aapl
fire starter
Posts: 186
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Post by aapl on Mar 7, 2024 3:12:23 GMT -8
Correction...AAPL is now up slightly just before the open $169.57 +$0.45 (+0.26%)
Why do I have the feeling someone (options traders?) will push it back up by 2-3 dollars every Friday for a couple months?
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Post by firestorm on Mar 7, 2024 8:24:10 GMT -8
I just read a history of the iterations of the Apple Car over the past ten years. I think the ultimate goal of a self-driving car was nonsense from the beginning, and that's where Apple went wrong. I think the more utilitarian Apple "bread box" car that looked rather like a Volkswagen van had promise, with a luxury interior and great seating and great electronics, but it needed to have a steering wheel and accelerator rather than having the car making all the decisions. It didn't need to be a sports car to compete with the world's automakers with the most prestige among techies; what it did need to do was come up with a whole new approach to the look and feel of a car. They were close, but lacked focus.
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Post by duckpins on Mar 7, 2024 10:08:49 GMT -8
Read parts of that long article as well. Sounds like the concept was dumb, why literally reinvent the wheel instead of buying TSLA or Porsche? Lots goes into a car besides some software Apple might have been able to write.
SOXL might be added to the list of alternative investments. That is a leveraged ETF so sell some when it doubles or you have made lots of money. You get exposure to NVDA etc.
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Post by duckpins on Mar 7, 2024 10:35:10 GMT -8
FYI: SOXL up 10.%+ TQQQ 4.7% ARM 4% NVDA 3.7%
WCBR .7% Crowdstrike -7%
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4aapl
Moderator
Posts: 3,656
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Post by 4aapl on Mar 7, 2024 11:43:50 GMT -8
I just read a history of the iterations of the Apple Car over the past ten years. I think the ultimate goal of a self-driving car was nonsense from the beginning, and that's where Apple went wrong. I think the more utilitarian Apple "bread box" car that looked rather like a Volkswagen van had promise, with a luxury interior and great seating and great electronics, but it needed to have a steering wheel and accelerator rather than having the car making all the decisions. It didn't need to be a sports car to compete with the world's automakers with the most prestige among techies; what it did need to do was come up with a whole new approach to the look and feel of a car. They were close, but lacked focus. I think you would have to look into the motivation of why Apple is/was interested in cars. A big one is to protect their electronics halo. The entertainment unit in a car is relatively important now, but it would be much more important if the human no longer had to pay attention to the road. That will happen at some point, at least partially to mostly. (It was interesting to have a friend fly me across the country to pick up a truck, nearly 3 years ago. This was in an advanced 6 person turbo prop, but basically he was just in direct control to takeoff and land, with the routes taken care of by the computer. But he'd have to be on the radio, ready to respond. Sometimes it would be other flight paths, but mostly it was due to weather, changing direction or elevation a bit. But mostly it was a lot of time with the plane just doing its thing. Roads are different, being a defined, marked, and regulated path with a set of rules. It should be doable. The problem will be that eventually the non-automated part will likely be times when the computer has trouble, rather than just certain circumstances like takeoff/landing where you get a lot of practice. If the computer only throws driving at you when sometime outside expectations happens (6 foot tumbleweed blows in front of you, start sliding on ice, snow/ice/mud/bird poop covers some sensors), are you going to be ready and well trained for it?) Another is the self-driving opportunities, especially if it was felt that other companies wouldn't come up to speed quickly. Another is battery tech. And another is to just do something different but better. I have a feeling that this would be a functional thing, rather than just an aesthetic thing, but I do tend to focus more on function than fashion. There are a lot of things out there, but I just don't have the feeling that Apple wanted to be a 1-5% marketshare car company. And they had to see some huge synergistic pathways to even consider a normal car. But there are probably some good edge cases out there that they were looking at. What about Waymo? Self-driving and a taxi or car share, limiting the need for local parking while maximizing usage? And with Google, would they go the route of free or reduced fare if they showed you ads? They could even be geo-focused on your start and end points. With Apple, they could show off the latest and greatest gadgets, giving you a hands on demo of the AVP while the car does the driving. But I still think Apple was looking at the scale up, a way to run across multiple vehicles and brands. That's the push of CarPlay. That could be the push of self-driving/drivers-assist/safety features, making a platform that many companies then used. But that alone seems a step away from their normal focus, even if it would be like the AppleTV vs a complete TV. One of the videos with Tim said something like they were interested in all automation, and that the car was the mother of all automation problems. That could be telling, whether talking of having a moving automated thing, or just the training of a computer to learn and do something (ie AI). I don't know their motivations, and they likely changed over time. It would be interesting to know what all these employees were focused on. I hope but expect we will hear more about this over time, even if Tim and Apple keep part of it close to the chest for a while.
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bud777
fire starter
Posts: 1,353
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Post by bud777 on Mar 7, 2024 11:51:53 GMT -8
I just read a history of the iterations of the Apple Car over the past ten years. I think the ultimate goal of a self-driving car was nonsense from the beginning, and that's where Apple went wrong. I think the more utilitarian Apple "bread box" car that looked rather like a Volkswagen van had promise, with a luxury interior and great seating and great electronics, but it needed to have a steering wheel and accelerator rather than having the car making all the decisions. It didn't need to be a sports car to compete with the world's automakers with the most prestige among techies; what it did need to do was come up with a whole new approach to the look and feel of a car. They were close, but lacked focus. Who knows what reasons combined to doom the project? I am glad to see it gone, I worried that Apple was losing its' focus. There was one intriguing path that I thought might work. Gordon Murray ( the creator of the F1) designed a "city car" ( the T-25) which was then adapted to an EV called the T-27. These are worth looking up on Wikipedia. More importantly, he invented an entirely new manufacturing process. Instead of building the car out of stamped steel that is welded together as we have for the last 100 years, He made a tubular frame and covered it with composite panels. This cut weight drastically with all the ensuing benefits. The manufacturing process was called iStream. I thoutht it was a lock for Apple to just step in, adopt everything and add software. I don't know why this didn't happen. The T-25 was probably too small for the American market, but a larger design was not out of reach. I would have loved to have a lightweight sedan that drove itself. I encourage you to look a little deeper into the t-25 and t-27 and while you are at it check out the successor to the F-1, the t.50
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Dave
Member
"It's tough to make predictions, especially about the future." Yogi Berra
Posts: 4,125
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Post by Dave on Mar 7, 2024 12:27:39 GMT -8
If one prefers not to drive, there is an answer to that already, call Uber. It'll be cheaper and safer than buying an autonomous car.
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4aapl
Moderator
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Post by 4aapl on Mar 7, 2024 13:20:05 GMT -8
If one prefers not to drive, there is an answer to that already, call Uber. It'll be cheaper and safer than buying an autonomous car. Self-driving should have the benefit of added safety through faster reflexes and no loss of attention. But currently it, and most driver assist features, seem to work well with a strict set of rules but have trouble when you hit something strange. And from what I have heard from others, this is across a range of car makes, including Toyota, Tesla, Honda and Chevy. Uber drivers have the same potential problems, of reflexed and attention. Plus they might be logging too many hours, and you have to wait for them. Often people have an ownership preference, preferring to own instead of just rent when they need, across a large variety of things. Someone skiing at Northstar said they were thinking about buying a place in south lake tahoe, and wanted to know about it. But then when I asked where they would be moving from, he told me they already had 5 houses. I enjoy car trips, and most of driving. But I can see some advantages to self-driving too, beyond just the added (eventual) safety. But it's like an EV, or for that matter an Apple product. It doesn't have to be a perfect solution for every single person, every single time, immediately. More likely it is something that would initially work in some situations pretty well (In Nevada they approved self-driving on highways below 40mph, I believe. I don't know how many highways that actually means, since most have speed limits higher than that), with more capability added later. And that's pretty much how drivers assist and self-driving are right now. We'll see For a big there it seemed like AAPL was going to close in the green. I guess we'll have to wait on that too.
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