mark
fire starter
Posts: 1,560
|
Post by mark on Mar 11, 2024 5:19:06 GMT -8
|
|
aapl
fire starter
Posts: 186
|
Post by aapl on Mar 11, 2024 6:53:07 GMT -8
DED's weekly missive is posted: Apple Vision Pro will be the platform for the killer VR app, not Meta - link
|
|
4aapl
Moderator
Posts: 3,656
|
Post by 4aapl on Mar 11, 2024 8:15:05 GMT -8
Isn't that always the tough part? There's styling design, and there's utility. The tough part is finding some compromise in between, but that acceptable compromise varies so much with the item and market, along with the design sense at the time. We talk about the design of the iPhone (basic constant dimensions, so tiny differences are sometimes talked up) or cars (a lot more design possibilities, but boxy "max volume per parking spot size" might be great in an Amazon van or "Adventure vehicle" (pack lots of stuff and be able to stand up), but takes hits at speed on base mileage and just doesn't look great. Thinking more recent than the Aztec, there's at least one rev of the Nissan Armada.) OTOH, there are some things that are defined on sizing, and have a lot less room for overall design, while still selling a ton and needing room to differentiate between the low, medium, high, and very high end. I'm thinking appliances. Especially refrigerators and built-in ovens, but really across the board. It's amazing to look at all of the vehicle designs out there, as "concept" designs, built concept vehicles, and even actual vehicles. In looking at the FJ Cruiser, which has grown on me over time and I probably should have just picked up a new one a decade ago, it was one of those rare beasts that went through the concept design->concept show vehicle->production and stayed relatively the same. But even a decade after production ended for the US, the new Land Cruiser looks pretty close, and the Revani Tank is a pretty close duplicate. While most of those concept vehicles at car shows look nothing like the end product, it was fun to pull up toyota.jp and see all of the vehicles they are selling that we don't have in the US (including the diesels made by a 3rd party where emissions data was faked). There's things like delivery vans, tiny vehicles, and boxy minivans. Like this, the Daihatsu Thor aka Toyota Roomy or Tank en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daihatsu_ThorI didn't even know about "Kei cars". Even in those, there's a mix of utility vs style. That Suzuki Cappuccino looks like a smaller Miata. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kei_caren.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_concept_vehicles_(2010–2019) (take a look at that e-Palette. Boxy is fine, in a low speed bus. That's all the long winded round about way of saying that especially with vehicles, there tends to be a lot of concepts or concept vehicles that really aren't anything that would get released. Sometimes designers just have to get something out of their head, having fun creating something, while exploring it in life size format. Cars seem to be one of the areas where there is a lot of leeway to really design something different, even if there are some relative standards (normally 4 wheels, a windshield, some side mirrors, some doors, a passenger compartment, and some crumple zones if it gets up to speed). But just because Apple made a design at some point, that people aren't getting in trouble over sharing, doesn't mean that Apple was thinking of releasing that design. But it does point out the challenges that Apple had, of utility vs design, while knowing it would be compared with different Apple products, but also an example of an Apple product. Even without the complexity of producing a full vehicle, it seems full of problems while also forcing Apple to lose focus. Must be a slow day. Nice to see AAPL up a bit again.
|
|
Ted
fire starter
Posts: 882
|
Post by Ted on Mar 11, 2024 8:23:27 GMT -8
They sure need something Apple related to write about, and the articles being complete nonsense is of course SOP. 🙄 For lack of any real Apple news, this shite might garner a few eyeballs...
|
|
|
Post by aaplcrazie on Mar 11, 2024 8:35:11 GMT -8
Ok this is a little weird as our very own Tim Shows up in a Promo Video for Porsche's new Taycan Turbo GT Electric. Along with the AVP and MacBooks etc.... Oh hey so were killing our Multi Million Dollar "Car Project" but here I'am in another Car Manufactures Promo 🎥 Porsche Taycan Vroooom
|
|
4aapl
Moderator
Posts: 3,656
|
Post by 4aapl on Mar 11, 2024 9:30:43 GMT -8
Ok this is a little weird as our very own Tim Shows up in a Promo Video for Porsche's new Taycan Turbo GT Electric. Along with the AVP and MacBooks etc.... Oh hey so were killing our Multi Million Dollar "Car Project" but here I'am in another Car Manufactures Promo 🎥 They did push AVP a bit, and Tim pushed what worked out to a "you guys did very well with focused motivated teams, just like Apple does". Glancing over at Car and Driver for pricing (88k-188k), it looks like it did very well, while being more balanced than some competitors in the pure acceleration category (Plaid). www.caranddriver.com/porsche/taycan-2023 www.caranddriver.com/reviews/a38423992/2021-tesla-model-s-plaid-by-the-numbers/ And after the 2 talked about AVP, it was interesting to hear the "and we look forward to seeing you in person" line. It seems like that is going to continue to be a marketing push, of AVP not being a hole you fall into to stay away from real life. Fun stuff. Thanks for the link!
|
|
Dave
Member
"It's tough to make predictions, especially about the future." Yogi Berra
Posts: 4,123
|
Post by Dave on Mar 11, 2024 9:33:33 GMT -8
I’ve read, some years ago, that the toy cars that we played with when we were kids have a great influence on the designs that we like and when we’re adults and have the financial freedom to choose that is what we look for. A chance to have your dream car. Car companies keep track of Hotwheels and Matchbooks sales looking for the designs and colors that are popular knowing that in the future that is what will likely sale. As a general rule people are very predictable, if you know which data to look at.
|
|
|
Post by nwjade on Mar 11, 2024 9:45:16 GMT -8
Ok this is a little weird as our very own Tim Shows up in a Promo Video for Porsche's new Taycan Turbo GT Electric. Along with the AVP and MacBooks etc.... Oh hey so were killing our Multi Million Dollar "Car Project" but here I'am in another Car Manufactures Promo 🎥 Being a 911 owner for many years needless to say I'm a big Porsche fan and likewise of course Apple/aapl Thanks for posting the video, the 'to be continued aspect' is very interesting...
|
|
mark
fire starter
Posts: 1,560
|
Post by mark on Mar 11, 2024 10:31:07 GMT -8
Isn't that always the tough part? There's styling design, and there's utility. The tough part is finding some compromise in between, but that acceptable compromise varies so much with the item and market, along with the design sense at the time. I designed products for 40+ years, actual consumer products that ended up on shelves, and then in consumers homes, pockets, and cars. And while every single time, there were all sorts of design and engineering challenges, in the end the real "tough part" was making sure the product would be profitable. I'm 100% sure that the main reason Apple decided to cancel the car project is because they saw no path towards adequate profitability. I have to laugh when I see so many Apple devotees complain bitterly about the cancellation, for all the various reasons, but mostly in their heart of hearts it is "I really wanted to own the kind of car Apple makes". But had Apple created a division to make cars, and then it grew to perhaps 30% or even 50% of Apple business, and then suddenly they all realize that Apple gross margins which were 40-45% suddenly dropped to 30% or lower, and in weak years to 15%, they would complain MUCH MORE bitterly. Because that is literally what happens when you have $X selling at 45% margin and you add another $1/2 X at 15% margins. And then sometimes that new business line has a bad year, and instead of 15%, it's only 8%. And then, because you are earning less, your stock price goes down, and because the gross margin is always lower, your stock price remains lower.
|
|
Dave
Member
"It's tough to make predictions, especially about the future." Yogi Berra
Posts: 4,123
|
Post by Dave on Mar 11, 2024 11:09:23 GMT -8
Mark I totally agree with you. The need to make a good profit is first and foremost. And it’s important for companies to test new technologies and ideas hoping for a new revenue stream. But what bothers me is why it took Apple 10 long years to realize that designing and building an Apple Car was not in the corporations best interest. A couple of months of research and crunching numbers should have produced the same conclusion, and for a lot less money. I guess there’s no reason to cry over ten billion dollars down the drain.
|
|
coma
Member
Posts: 523
|
Post by coma on Mar 11, 2024 11:44:22 GMT -8
Ten billion dollars would have added .65¢ to each share of AAPL . . . :/
|
|
mark
fire starter
Posts: 1,560
|
Post by mark on Mar 11, 2024 11:58:56 GMT -8
Mark I totally agree with you. The need to make a good profit is first and foremost. And it’s important for companies to test new technologies and ideas hoping for a new revenue stream. But what bothers me is why it took Apple 10 long years to realize that designing and building an Apple Car was not in the corporations best interest. A couple of months of research and crunching numbers should have produced the same conclusion, and for a lot less money. I guess there’s no reason to cry over ten billion dollars down the drain. As I posted a few weeks ago, I think what happened was that the first 5 years, the project was simply a side research project without any particular product in mind. Then they started to seriously think about doing a real product (there were rumors of contract car manufacturers starting, etc). Meanwhile, a year later, the auto industry began their great upheaval due to covid and the supply chain issues. At the same time, EVs started ascending slowly. Tesla was still fledgling, and their continued success was in great doubt. Then suddenly, once the 3 and Y became popular, Tesla showed great margins (for an auto company), and really did ship products that were "good enough" with good software, with regular updates and feature additions. Apple evaluated all that, and then realized that their own product would be better than Teslas, but not THAT MUCH better, so they wouldn't be able to sell enough of them at a premium to make a decent margin. Finally, over the last 12-24 months, Teslas great margins shrunk, so Apple saw that if even a premier, or close to premier, auto manufacturer can't earn decent margin, then they aren't likely to either (especially considering that they would sell far fewer cars due to the higher price). Cars are not like phones, if a "good enough" Samsung phone is $800 discounted to $600, then it isn't a big hurdle to convince someone to buy an iPhone at $800 or only $200 more. But if a "good enough" Tesla sells for $45k, then it's a HUGE hurdle to convince someone to buy an iCar for $70k, or $25k more. And therefore, Apple decided to kill the project. And that's why it took 10 years ... first 5 just a side research program (every big tech company has those), then 2-3 years of serious design work with an actual product in mind (while Tesla showed good margins), then 2 years of realizing that the product will never provide sufficient margin (as Tesla margins dropped to only slightly above normal auto industry level).
|
|
|
Post by nwjade on Mar 11, 2024 11:59:30 GMT -8
Mark I totally agree with you. The need to make a good profit is first and foremost. And it’s important for companies to test new technologies and ideas hoping for a new revenue stream. But what bothers me is why it took Apple 10 long years to realize that designing and building an Apple Car was not in the corporations best interest. A couple of months of research and crunching numbers should have produced the same conclusion, and for a lot less money. I guess there’s no reason to cry over ten billion dollars down the drain. Perhaps not all down the drain, some of the knowledge/tech and patents gained must have transfer value to other use cases. Another way of looking at it is, 10 billion spent over 10 years (1 billion per year) compare that to Apple's annual dividend payout of 14 billion, 90 billion in buybacks and 30 billion for R&D. Huge amounts in comparison. I have to think Apple Mgnt felt they could easily afford the spend.
|
|
JDSoCal
Member
Aspiring oligarch
Posts: 4,186
|
Post by JDSoCal on Mar 11, 2024 15:04:24 GMT -8
We're all snarky cynics now. Gurman loved to report on all the problems in the Apple Car program, but as soon as they cancel it, it's a sad lost opportunity. Just click drama. But we are cynics here too, complaining about all the money spent (or not spent). I'd rather Apple err on the side of R&D spending than sitting on cash in a money market account. I agree with Mark that margins matter, but Steve always found a way to bake them in. Apple does sell a $1000+ cellphone. I suspect the car's problems were more practical than financial, but we probably won't know until someone writes Tim Cook's authorized biography. Speaking of margins, the consumer tier Vision Pro is going to be $2K cheaper? Good for Tim getting with Porsche to show the use cases of the AVP. Would like to see more of that. I'm a Porsche fan too (at least since that Nazi SOB Ferdinand died), but it is curious: A Taycan faster 0-60 than the flagship 911 Turbo S? But in 2025 the Turbo S hybrid is coming, which should be able to beat it since the current Turbo S does 0-100km in 2.5 seconds. Very seriously considering a 2025 TS, but need to sell my Tesla (stock) first. Is it verboten car talk when we are well off of ATH's?
BTW just got my Macbook Air M3 today, but I have to say I'm not really thrilled with the black, and will probably swap it for the silver. I haven't had a Mac since law school (mid-90's). I used to be a Mac guy, but now I feel like a NOOB. I didn't even know the Finder was still a thing.
|
|
mark
fire starter
Posts: 1,560
|
Post by mark on Mar 11, 2024 18:12:13 GMT -8
We're all snarky cynics now. Gurman loved to report on all the problems in the Apple Car program, but as soon as they cancel it, it's a sad lost opportunity. Just click drama. But we are cynics here too, complaining about all the money spent (or not spent). I'd rather Apple err on the side of R&D spending than sitting on cash in a money market account. Oh, I absolutely agree. Any tech company that doesn't spend on R&D will eventually begin to wither away. Even if a good percentage of the time, the R&D doesn't result in a new product [line]. I WANT Apple to spend on R&D, that's what brings in all the future new business. Practical and financial end up being one and the same. Especially in the car business. The car business has margin tightly linked to quantity. In order to have a high margin, you MUST have a high price which leads to low volume. But low volume only works for niche products (McLaren for example). But low volume doesn't do a thing for Apple because only high volume things can move the needle. So they have a catch-22, do low volume/high-price/high margin/very nice product but not really affect the overall company numbers wise. Or do a higher volume product, lower price, lower margin, not quite as nice product .... and enjoy the lower margins which dilutes the overall value of the company as described above. My favorite color is space gray. My current MacBook Pro 14" is space gray. My first MacBook Pro was silver (that's all they had in 2012). Finder is indeed still a thing.
|
|
4aapl
Moderator
Posts: 3,656
|
Post by 4aapl on Mar 12, 2024 7:56:38 GMT -8
Practical and financial end up being one and the same. Especially in the car business. The car business has margin tightly linked to quantity. In order to have a high margin, you MUST have a high price which leads to low volume. But low volume only works for niche products (McLaren for example). But low volume doesn't do a thing for Apple because only high volume things can move the needle. So they have a catch-22, do low volume/high-price/high margin/very nice product but not really affect the overall company numbers wise. Or do a higher volume product, lower price, lower margin, not quite as nice product .... and enjoy the lower margins which dilutes the overall value of the company as described above. Sounds just like the Apple Vision Pro. "But it's different because they are starting a whole new market!" Sort of, though there is a VR market out there (you can go all the way back to the VR stations in some malls back in the mid to late 80's), and some AR too (Google Glass). So it's a new market for Apple, but not entirely a new market. Apple has done this most times, coming in at the high pro end, and then coming down. But IMO Tesla made it the most obvious, with the Roadster. Come in at a high price, and limited availability works well with limited production, while helping pay off part of that R&D. Apple has done the same with various things (especially the iPod, but also the edition level Watch). It's the combination of pent up demand, excitement of being a first user, and some section of the market having plenty of spending money. Heck, these days it adds to it with all of the online reviewers, with people willing to pay full price and work at it to get the product (thinking of some Tacoma reviewers who went to Texas). If it were easy, Apple wouldn't have needed to think about getting into the market, because someone else would already be doing it. And IMO, some of the current companies that produce vehicles at the same prices but with less reliability/longevity wouldn't still exist. There is a moat. But if Apple isn't trying to become a Samsung or GE with their toes in all sorts of markets, then I think they just decided to keep their focus tight, aided by seeing the opportunity be less advantageous.
|
|