
Apple Hires BlackBerry Talent with Car Project Turning to Self-Driving Software - greglindahl
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-07-28/apple-taps-blackberry-talent-as-car-project-takes-software-turn
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joezydeco
QNX has a long and solid history, way before Blackberry bought them as a Hail
Mary play.

Calling Dan Dodge "Blackberry Talent" is bullshit.

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greglindahl
Apple's stuck in an interesting place:

If Apple is going to produce cars, other car companies don't want to cooperate
with them. CarPlay, sure, but not much else.

If Apple isn't going to produce cars, it's still a tough market for autonomous
driving software. The biggest car companies are doing their own in-house,
there are several independent companies already working on it, and car
companies may end up just buying that software from the same vendors that they
buy things like adaptive cruise control from.

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askafriend
I honestly don't think Apple is working on a car. Rather, I think Apple is
building a more involved (than CarPlay) technology platform for vehicles where
they deliver the whole experience and car manufacturers essentially become the
next phone carriers. I think the whole narrative about Apple building an
actual car is just to distract from the real thing they're building.

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michaelscott
I hear you, but Apple isn't known for developing in this way. Their focus is
on controlling the entire experience, hardware to software. Still, anything is
possible

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rch
The iPhone evolved from the iPod, but it's harder to see obvious early
footholds in the automobile industry. High-end consumer, or fleet vehicles
with a well specified use maybe?

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greglindahl
Car companies already cooperate closely with Apple to ensure that bluetooth
works well with iPhones. CarPlay is the next step forward. So there are 2
footholds already.

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rch
Still a Big jump from CarPlay to an actual car though.

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bennalle
I think a software-centric approach is probably the smartest way to approach
driverless cars and ultimately probably the most lucrative. It's pretty clear
now that most people will shift from owning cars to simply paying for access
to cars (a driverless Uber), so the market of selling cars will probably be
pretty small.

I would imagine Apple would be more interested in a bigger market with higher
profit margins. Software that enables the future of driverless cars seems more
likely to be that place. That said I wouldn't be surprised if Apple still made
a high end driverless car, because it would fit with Apple being a luxury
brand and the market will probably still exist in ten years.

