfortably and efficiently as possible. I'm not asking for antigravity engines or laser cannons. I'll save that for when I'm a really badazz grumpy old lady!