The only reason to do it and that even made remote sense as the auto industry (power, labor, dealerships, repairs, etc) is at a crossroads like many industries have been in since the late 90's when the Internet came into play. Their product and business model is dated. A good comparison is the taxi industry. All but wiped out by Lyft and Uber because the industry was stale and had a price model that could not complete. Expect 1 or more of the big 3 and some smaller established car manufacturers to disappear. The dealership model is probably the only thing keeping them alive.
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Chinese Automakers Shocked at Apple's Decision to Cancel Car Project
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Only cost me about $4k to upgrade to 200A service from 100A service, no new pull from the street but new meter, entrypoint, ground rods, and panel.
The bigger issue is the folks in apartments or condos who have no option for home charging. Many have only on-street parking. A landlord, be it a single or multi-family or a huge complex, may choose not to install a charger. These folks still have to handle charging with the gas station paradigm.
Anybody playing in the same space as Apple should be shocked. Apple is a giant company and it makes you wonder are they seeing something I am not?
Also buying into one brand for all of your products is what creates monopolies. Brand diversity is good for the consumer.
Also buying into one brand for all of your products is what creates monopolies. Brand diversity is good for the consumer.
Why stay when the company’s leader places little value on the design work they do?
Consumers simply don’t have the appetite for overpriced electric cars that have limited charging infrastructure and range.
The early adopters have adopted and the EV gold rush is pretty much over. The mass market will be focused on ICE vehicles for the foreseeable future.
Between inflation and car loan interest rates, fewer and fewer can afford to go the EV route given the current trade offs to be made having one.
Apple was smart to cancel this project. It’s good money chasing a bad investment in an overcrowded field of competitors. Not to mention the level of complexity the auto business brings with it.
The early adopters have adopted and the EV gold rush is pretty much over. The mass market will be focused on ICE vehicles for the foreseeable future.
Between inflation and car loan interest rates, fewer and fewer can afford to go the EV route given the current trade offs to be made having one.
Apple was smart to cancel this project. It’s good money chasing a bad investment in an overcrowded field of competitors. Not to mention the level of complexity the auto business brings with it.
This is like asking an iPhone with a week battery life. Doesnt make sense. 80% of all trips is less than 100 miles, including return. Why always having the unused bulk.
Grand plan, but apartment, condo and town home people are more or less factored out of the home charging equation. I realize some may have shared charging ports, but that will never work out one more than a dozen people get it in your condo or apartment complex. Most apartment, condo and townhomes only have a few extra parking spots available for guests. You can't take those.
Because Americans are psychotic about cars. Do most SUV owners take their vehicles off road? No. Do most truck owners haul stuff around on a regular basis? No. Does a family of three need a three row SUV? No. Does an EV need a 450 mile range? No.
Lol, China sold 9 million EV last year and Apple sold 0.
There never was a real Apple car. This project was, at most, an experiment on how far they could integrate CarPlay with existing partners, and we've already seen the fruits of that labour.
The analysts were looking stupid, so they needed an out, and here it is.
The analysts were looking stupid, so they needed an out, and here it is.
False.
Electric Vehicle Market Looks Headed for 22% Growth This Year
BloombergNEF sees a slowdown in 2024 giving way to acceleration the following two years, when a slew of cheaper models are slated to arrive.
www.bloomberg.com
Shocked that a rumoured product, that was never announced in the first place, was also not announced to be canceled?
Likely.
The thing people miss about Gurman is that everything he says is vetted by Apple. If he were actually delivering secret content to the public Apple would have iced him out long ago.
The signal is cars are hard, cheap cars from China are coming, and it is way outside of the core business strategy. Quitting early versus hoping it works out is the sign of a leader.
I agree that one of the main reasons for Ive's greatness was that Jobs was there to reality check his designs (the G4 iMac, which I previously cited as one of my favorite computers of all time, is a great example of that). And while you worded it somewhat bafflingly I think the gist of what you're after here is that Cook, who seems to realize he's manifestly unqualified to provide product design direction, wasn't policing Ive in that way. Which is something I also agree with.
But Apple didn't replace a designer with an ops officer. Cook gave the designer they already had, Ive, more leash than he'd ever had under Jobs. This revealed Ive's inability to check himself, and that's why he had to go. While Jobs was able to channel Ive into some truly industry-changing designs, I think most people would agree that generally it's better to have a great designer who's capable of reality checking their own designs, or who's at least humble enough to hire a subordinate who can.
Having worked at NeXT and Apple, Jony Ives was a nobody making product demo ideas that went nowhere at Apple. Every single design that made an impact came with the meticulous eye for detail and aesthetics that made Steve, Steve. Contrary to the history of the early 80s Steve Jobs was a very approachable boss from the early 90s onward.
He was beloved by everyone at NeXT. When we took over Apple most of us couldn't stand the candy a$$ attitudes of Apple Engineers and general staff. So when the 5k layoffs were announced and they all ranted on the internal web site about losing 12 weeks paid leave sabbaticals being the only reason they were sticking around, we all felt relief that the dead weight was leaving the company. Within three months under Steve's vision Ives became a wünderkind (wonder child) and the iMac was revealed to the public at De Anza College, May 6 1998.
It was a great day to watch live. We were all very proud and Steve set the tone of focus like he did at NeXT where we always undersold and over delivered, with very few, if any, deadlines missed. Hardware of course relying on supply chain third parties tend to make deadlines slip, but software was something NeXT now Apple could control, so the only time he was really PO'd was the initial time schedule adjustments for OS X. The teams were slower than he expected to bring up the port from x86 NeXTSTEP to OS X. The main reason was convincing very talented engineers who may or may not have once worked at NeXT [a lot from NeXT came back to work on hardware and OS; others from Sun Microsystems, SGI and more] had to spend more time educating current Apple engineers how to do the tasks.
NeXT was Quad FAT meaning the OS was optimized for 4 CPU architectures. (Motorola, SPARC, HP PA-RISC and x86) and most at Apple only new Motorola. It was education on the fly.
Tim arrived May 1998 because Steve needed an ace in supply chain who understood industrial engineering requirements and no one was more highly recognized in the industry than Tim Cook of Compaq.
Jony Ives without Steve's direction gave us products users routinely began to criticize and his retiring from Apple has been welcomed over and over again.
I worked around Scott Forestall and had some blunt verbal banters back and forth. We mutually respected each other. He's brilliant as a Software Architect as I was just a systems person with an SQA background and Mechanical Engineer. He barked at me once and I told him to F-off breaking the tension and explained our situation at hand: I was in charge of making an IBM Thinkpad work with a custom build of NeXTSTEP never released dropped on my desk at 6 pm needing it running by 8 AM next morning. This was the infamous demo of NeXTSTEP to Gil Amelia by Steve directly. I discovered quickly the OS build was broken and needed more expertise. SO, I had to bring in two people, Mark Bessey and Ali Ozer and by around 12 midnight or 1 AM we got it all done. After Mark also failed we dragged in Ali who recognized he probably should have contacted us to get it to work in the first place and had to patch in custom Kits from Foundation to AppKit for it to even install. Once installed, it ran better than NeXTSTEP ever did. We should have released that version along with a Display Postscript update for an official last release of NeXSTEP/OpenStep but never did. Too bad, because Peter Graffagnino and Andrew Barnes changes for Display Postscript ended up laying the foundation for DisplayPDF.
Forestall assumed much and got humbled by me as I informed him this the laptop vital for Steve's presentation. He backed off and suggested Ali would need to be in on it and I contacted Mark to be in as well. sMark was in charge of the hardware/OS test harness department and Ali was one of the top guys in the OS team overseeing AppKit, Foundation., etc both of whom stayed till we got it done.
Steve's presentation went off without a hitch and no one was the wiser. Those types of stories were par for the course at NeXT because I was surrounded by professionals in all departments who wore several hats and we worked to solve problems. I have never seen a more professional, sociable, amicably great group of people to be around in all my years than I did working at NeXT. They all taught me so much and I hoped something I learned rubbed off on them as well.
Bringing Apple back from being 3 months away from bankruptcy is something Steve pulled off with the team he put in place, along with the head of the board at Apple that should be looked at as a miracle by all standards.
Apple became the juggernaut it is today, mainly because of all the failures Steve experienced and he was sure to emphasize that in many presentations on what one should embrace in life: failure and overcoming those experiences more often than not lead to great results and experiences for life. Tim being Steve's protegé embraced his philosophies on running Apple and it is true to this day. He's made mistakes but more often than not he's made great successes along the way.
The one project Steve would have personally overseen from start to finish and even changed on the fly, would be the Car project. Whatever becomes of all the IP patents and research one thing is for certain, he'd have either cancelled it five years ago or already demo'd a few years ago. You can not replace Steve Jobs, period. He's a one off.
Perhaps instead of copy, they were hoping to secure the assembly rights for the vehicle.
Just as Chinese cars have not been able to penetrate the American market with ICE vehicles, I don't see them having success with EVs either. I think EVs, much like 3D TVs were in the early 2000s, are ahead of their time. The infrastructure is just not there yet in the biggest developed nations, much less other parts of the world. When you factor in things like long distance travel, and EVs not being extreme weather friendly, and a general cooling of the EV market, Apple saw the writing on the wall. The future is Hybrid, the distant future, maybe EV but it's too early to tell.
Every creative artist is different. The issue is less about Ive specifically and more about replacing him with someone with no design background at all.