Tesla Design Chief on Apple Products: 'There's Nothing to Look Forward To'

I mean it's partly true, but I think Apple's putting more focus on function lately. Form is still good, but they're willing to make the phone a little thicker to improve the battery life, or make their Macs a little thicker to accommodate more ports. I was begging for years for apple to stop the obsession with thin-ness and focus on functionality and refinements, and I'm glad they've went in that direction.
 
Wow! Is this guy really calling out Apple like that? Is this a joke?

Trending at 2.8+ Trillion dollars in the market today. This is Apple.

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Market capitalization doesn't necessarily have a lot to do with the innovative capacity of a company. This is just regressive might-makes-right thinking applied to business and fanboydom
 
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Seriously? All of the things AW does, but he hasn't found any other purpose?..
The Apple Watch does nothing special, I had two of them. The only good thing it does is heart rate monitoring and as he said the fitness aspect, and display notifications for who likes to be distracted(I don’t), but all with unacceptable battery life.

I would prefer to have a Nike Fuelband, as i had in the past, than this crap.
 
Genuinely curious. What "revolutionary products" would MacRumors members like to see Apple come out with? An industry-changing product like the iPhone isn't exactly a product that companies come out with frequently. They're relatively rare.
Yeah we got spoiled. But your comment actually ties into something Steve Jobs famously said, "people don't know what they want until you show it to them".
 
none of these really beat out their respectable counterpart in tesla, either their range sucks, motor not as efficient, or both, and even when they do satisfy both category, their software sucks. tesla is miles ahead of any competitors for 5 years +
You are out of your mind. Tesla's software strategy is stuck in 2015 compared to their competitors. Range is not nearly as important as you might think, the majority of cars on the road are just used to commute - and a better fit and finish is something people who sit in traffic all day want to see. Tesla's got enthusiasts behind it but they are not ahead, they're in a place where they will be leapfrogged. You could have the most efficient battery in the world but when you're priced up against a car by a manufacturer that understand quality interiors, you're going to lose out.
 
Do you really think it will though? I think he's sort of right, the truly innovative force at Apple passed away quite a few years away. The M1 chips, as brilliant as they are, are really just the A-series chips, beefed up for Macs, and the idea was hatched when Steve was still around, and merely put on hold because Intel were still delivering quite well back then, so that's all actually Steve. The iPhone 12 design is actually the iPhone 4 design for crying out loud. Apple is where it is entirely because of Steve, but he's gone now. There is no other truly innovative genius at Apple anymore, just a bunch of people that have managed to not kill the gravy train. Bless them for that. Where is the hardware innovation going to come from for the Apple car?

And then there's software. The software quality control at Apple continues to decline. macOS is a buggy mess. Siri is nothing but a joke. Would you even be brave enough to drive an Apple car controlled by Apple software? I wouldn't. Seriously, I'm not even joking, there's no way I'm putting my life in the hands of Apple bugsville.

Tesla, as weird as they are, are driven by Elon's innovative crackpot genius. He took the electric car market and turned it entirely on its head. Sure, the models S, 3, X, Y are mostly just boring looking cars, but they did change the world. The CyberTruck is an insanely innovative and eye-popping design. Yep, they are full of annoying quirks, and I don't actually want one anymore now that the other manufacturers are catching up. Except the CyberTruck, I definitely want one of those, simply because of how damn cool they look, as I wish it didn't have Tesla's annoying nana-is-watching-over-you software control freakiness.
agreed, more people should read your post before taking shots at elon, not to mention he also flipped the space industry on it's head, reusable rockets? that stuff is no longer science fiction.
 
He's completely right! Apple is boring. Their products are lacking good design (new iMac, recent iPhones, AirPods Max...). I look forward to Tim's departure. Guy's just interested in numbers.
 
Genuinely curious. What "revolutionary products" would MacRumors members like to see Apple come out with? An industry-changing product like the iPhone isn't exactly a product that companies come out with frequently. They're relatively rare.
That's really hard to say, but I'm impressed with more than just a full product line. Changing and shedding old technology crutches, to me, is innovation. So right now, they're riding on the M1 in my eyes, and in a couple of years it will be something else.
 
Genuinely curious. What "revolutionary products" would MacRumors members like to see Apple come out with? An industry-changing product like the iPhone isn't exactly a product that companies come out with frequently. They're relatively rare.
There are two products Apple needs. A iPad that can operate as a iPhone. A headless Mac that is more capable then a Mini but costs way less then a Mac Pro.
 
He's completely right! Apple is boring. Their products are lacking good design (new iMac, recent iPhones, AirPods Max...). I look forward to Tim's departure. Guy's just interested in numbers.
Tim is a supply chain expert, not a bean counter. He's interested in refining Apple as a whole.
 
You are out of your mind. Tesla's software strategy is stuck in 2015 compared to their competitors. Range is not nearly as important as you might think, the majority of cars on the road are just used to commute - and a better fit and finish is something people who sit in traffic all day want to see. Tesla's got enthusiasts behind it but they are not ahead, they're in a place where they will be leapfrogged. You could have the most efficient battery in the world but when you're priced up against a car by a manufacturer that understand quality interiors, you're going to lose out.
i'm not out of my mind because these check boxes are what consumers look for when buying EV. legacy auto mfg already released their EV but yet hardly anyone seen them on the road, if you think tesla is on the wrong side of the future, why is there a solid 7 month wait list for their model Y, a waitlist i'm on.
 
There are two products Apple needs. A iPad that can operate as a iPhone. A headless Mac that is more capable then a Mini but costs way less the a Mac Pro.
iPad can make calls from your iPhone, I find that to be more than enough. M1 Mac Mini is pretty much the more capable mini that costs way less than a Mac Pro, and it's supposedly getting an M1 Pro update.
 
He says this ahead of a rumored AR/VR headset announcement, and an eventual years-in-the-making Apple Car in the future.

What do we have to look forward to at Tesla? I’m not joking, is there something they’re hyping up or is he just pretending there’s something exciting coming?
 
Tesla is about to get hit by a wave of better quality EV's coming out of Europe like they've never seen. Tesla no longer gets the tax benefit but Polestar does, and this Polestar 3 (and 4 and 5 shortly thereafter) is going to be a serious competitor being built in the US with no Chinese tariffs to increase prices.
I think you missed out a small bit that Mach E was the 2nd most selling EV in US in 2021. It was also the 3rd highest globally.

I think Ford F150 Lighting launching much before Cybertruck would further impact Tesla sales.
 


Tesla design chief Franz von Holzhausen recently commented on Apple's design principles and product launches, lamenting that Apple doesn't deliver something "to look forward to."

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During a podcast interview with Spike Feresten of Spike's Car Radio (via iPhone in Canada and Sawyer Merritt), Holzhausen said that Apple's devices are "just a continuation" and a "slight refinement on the same thing."

He also said that he "hates to say it" but he wears an Apple Watch "just because of the fitness thing side to it. Otherwise I haven't really found much purpose to it, other than the fitness part."

Holzhausen is responsible for designing the Tesla Model S, the Model 3, the Model X, and the Model Y, along with the unreleased Cybertruck. He has been with Tesla since 2008, and before that, he was the chief of design at Mazda and led the design of the Mazda Kabura concept car.

Apple and Tesla have a long history of poaching employees from one another, and Tesla CEO Elon Musk has also publicly sniped at Apple. Back in 2015, Musk famously called Apple the "Tesla Graveyard," and claimed that "if you don't make it at Tesla, you go work at Apple."

Article Link: Tesla Design Chief on Apple Products: 'There's Nothing to Look Forward To'
Wow, what’s so innovative about a vehicle with a wheel in each corner? ?
 
The thing is, iterative advances in big volume products is about all you can expect, whether it’s a smart phone or vehicle. That being said, Apple’s release of their M1 chips was huge and exciting because it changed the expectation for what was possible in terms of performance and efficiency with their MBP’s and MBA’s. He’s also downplaying the Apple Watch and I guarantee he’s got it set up to alert him to text messages, emails, Slack, not to mention seeing the time, temperature, date, etc. He’s not just using if for workout tracking.
 
uk is one little market, uk is not gonna make or break tesla's profitability, china and us on the other hand. the incentives here in the states has basically dried up to the point where its irelevent.
Never said it was. But it is a pretty big market.
 
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