] by Sam Hutchings @medium.com - thoughts on the rumoured apple car
[WHY]
] background
] 2013 - rumours started surfacing about apple buying Tesla, Tesla CEO confirmed talks but denied any aquisition
] 2014 - Tesla open sourced its patents on electric cars
] 2015 - Apple hires mercedes benz engineer, Johann Jungwirth, as head of Mac Systems Engineering, was head of connected car and head unit
] 2015 - Apple was linked to a series of black Chevrolet trucks driving across the USA with cameras mounted on the top. part of their street-level mapping endeavour for iOS 9 and Mac OS X 10.11,OR points towards an autonomous Apple Car
+] apple offering hiring bonuses to Tesla battery engineers,
] why would apple make a car
] apple looks for 2 things when it creates a product or enters a market, immense interest or passion, much better than competition
] example ipod -
] example iphone - revolutionary design that now influences every modern smartphone design
] example ipad -
] apple watch -
] passion
] jobs was a car lover, same with Jony Ive, Marc Newson has designed a car, ] Eddy Cue is on the board of Ferrari
] experience
] car ownership is not for everyone - from the sales model/experience, repairs, fuel
] apple car would likely be electric - less repairs, no fuel, apple store ownership experience. A better experience
] a superior info tainment system
] Apple is becoming a lifestyle company
] expanding - Apple TV, CarPlay, Apple Pay, iCloud and iMessage. They’ve recently taken a step into health with Health.app for the iPhone, plumbing all the data from your wearables and lifestyle gadgets into a central, secure database on your phone
] Apple are not just about creating great computers; they’re about creating great products?—?hardware, software and services?—?that enhance people’s lives
] what if - its not a car
] Apple experiments with lots of different products to see how feasible they are.
] iPhone and iPad were in the lab for years before they became real products that shipped and you could buy. Apple Watch was 3 years in the making.
] some of the hires Apple has made line up more with expanding CarPlay into a full-blown in-car system, perhaps overwriting the in-car systems that most manufacturers use today I can see Apple providing great value in improving CarPlay and pushing for better computer hardware, especially screens and graphics capability, in cars.
] summary
] There is evidence that Apple is working on something to do with the car industry. Whilst it may not be a full-blown self-driving car, where there’s smoke there does tend to be a fire. The minimum I would expect from what we’re seeing is a bigger bet placed on CarPlay,
] I kinda hope that Apple is working on some kind of automobile. Currently there is really only one player in the electric car market, and that is Tesla Motors. I do think we need some more choice and competition within the electric car space. Apple is well known for entering industries and turning them upside down. It often spurs its competitors on to make better products