ATP

00:00:00 ◼   ► Margot, you're totally right.

00:00:01 ◼   ► Margot, you're totally right.

00:00:02 ◼   ► Margot, you're totally right.

00:00:05 ◼   ► Where does Apple use Core Data, John?

00:00:07 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:00:08 ◼   ► There's question marks after all those bullet points in the thing.

00:00:11 ◼   ► A bunch of people emailed us and told us and I couldn't find those emails.

00:00:16 ◼   ► So I think this is a follow-up from last week when I think Marco was saying that he didn't

00:00:22 ◼   ► know where Apple used Core Data and this was in response to it.

00:00:24 ◼   ► Core Data Sync in particular.

00:00:25 ◼   ► The iCloud Core Data Sync that was such a disaster.

00:00:29 ◼   ► Yes, not just plain old core data.

00:00:31 ◼   ► And this is in response to the idea that Apple...

00:00:35 ◼   ► Which API is this Apple dog food?

00:00:36 ◼   ► And by the way, we just had someone email us and say, "What does dog fooding mean?"

00:00:39 ◼   ► I sent him the Wikipedia link, but it just means using your own stuff.

00:00:43 ◼   ► Like if you're making an API in this specific case, and you don't use that API yourself,

00:00:47 ◼   ► chances are it won't be that great because you won't know the pain of using it.

00:00:49 ◼   ► You'll just be like, "We made this API for you.

00:00:51 ◼   ► Go use it."

00:00:52 ◼   ► But we don't know what it's like because we don't have to use it.

00:00:54 ◼   ► The suggestions that I think people sent us

00:00:57 ◼   ► for Apple applications that use core data iCloud syncing

00:01:00 ◼   ► are the Trailers app on iOS and syncing

00:01:03 ◼   ► for keyboard shortcuts between Mac and iOS.

00:01:06 ◼   ► Was that the only ones we sent, we got sent?

00:01:08 ◼   ► - That's the only ones I saw, yes.

00:01:09 ◼   ► - Yeah, and what's funny, so the Trailers app,

00:01:13 ◼   ► you know, fine, that's how much data is that actually syncing

00:01:16 ◼   ► between devices and yeah, that's, okay, fine.

00:01:19 ◼   ► Keyboard shortcuts sync.

00:01:22 ◼   ► I've actually heard many people complaining

00:01:25 ◼   ► that their shortcuts are not syncing properly.

00:01:27 ◼   ► So if that is using Core Data iCloud syncing,

00:01:31 ◼   ► that is really not a good recommendation for it.

00:01:34 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, if it's just two obscure apps, too,

00:01:36 ◼   ► that kind of, you know, there's exceptions

00:01:38 ◼   ► that prove the rule, that this is not something

00:01:39 ◼   ► that underlies their major apps,

00:01:41 ◼   ► unlike, for example, CloudKit,

00:01:42 ◼   ► which they're building major applications

00:01:44 ◼   ► like Photos and everything on top of,

00:01:45 ◼   ► where it's like, if that doesn't work,

00:01:46 ◼   ► people are gonna notice, whereas if the trailers app

00:01:49 ◼   ► or even keyboard shortcuts sync doesn't work,

00:01:51 ◼   ► maybe someone would be annoyed,

00:01:52 ◼   ► but it's not like it's destroying their family photos.

00:01:55 ◼   ► - Yeah, when I was, when was it?

00:01:58 ◼   ► It was when iOS 8 was in beta, I believe.

00:02:03 ◼   ► And I don't even think that I had upgraded

00:02:06 ◼   ► any of my devices to the beta at this point,

00:02:09 ◼   ► but my keyboard shortcuts sync was completely borked

00:02:14 ◼   ► until I had everything on iOS 8 and Yosemite.

00:02:17 ◼   ► And it was infuriating because I don't know

00:02:20 ◼   ► if you've noticed this about me, gentlemen,

00:02:21 ◼   ► but I tend to use emoji occasionally.

00:02:24 ◼   ► And I have shortcuts for most of my frequently used emoji

00:02:27 ◼   ► and I felt absolutely crippled without them.

00:02:30 ◼   ► It was a dark, dark time.

00:02:32 ◼   ► - I'm so sorry.

00:02:33 ◼   ► - Me too.

00:02:34 ◼   ► Anyway, all right.

00:02:36 ◼   ► So we talked in episode 102,

00:02:40 ◼   ► we talked in episode 102 about an interview

00:02:45 ◼   ► with Andy Matuszak that was in Objective-CIO

00:02:47 ◼   ► and Hendrik wrote in and said,

00:02:49 ◼   ► "Man, we should really talk about it."

00:02:50 ◼   ► So I guess we didn't really give it enough air time.

00:02:52 ◼   ► And I think one of you guys, I guess John,

00:02:55 ◼   ► had written a few things that we should probably

00:02:58 ◼   ► also bring up from that interview.

00:03:00 ◼   ► - It's just one thing.

00:03:01 ◼   ► And maybe we did talk about,

00:03:03 ◼   ► I vaguely remember talking about the thing,

00:03:04 ◼   ► but I don't remember this paragraph, the highlighted bit.

00:03:07 ◼   ► He's talking about React, but then,

00:03:09 ◼   ► Andy used to work for Apple.

00:03:11 ◼   ► So he talks about what it was like when he was at Apple,

00:03:15 ◼   ► when he was there.

00:03:15 ◼   ► He says, "One of the complaints I have

00:03:16 ◼   ► "about my time at Apple is that because the culture

00:03:18 ◼   ► doesn't value learning, nobody reads.

00:03:21 ◼   ► Nobody knows what's going on in the broader community.

00:03:23 ◼   ► People didn't know about React at all.

00:03:25 ◼   ► And this is a talk discussing React.

00:03:28 ◼   ► And reading that doesn't make me feel good,

00:03:31 ◼   ► because then it's like the bad ideas I have

00:03:33 ◼   ► about any big company, the idea that Apple's filled

00:03:36 ◼   ► with all these super smart people making amazing products,

00:03:38 ◼   ► but that it's sort of insular, that they're not,

00:03:42 ◼   ► like they're interested in what they're doing,

00:03:43 ◼   ► but not so much interested in what's going on elsewhere.

00:03:45 ◼   ► I don't know, like this is just one person's complaint about, you know, obviously one person

00:03:50 ◼   ► doesn't work in the whole company, they work in a small part of the company, and there's

00:03:53 ◼   ► obviously evidence that of places where this is not the case.

00:03:56 ◼   ► I would hold up Swift as an example.

00:03:58 ◼   ► It's clear that the design of Swift is heavily influenced by other languages, all of which

00:04:02 ◼   ► are being developed outside of Apple.

00:04:05 ◼   ► So it's obviously not as completely inward looking and insular as this complaint makes

00:04:11 ◼   ► it sound, but the idea that that could exist at all inside Apple is kind of disappointing

00:04:15 ◼   ► to me.

00:04:16 ◼   ► Yeah, and this is a fairly credible and relevant statement because Andy Matuszak was on UI

00:04:24 ◼   ► Kit in, I don't know exactly what capacity, but I think a pretty high one.

00:04:28 ◼   ► So he was right where the discussion of React would be most relevant, in UI Kit.

00:04:33 ◼   ► That's exactly where this is important.

00:04:35 ◼   ► He was there, and he is, as far as I'm aware, pretty well respected.

00:04:40 ◼   ► So I wouldn't take this comment lightly.

00:04:43 ◼   ► In fact, when I first read this, I was really surprised that it didn't get more attention.

00:04:51 ◼   ► Because to me, it's kind of a bombshell.

00:04:53 ◼   ► To say that because the culture doesn't value learning, nobody reads, nobody knows

00:04:59 ◼   ► what's going on in the broader community, those are big statements to make.

00:05:02 ◼   ► Especially from somebody like this, who I don't think he goes around throwing around

00:05:06 ◼   ► phrases like that lightly.

00:05:07 ◼   ► But they're also made by somebody who left, right?

00:05:10 ◼   ► And the person left probably because they weren't getting enough of like, you know,

00:05:13 ◼   ► there was new interesting novel things happening outside of Apple.

00:05:16 ◼   ► And Apple, in some respects, has to be more conservative because, you know, they've got

00:05:21 ◼   ► a big operation going on there.

00:05:22 ◼   ► They can't just be chasing after the newest shiny thing in all sorts of directions.

00:05:27 ◼   ► And as we've discussed on past shows, it seems like the technical resources at Apple are

00:05:32 ◼   ► fairly overextended in terms of like, it's very hard work, there are tight deadlines,

00:05:37 ◼   ► expected to do amazing things and put in long hours, that doesn't leave that much time left

00:05:42 ◼   ► to be sort of reading blogs about interesting new technology that may or may not influence.

00:05:46 ◼   ► And really, it ends up, if it's a personal interest, you read about it, but how relevant

00:05:50 ◼   ► is it?

00:05:51 ◼   ► Because it's like, what if you just come in one day, "Oh, I have an idea, guys!

00:05:53 ◼   ► Let's forget about this UI kit thing.

00:05:55 ◼   ► Let's do something that incorporates some of the ideas that I've seen elsewhere by reading

00:05:58 ◼   ► these programming blogs and looking at other frameworks."

00:06:01 ◼   ► They don't go, "Great, that's great!

00:06:02 ◼   ► Let's all replace UI kit!

00:06:04 ◼   ► Let's go do that!"

00:06:06 ◼   ► not something that happens. So if you're just doing it on your own, like the people who

00:06:10 ◼   ► are super interested in that I would imagine leave Apple because you're not going to get

00:06:14 ◼   ► to do that stuff at Apple. Very few people are going to get to make that kind of radical

00:06:18 ◼   ► decision and have it take place. And again, Swift is the example of it actually taking

00:06:22 ◼   ► place because a very important person had, you know, an idea influenced by lots of other

00:06:30 ◼   ► languages and managed to get it done. And even that was a fairly large effort over a

00:06:34 ◼   ► a long period of time and that's a situation

00:06:37 ◼   ► that's probably not going to repeat itself.

00:06:38 ◼   ► Like say Andy really loved React and the ideas inherent,

00:06:41 ◼   ► what could he do with those ideas at Apple

00:06:43 ◼   ► other than leave Apple and pursue something elsewhere

00:06:45 ◼   ► where he can use the stuff that he learned?

00:06:50 ◼   ► - One of the things that's really tough about consulting

00:06:54 ◼   ► is that if I do some sort of self-directed learning

00:06:58 ◼   ► outside of work because goodness knows

00:07:01 ◼   ► I'm not gonna have the time at work

00:07:02 ◼   ► unless I'm quote unquote on the bench

00:07:05 ◼   ► and not billing a client and not earning money

00:07:07 ◼   ► and generally a waste of space.

00:07:09 ◼   ► - Wait, did they actually use that phrase on the bench?

00:07:12 ◼   ► - I do, I think it's a common phrase.

00:07:14 ◼   ► That's certainly something I've always said

00:07:15 ◼   ► which is funny 'cause I'm not much of an athlete

00:07:17 ◼   ► and it comes from sports but whatever.

00:07:20 ◼   ► I don't know, maybe that's bothersome to most.

00:07:21 ◼   ► To me, that's not as bad as circle back

00:07:24 ◼   ► and keep me in the loop

00:07:25 ◼   ► and all the other godawful corporatisms.

00:07:27 ◼   ► - Parking lot.

00:07:28 ◼   ► - Parking lot, exactly.

00:07:31 ◼   ► But anyway, so if I do some self-directed learning, let's say, I don't know, maybe I

00:07:34 ◼   ► learn a little bit about Node for whatever reason.

00:07:37 ◼   ► The likelihood that I'm going to be able to bring that back to the office in a direct

00:07:41 ◼   ► way is virtually non-existent.

00:07:45 ◼   ► Now there's a lot of ways in which I can bring it back to the office in an indirect way.

00:07:50 ◼   ► For example, a more robust knowledge of JavaScript is going to serve me well when I'm writing

00:07:55 ◼   ► JavaScript for a web browser.

00:07:58 ◼   ► But the likelihood that I'm ever going to be asked to do a node project for work is

00:08:04 ◼   ► virtually non-existent.

00:08:05 ◼   ► And that's a bummer, and that sucks.

00:08:07 ◼   ► And it's not that we don't learn at work, but it's hard when what you're learning is

00:08:12 ◼   ► so far removed from what you're doing day to day.

00:08:16 ◼   ► And I could make, and I think John was making, a pretty solid argument that React, while

00:08:20 ◼   ► yes, it's all a UI, but the mechanisms are so far removed from what Apple does in UI

00:08:25 ◼   ► How do you really apply that if you're a UI kit engineer?

00:08:29 ◼   ► And all this is kind of so discontent and agitation like boy if you're really turned on by these exciting

00:08:36 ◼   ► developments that are happening elsewhere and then you go back to work and realize I

00:08:40 ◼   ► Can't like forget about it direct application of the knowledge like I could do I get to write node

00:08:44 ◼   ► But like I can't even incorporate these ideas into my work

00:08:47 ◼   ► To the degree that I think I should be able to like we get some idea some ideas are small and like yes

00:08:52 ◼   ► I can apply them to what I'm actually doing in this new UI kit framework

00:08:54 ◼   ► But some ideas are large and it's like this idea only makes sense at the scale of like

00:08:58 ◼   ► How is the API designed?

00:09:01 ◼   ► How is what is the model of UI interaction and like the model of react is just so much different than the model of UI

00:09:06 ◼   ► Kit, it's such a such a big idea that you know

00:09:10 ◼   ► It's like structure not like details that how do you apply that if you're not going to say I'm gonna make some whole new

00:09:16 ◼   ► You know UI paradigm and then that's not just not something you get to do

00:09:19 ◼   ► Yeah

00:09:21 ◼   ► All right, do we want to do a quick word from a friend and then we can talk about some car-related stuff?

00:09:29 ◼   ► Our first sponsor this week is our friends once again at Cards Against Humanity

00:09:35 ◼   ► Now last last time they sponsored us they sent John a toaster to review instead of doing a typical ad read

00:09:43 ◼   ► I actually have no ad copy for them. They didn't give me any so

00:09:46 ◼   ► This week they have sent John another toaster

00:09:51 ◼   ► John what did you think of your current toaster?

00:09:53 ◼   ► All right, no no context of this one if you want to know why the hell I'm talking about toasters listen to the last episode

00:09:59 ◼   ► This toaster is the Panasonic nbg

00:10:02 ◼   ► 110p great names

00:10:05 ◼   ► When I haven't listened to my old hypercritical toaster episode in a long time so but my recollection is that

00:10:14 ◼   ► Part something that I talked about on the show was the idea that I had seen toasters that

00:10:20 ◼   ► seem to use different technology to

00:10:23 ◼   ► To heat the food and I was like boy. This is great

00:10:26 ◼   ► I bet these are gonna heat up faster and heat more evenly and pretty soon all toasters will be like this

00:10:31 ◼   ► And but when I went to go buy toasters, I looked around I didn't see any high-tech toasters

00:10:35 ◼   ► Like maybe I was just imagining it that was just a fad in the 80s or 90s

00:10:39 ◼   ► I just forgot about it, but all the toasters were back to the same old, you know

00:10:42 ◼   ► Designs that I'd seen in the past. Well, this Panasonic toaster is very close to those sort of futuristic

00:10:48 ◼   ► You know advanced toasters that I was thinking of that

00:10:51 ◼   ► I thought all toasters would be like it has a heating element on the bottom

00:10:54 ◼   ► It looks sort of normal

00:10:55 ◼   ► But it's got a heating element two heating elements on the top one of which is near infrared and one of which is far infrared

00:11:01 ◼   ► One of them someone in the chat room tell me which is which I'm assuming it's the near gives off lots of visible light

00:11:08 ◼   ► So it's almost like the toaster has a big light inside it, but that's actually part of the heating element

00:11:12 ◼   ► Anyway, bottom line is this thing makes toast really fast

00:11:16 ◼   ► It was like a minute and 30 seconds faster than my big expensive toaster.

00:11:20 ◼   ► Wow.

00:11:21 ◼   ► And that's like double the speed, right?

00:11:23 ◼   ► And it was fairly even.

00:11:24 ◼   ► There's only one element on the bottom and two elements on the top.

00:11:26 ◼   ► So if you put four slices of toast in there, it's not quite as good as having two elements heating them.

00:11:31 ◼   ► But wow, is it definitely fast.

00:11:33 ◼   ► Is that faster than a slot toaster at making toast?

00:11:35 ◼   ► Because that's one of the advantages that the slot toaster people usually cite is that slot toasters apparently make toast faster.

00:11:41 ◼   ► Maybe. I don't know. I don't have one to time it against.

00:11:43 ◼   ► I just timed it against my other toaster.

00:11:45 ◼   ► But in other respects this toaster is weird like you as you expect from a toaster made by Panasonic

00:11:51 ◼   ► Which is not sort of a kitchen appliance brand at least not in this country like it's very vertical and upright

00:11:57 ◼   ► The controls are below the door instead of to the side

00:12:00 ◼   ► So it's like saving horizontal counter space the cord comes out of the front right corner of the toaster

00:12:04 ◼   ► I don't understand this design. Maybe it's meant to be tucked into something, but I don't think you're supposed to put it

00:12:10 ◼   ► You know have walls close to it. It's it's very confusing

00:12:14 ◼   ► um, and like it's got a power button on it. Have you ever seen a toaster with a power button? Not

00:12:19 ◼   ► like a power button to turn on to toast food, but a power button as in now the toaster is on,

00:12:23 ◼   ► now you can use the controls that are on the toaster. Like it, you know, it's on and off.

00:12:28 ◼   ► And so you need either, you either need to remember to turn it off or maybe you don't

00:12:32 ◼   ► remember to turn it on. I don't know. It was like, it does it have parasitic power loss?

00:12:35 ◼   ► If you don't turn the power off, it's very strange. And the controls in the front,

00:12:38 ◼   ► this is big on having presets where it's like, instead of, it does have controls for temperature

00:12:43 ◼   ► and controls for time, all of which are digital, and the temperature settings are like five

00:12:47 ◼   ► or six little different settings that you can set and you don't have to do each time.

00:12:50 ◼   ► But it also has buttons for various types of food. And if I had to guess what these,

00:12:56 ◼   ► you know, what kind of buttons you would have on a toaster, there are six of them, I would

00:12:59 ◼   ► not have guessed. The first one is toast. Fine, I guessed that one. Second one is waffle.

00:13:04 ◼   ► Frozen waffle. Yeah, Eggos. The third button is a roll, and it also says reheat. So I guess

00:13:10 ◼   ► your reheating rolls. The fourth one is frozen pizza. Fifth one is quick reheat

00:13:15 ◼   ► and it shows a chicken leg. And the last one is hash brown and it shows frozen.

00:13:20 ◼   ► Bread, waffle, roll, pizza, chicken, hash brown. Like I don't... these buttons confuse me.

00:13:27 ◼   ► I feel like if they were just gone and you just had to use the normal

00:13:30 ◼   ► controls that would be better. But anyway this is a very interesting toaster.

00:13:34 ◼   ► I think this was the sweet home pick for the best toaster. It toast bread really

00:13:37 ◼   ► fast, it's kind of small, you can't fit four full-size pieces of bread into it,

00:13:42 ◼   ► the tray does slide out when you open the door, it has a lot of things to

00:13:46 ◼   ► recommend that it's not bad but it's it's pretty darn weird. It seems like it

00:13:50 ◼   ► might be, do you think it would be a fair pick if you had, like you do, concerns

00:13:55 ◼   ► about counter space usage? It's very high though and like the thing is I'll give

00:14:00 ◼   ► up, like it's just about like half an inch or an inch too narrow to put two

00:14:04 ◼   ► slices of bread side by side in it and it's frustrating you know like if you

00:14:07 ◼   ► try to put it says a four slice toaster but you gotta have some pretty darn

00:14:10 ◼   ► small bread you cannot get four and it's frustrating when you get something

00:14:14 ◼   ► that's like just a little bit like because you can fit them in there if you

00:14:17 ◼   ► kind of wedge it and smush them together and that that just doesn't feel

00:14:21 ◼   ► comfortable so I wouldn't sacrifice I would I would give up that extra inch of

00:14:26 ◼   ► counter space easily just be able to fit four slices of toast in it but can't

00:14:29 ◼   ► argue with speed super fast the bread slice count that a toaster advertises

00:14:34 ◼   ► that can toast at once.

00:14:35 ◼   ► It's kind of like the number of people

00:14:37 ◼   ► that tents advertise they can sleep.

00:14:39 ◼   ► - Sleeps four hobbits.

00:14:41 ◼   ► - Like you basically always have to like add two.

00:14:44 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:14:45 ◼   ► - John, how do you think this toaster ranks

00:14:47 ◼   ► among the other now two that you have?

00:14:50 ◼   ► - It's tough because it has a lot of things

00:14:52 ◼   ► to recommend it over the previous toaster,

00:14:53 ◼   ► but the previous toaster is just so much more normal.

00:14:56 ◼   ► Like it's slower, but I think that the previous one

00:14:59 ◼   ► did a better job at four slices of bread.

00:15:00 ◼   ► It actually fit four slices.

00:15:02 ◼   ► it seemed to heat them more evenly.

00:15:04 ◼   ► The controls were definitely more conventional.

00:15:07 ◼   ► I would probably pick this weird, crazy, fancy toaster

00:15:09 ◼   ► over the previous one,

00:15:10 ◼   ► just because at least it has some headline advantages.

00:15:13 ◼   ► The other one is like, just does everything okay.

00:15:16 ◼   ► I think I would, I don't know, it's a tough choice.

00:15:18 ◼   ► I think I would probably just keep wedging the bread

00:15:22 ◼   ► in there and just be happy that it toasts really fast.

00:15:24 ◼   ► As opposed to the other one, which is just kind of like,

00:15:27 ◼   ► you know, the dials and all that business,

00:15:29 ◼   ► this one doesn't have the dial problem.

00:15:30 ◼   ► You set the, you only have like six settings to set it,

00:15:32 ◼   ► but once you find out which of those six settings

00:15:34 ◼   ► works best for your bread, you don't have to change it.

00:15:36 ◼   ► You just hit the power button, hit toast.

00:15:38 ◼   ► I think I'd go with the fancy one,

00:15:39 ◼   ► although I would have complaints about it all the time.

00:15:43 ◼   ► - You?

00:15:44 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:15:44 ◼   ► - Unlike my fancy toaster,

00:15:46 ◼   ► which the only complaint I have about it

00:15:47 ◼   ► is the stupid spring in the door,

00:15:48 ◼   ► which apparently is only on my particular unit.

00:15:51 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:15:52 ◼   ► - Nice.

00:15:53 ◼   ► - All right, well, thanks a lot to Cards Against Humanity

00:15:55 ◼   ► for sponsoring our show.

00:15:56 ◼   ► Once again, check them out, Cards Against Humanity.

00:15:59 ◼   ► - All right, that was, I love this.

00:16:01 ◼   ► I love this series. - This is the best.

00:16:02 ◼   ► This is so good.

00:16:04 ◼   ► I hope it never stops.

00:16:05 ◼   ► - Can all of our sponsors do stuff like this?

00:16:07 ◼   ► - I hope so.

00:16:08 ◼   ► All right, so a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away,

00:16:12 ◼   ► that's a Star Wars reference, Jon.

00:16:14 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:16:17 ◼   ► I can't take myself seriously.

00:16:20 ◼   ► We started a car-themed podcast called "Neutral."

00:16:25 ◼   ► And at first everyone was like,

00:16:27 ◼   ► yay Marco and John are back and there's that other guy and then after a few

00:16:33 ◼   ► episodes they were like yay why are they still talking but all of a sudden like a

00:16:40 ◼   ► Phoenix except not really at all the neutrals kind of coming back from the

00:16:45 ◼   ► dead because here it is on our Apple themed technology show there is

00:16:52 ◼   ► humongous talk these days that Apple might make a car I don't know about

00:16:57 ◼   ► - I don't know about you two,

00:16:58 ◼   ► but I'm feeling pretty darn smug right now.

00:17:00 ◼   ► How about you guys?

00:17:01 ◼   ► - Oh, I'm scared that they're actually gonna do it.

00:17:03 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:17:05 ◼   ► I really don't think they should.

00:17:06 ◼   ► I mean, not knowing anything about

00:17:08 ◼   ► whether any of these rumors are credible.

00:17:10 ◼   ► I mean, to me, there's so many reasons

00:17:13 ◼   ► why this might be a terrible idea.

00:17:15 ◼   ► - Well, let's look at the sourcing here.

00:17:16 ◼   ► Let's see where, you know,

00:17:18 ◼   ► I have put a bunch of links in there.

00:17:19 ◼   ► Who is saying that Apple is doing anything

00:17:22 ◼   ► having to do with cars?

00:17:23 ◼   ► - Well, 9to5Mac.

00:17:25 ◼   ► - Right, so a 9to5Mac says something,

00:17:26 ◼   ► They talk about who they hired.

00:17:27 ◼   ► Hired the head of Mercedes Benz R&D.

00:17:29 ◼   ► I think he did like the interactive,

00:17:32 ◼   ► like the, you know, the screen type stuff

00:17:33 ◼   ► inside Mercedes Benz and their R&D thing.

00:17:36 ◼   ► It's like, all right, whatever.

00:17:37 ◼   ► Like, I mean, we know they have carplay.

00:17:40 ◼   ► That's not like a secret.

00:17:41 ◼   ► And you hired a guy who does the carplay-ish stuff

00:17:44 ◼   ► for Mercedes Benz, fine.

00:17:45 ◼   ► And it's on 9to5Mac.

00:17:46 ◼   ► It's probably credible.

00:17:47 ◼   ► This probably happened,

00:17:48 ◼   ► but it doesn't make us freak out too much.

00:17:50 ◼   ► - But then the Wall Street Journal

00:17:52 ◼   ► weighs in on the whole issue.

00:17:54 ◼   ► - Yeah, then the Wall Street Journal posted this big thing

00:17:56 ◼   ► that is pretty unequivocal.

00:17:58 ◼   ► Like the Wall Street Journal is not a rumor site

00:18:00 ◼   ► and their record, the track record for Apple is pretty good.

00:18:04 ◼   ► They tend to get a lot of these sort of what we assume

00:18:06 ◼   ► are controlled leaks and stuff.

00:18:08 ◼   ► But this was like, what was the title?

00:18:10 ◼   ► Apple gears up to challenge Tesla in electric cars.

00:18:12 ◼   ► And it's a big long article and it's talking all about

00:18:16 ◼   ► that they're secretly working, hundreds of employees

00:18:19 ◼   ► are secretly working, creating an Apple branded

00:18:22 ◼   ► electric car and that lots of important people

00:18:25 ◼   ► on the project and it was started a year ago and they've got engineers from Ford working

00:18:31 ◼   ► on it and the person who's making it was given permission to create a thousand person team

00:18:36 ◼   ► and to poach employees for different parts of the company.

00:18:38 ◼   ► All the same things that Apple kind of, you know, like when the iPhone was made with Forstol

00:18:42 ◼   ► going around and snagging all the good engineers from other parts of the company saying, "Do

00:18:46 ◼   ► you want to come work on our secret project?" or whatever.

00:18:49 ◼   ► An Apple spokesman declined to comment.

00:18:51 ◼   ► - Yeah, so we're not saying this is 100% slam dunk,

00:18:55 ◼   ► but suddenly you start to notice.

00:18:58 ◼   ► I had not been taking any of this Apple

00:18:59 ◼   ► and make a car stuff seriously at all,

00:19:01 ◼   ► because there are just so many reasons, like Marco said,

00:19:03 ◼   ► for Apple to hire all these car-related people.

00:19:06 ◼   ► They have CarPlay, that explains almost any car hire.

00:19:09 ◼   ► - I don't know about that.

00:19:10 ◼   ► I mean, CarPlay is really a very small move

00:19:14 ◼   ► in the grand scheme of things.

00:19:16 ◼   ► It's not a big initiative, as far as we can tell so far

00:19:19 ◼   ► from what we see on the outside.

00:19:21 ◼   ► And I should clarify, so I did,

00:19:23 ◼   ► my app is CarPlay compatible,

00:19:25 ◼   ► but none of what I'm saying is informed

00:19:28 ◼   ► by any inside knowledge of that.

00:19:29 ◼   ► I don't have any inside knowledge of that.

00:19:31 ◼   ► So, you know, CarPlay is a very small project

00:19:36 ◼   ► that as far as I can tell is having a very slow start.

00:19:39 ◼   ► It's used by very few cars, it's used by very few people,

00:19:44 ◼   ► it's used by very few apps,

00:19:45 ◼   ► and among the cars and people and apps

00:19:48 ◼   ► that are used with CarPlay, it usually gets mixed reviews.

00:19:53 ◼   ► And I don't know if it's the fault of the head units

00:19:56 ◼   ► or the controls or the software, I have no idea.

00:19:58 ◼   ► But it seems like a pretty tiny hobby project.

00:20:02 ◼   ► So I don't think they would be hiring allegedly hundreds

00:20:05 ◼   ► of people making the giant secret research lab

00:20:08 ◼   ► just to make the next version of CarPlay.

00:20:11 ◼   ► I don't think that's plausible.

00:20:12 ◼   ► - That's the information we can't confirm.

00:20:14 ◼   ► We can confirm things more or less

00:20:16 ◼   ► of who was hired to work at Apple.

00:20:17 ◼   ► And those are the confirmed facts of this case

00:20:20 ◼   ► that you can actually check on and like,

00:20:25 ◼   ► they hired the guy from Mercedes-Benz R&D.

00:20:29 ◼   ► Maybe they hired some guy from Ford,

00:20:31 ◼   ► you can figure that out as well, right?

00:20:32 ◼   ► But you can't confirm hundreds of people

00:20:34 ◼   ► being moved from division A to division B,

00:20:36 ◼   ► you know what I mean?

00:20:37 ◼   ► Like that's all just kind of rumors and stuff.

00:20:39 ◼   ► So what I'm saying is like all of the news

00:20:41 ◼   ► about a particular executive

00:20:42 ◼   ► or a particular hire of an important,

00:20:44 ◼   ► if we hear about Apple hiring somebody,

00:20:46 ◼   ► they're probably an important person.

00:20:47 ◼   ► and those are in the ones and twos.

00:20:49 ◼   ► And CarPlay totally explains any of those hires, right?

00:20:52 ◼   ► What it can explain, like you said, is,

00:20:54 ◼   ► if they really are, have hundreds or thousands of people

00:20:57 ◼   ► off in some off-site location working on a big project,

00:21:00 ◼   ► that doesn't seem like CarPlay in its current form.

00:21:02 ◼   ► But it could be many other things,

00:21:04 ◼   ► like helping to make, you know,

00:21:07 ◼   ► design the entire interior and interface of a car

00:21:10 ◼   ► that they don't happen to make.

00:21:11 ◼   ► That would be a significant undertaking

00:21:12 ◼   ► that would require lots of people

00:21:14 ◼   ► partnering with a specific car maker.

00:21:16 ◼   ► Oh, and by the way, mixed in with all this

00:21:18 ◼   ► are the stories from earlier months ago

00:21:22 ◼   ► of like Tesla's hiring away all the Apple employees

00:21:25 ◼   ► and going in both directions.

00:21:28 ◼   ► Tesla's hiring away Apple employees,

00:21:30 ◼   ► which kind of makes sense to me when I read those stories.

00:21:33 ◼   ► It's like, well, yeah,

00:21:35 ◼   ► who wouldn't want to go work for Tesla?

00:21:36 ◼   ► And it's kind of a shame

00:21:37 ◼   ► because what immediately popped into my mind

00:21:39 ◼   ► is Elon Musk walking through a garden

00:21:42 ◼   ► with some Apple engineer and saying,

00:21:43 ◼   ► "Do you want to sell sugar phones for the rest of your life

00:21:45 ◼   ► You're gonna come with me and change the world.

00:21:47 ◼   ► - Casey, that's a reference by the way.

00:21:50 ◼   ► - Yeah, 'cause like, the shoe's on the other foot now.

00:21:52 ◼   ► It's like, well, what's more exciting?

00:21:55 ◼   ► Like revolutionizing the world of cars with electric cars

00:21:58 ◼   ► or doing what Apple's doing?

00:22:00 ◼   ► And maybe it's closer, maybe it's a toss up,

00:22:02 ◼   ► but certainly not Apple versus Pepsi.

00:22:04 ◼   ► But I can imagine it not being very difficult

00:22:09 ◼   ► for Tesla to hire away Apple employees who are car nuts

00:22:12 ◼   ► because you don't get to work on cars at Apple, right?

00:22:14 ◼   ► Or do you?

00:22:17 ◼   ► And then the other rumor is that Apple tried to buy Tesla.

00:22:21 ◼   ► Again, fairly unsubstantiated.

00:22:23 ◼   ► Some people predicting that Apple will buy Tesla.

00:22:25 ◼   ► Some people predicting they already did try them.

00:22:27 ◼   ► But every time you read something like that,

00:22:28 ◼   ► it's like, yeah, yeah, it's easy to write that story.

00:22:30 ◼   ► But there are so many things that we have had retroactively

00:22:33 ◼   ► confirmed about Apple trying to buy companies that refused them

00:22:37 ◼   ► or considered buying companies and didn't like--

00:22:41 ◼   ► or like trying to buy Dropbox and not

00:22:44 ◼   ► really buying Dropbox and they're dalliance with Tom way back in the day,

00:22:48 ◼   ► people can remember that, like these are not, the best thing about all these

00:22:52 ◼   ► stories is they are not entirely unplausible. These rumors, they don't, I

00:22:59 ◼   ► don't think any of us 100% believe any of these because the evidence is not

00:23:03 ◼   ► that are supported, but all of us get to the point where we're willing to

00:23:05 ◼   ► entertain the thought, right? One of the reasons why I never thought Apple would

00:23:10 ◼   ► make a TV set, which I've talked about a few times here before, is that the TV set

00:23:15 ◼   ► business is just kind of a messy business. It's a very, very big commodity business,

00:23:23 ◼   ► supply chain business, but not in a way that leads to a lot of profit usually, unlike the

00:23:28 ◼   ► phone business and their computer business. And it's also not an item that is frequently

00:23:34 ◼   ► updated and upgraded.

00:23:36 ◼   ► Typically people buy TVs every decade or whatever.

00:23:39 ◼   ► It's not like a every couple of years kind of thing like a phone or a computer.

00:23:43 ◼   ► And there's not a lot of ways an Apple TV, from whatever we know today TV world to be,

00:23:51 ◼   ► there's not really a lot of ways an Apple TV could really meaningfully differentiate

00:23:55 ◼   ► itself from what the current little Apple TV puck box for a hundred bucks does or what

00:24:02 ◼   ► another one could do.

00:24:04 ◼   ► So it seems like getting into the TV set business is not only unnecessary, because they can

00:24:10 ◼   ► get all the value they need out of just making a box, but also probably not wise.

00:24:15 ◼   ► Because it's kind of a messy business.

00:24:18 ◼   ► Well, talk about a messy business, how about the car business?

00:24:22 ◼   ► I mean the car business is not only extraordinarily expensive to get started and to run, and of

00:24:28 ◼   ► course Apple has the cash.

00:24:30 ◼   ► if they wanted to build a car factory and design cars,

00:24:34 ◼   ► they could.

00:24:35 ◼   ► Whether they should and whether they would

00:24:38 ◼   ► is a very different story,

00:24:39 ◼   ► but certainly they have the money.

00:24:41 ◼   ► They could afford to set this up,

00:24:43 ◼   ► even though it is extremely expensive.

00:24:45 ◼   ► The big problem I see with it though is that,

00:24:48 ◼   ► like the television business,

00:24:50 ◼   ► the car business is just really kinda messy.

00:24:53 ◼   ► Apple doesn't really get into a lot of those

00:24:55 ◼   ► messy businesses that often.

00:24:57 ◼   ► - Cell phones are pretty messy.

00:24:59 ◼   ► they were never a cell phone carrier, for instance.

00:25:02 ◼   ► — I know, they tried to be, though.

00:25:04 ◼   ► That was their first instinct, to say, "carriers suck.

00:25:06 ◼   ► Can we do a phone without involving carriers?"

00:25:08 ◼   ► And they pursued that, right?

00:25:10 ◼   ► And they just determined, "No, you can't be.

00:25:13 ◼   ► We need the carriers," right?

00:25:15 ◼   ► It's the type of — I know it's not a business

00:25:19 ◼   ► that they like to be in, but there are businesses

00:25:23 ◼   ► that have been messy until Apple entered them

00:25:26 ◼   ► and sort of clarified the thing.

00:25:27 ◼   ► And when I look at this whole situation here,

00:25:31 ◼   ► I think to myself, who is the apple of the car business?

00:25:35 ◼   ► Either one of you two?

00:25:37 ◼   ► - I would argue BMW, but I am hugely biased.

00:25:40 ◼   ► - BMW, are you crazy?

00:25:42 ◼   ► - I mean, I would say there isn't one.

00:25:44 ◼   ► I mean, there is, I mean, just as car analogies

00:25:47 ◼   ► are often used and frequently misused

00:25:49 ◼   ► in tech discussions and debates,

00:25:51 ◼   ► I think that in this massive car analogy,

00:25:55 ◼   ► There is no equivalent. There is no fair point. I mean, I think there's a hundred percent

00:25:59 ◼   ► There's an apple of the car business and it's Tesla

00:26:01 ◼   ► The reason it's Tesla is not so much for anything like oh because they have a big tablet on the dashboard

00:26:06 ◼   ► They're the apple of the car business

00:26:07 ◼   ► No

00:26:07 ◼   ► They're the apple of the car business because at time for Johnny I have to come out they

00:26:11 ◼   ► Reimagined what the car could be and they took out all the crap in the car like they're even getting rid of hydraulic brakes

00:26:16 ◼   ► It's like there's nothing go see a Tesla Model S. There's no car there

00:26:21 ◼   ► There is no car inside that car like you look around in it and like there's a big cavernous thing

00:26:25 ◼   ► trunk in the back and it has seats that go in it.

00:26:27 ◼   ► And what's in the front?

00:26:28 ◼   ► There's a big cavernous thing where you put,

00:26:29 ◼   ► it's like, where the hell is the car?

00:26:31 ◼   ► And in the interior, there's no, yes, like,

00:26:33 ◼   ► and there's the massive simplification of the car.

00:26:36 ◼   ► Like, they're talking about how many parts a car has.

00:26:37 ◼   ► A lot of these things are like, you know,

00:26:39 ◼   ► there's 10,000 components retired to make a car or whatever.

00:26:41 ◼   ► Like, the number of parts in a Tesla

00:26:45 ◼   ► compared to the number of parts

00:26:46 ◼   ► on an internal combustion engine alone,

00:26:47 ◼   ► let alone the entire car surrounding it,

00:26:49 ◼   ► is just night and day.

00:26:50 ◼   ► And so that's the type of simplification,

00:26:52 ◼   ► not that Tesla invented the electric car.

00:26:54 ◼   ► Like obviously, you know, this is another reason that I think they like Apple, but that type of simplification of like

00:26:59 ◼   ► We're not just gonna make a car. We're going to

00:27:02 ◼   ► make something that is simpler and better and you know has fewer parts and

00:27:08 ◼   ► less things that can go wrong and different characteristics and thing and people are gonna tell us you can't because of you know

00:27:13 ◼   ► Range problems or you know, like that

00:27:16 ◼   ► It's not it doesn't make nice noises like internal combustion engine all these other things

00:27:20 ◼   ► things but we're gonna do it anyway and the other part that's like Apple is you

00:27:23 ◼   ► know Apple didn't invent the mp3 player the mobile phone or anything else

00:27:26 ◼   ► Tesla did not have the electric car many people have made electric cars before

00:27:30 ◼   ► them and most of them had not been that great like from the GM EV1 way back in

00:27:35 ◼   ► the day with his lead-acid batteries all the way up through all the different

00:27:38 ◼   ► models that are and the hybrids and the things that have gone in between and

00:27:41 ◼   ► Tesla is you know it takes the Apple approach of sort of leading from the top

00:27:45 ◼   ► doing whatever it takes to make a good electric car which turned out to cost

00:27:50 ◼   ► like a hundred grand, right?

00:27:51 ◼   ► But it's, you know, it's the first electric car

00:27:53 ◼   ► that people actually say is a good car.

00:27:55 ◼   ► And that's totally an Apple type of thing to do.

00:27:57 ◼   ► And the whole way that it's made is such a difference

00:28:00 ◼   ► from, you know, dealing with all the internal combustion

00:28:03 ◼   ► and everything, right?

00:28:04 ◼   ► So that makes me think that it's not impossible

00:28:08 ◼   ► for a company to do an Apple like thing to cars.

00:28:11 ◼   ► Tesla shows, of course, how difficult it is

00:28:13 ◼   ► because you have to deal with, you know,

00:28:14 ◼   ► dealer organizations making it so you can't sell your car

00:28:16 ◼   ► in your states and all the crazy government regulations.

00:28:18 ◼   ► and it's not guaranteed that even with all the government subsidies that Tesla's going

00:28:22 ◼   ► to come out on top and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

00:28:25 ◼   ► But I 100% think Tesla is the apple of cars.

00:28:28 ◼   ► And that's kind of bad for Apple making a car because if it's already an apple of cars,

00:28:32 ◼   ► what the hell is Apple going to do if they can't buy Tesla?

00:28:34 ◼   ► No, no, no.

00:28:35 ◼   ► See, here's the thing.

00:28:36 ◼   ► I know you're wrong that Tesla is the apple of cars.

00:28:40 ◼   ► And the reason you're wrong is because a software update actually made the Tesla faster.

00:28:44 ◼   ► Ooh.

00:28:45 ◼   ► Apple used to do that all the time back in the old days.

00:28:48 ◼   ► Just kidding.

00:28:49 ◼   ► OS X used to get faster with every release and the same hardware.

00:28:52 ◼   ► Those were the days.

00:28:53 ◼   ► Well, it did that by starting off being super slow and crappy.

00:28:57 ◼   ► Tesla didn't start off with it.

00:28:58 ◼   ► They just shaved a couple seconds here and there.

00:29:01 ◼   ► I'm just being silly.

00:29:02 ◼   ► Oh, and we forgot the other rumor involved with the car thing that we talked about at

00:29:05 ◼   ► a previous show.

00:29:06 ◼   ► It was like a minivan spotted with weird stuff on the roof and reportedly Apple self-driving

00:29:10 ◼   ► cars and we talked about that.

00:29:11 ◼   ► So that is very easily explained by Apple doing something like Street View, which we

00:29:14 ◼   ► think they need.

00:29:16 ◼   ► Is Apple interested in self-driving cars?

00:29:19 ◼   ► That's totally an Apple-style simplification.

00:29:21 ◼   ► You don't even need to drive the car, but I think Apple is not as interested in Google

00:29:25 ◼   ► as Google is in that kind of basic research at this point.

00:29:28 ◼   ► Yeah, and for whatever it's worth, the Wall Street Journal article said specifically that

00:29:33 ◼   ► a person familiar with the project said that self-driving cars are not part of Apple's

00:29:36 ◼   ► current plan.

00:29:38 ◼   ► And that's also, I mean, that's for the best.

00:29:40 ◼   ► well do you think Apple does with really complicated academic AI kind of problems? That's not really

00:29:48 ◼   ► their strong point.

00:29:49 ◼   ► And honestly, I think at this point, Apple's ability to make a card, no matter how many

00:29:55 ◼   ► people they hire now, how many hundred engineers they put on it, look how long it took Tesla

00:29:59 ◼   ► to make its first car, with the help of essentially buying lotuses and strapping its batteries

00:30:03 ◼   ► and engines. Apple has a leg up on them in that they have a hoe-jillion dollars, and

00:30:09 ◼   ► helps you along significantly but it takes a long time to build expertise and

00:30:14 ◼   ► even if you can buy expertise it takes a long time to buy expertise and get it

00:30:19 ◼   ► all working together like again I think they could do it but it would be a long

00:30:23 ◼   ► road and if Apple decided that it wants to make a car because it believes cars

00:30:27 ◼   ► can be simplified and can be made better or whatever the obvious move is to buy

00:30:31 ◼   ► Tesla because they've already done so much of that work and their philosophy

00:30:36 ◼   ► of simplification and reimagining the car as something both better and less complex than it was before.

00:30:45 ◼   ► It's totally in line with the type of stuff that Apple does, it's just that Apple doesn't really know anything about cars at this point.

00:30:51 ◼   ► So has there been a time in the past when Apple has taken a product that was basically fully formed and bought the company and made it their own?

00:31:00 ◼   ► I think, like, what was it? Sound Jam became iTunes, is that right?

00:31:03 ◼   ► That worked out well.

00:31:04 ◼   ► That's sort of kind of what I'm talking about.

00:31:07 ◼   ► But if they bought Tesla, don't you imagine they would keep the Tesla brand?

00:31:10 ◼   ► Like they wouldn't make it the Apple car?

00:31:11 ◼   ► Actually, I guess to that end, Beats is probably the obvious answer to my question.

00:31:15 ◼   ► Right.

00:31:16 ◼   ► I mean, they didn't even want to change the brand of the headphone maker.

00:31:19 ◼   ► I would imagine they would keep the Tesla brand.

00:31:21 ◼   ► Yeah, I don't know.

00:31:22 ◼   ► So many things about this just make me really skeptical that these reports are getting the

00:31:28 ◼   ► right big picture.

00:31:29 ◼   ► Like you know, you can pick up bits and pieces of information here and there and you can

00:31:34 ◼   ► say "Oh, well they hired this person who has a car background and it seems like they're

00:31:38 ◼   ► making a big lab."

00:31:39 ◼   ► And all this stuff, you can put together the bits and pieces but I really don't know

00:31:44 ◼   ► if the conclusion is "Well, of course they're building a car."

00:31:48 ◼   ► Because there's so many reasons why that is not an Apple-like business to enter.

00:31:53 ◼   ► And not to say Apple can't change and enter new businesses, that's how progress is made,

00:31:58 ◼   ► but this just doesn't seem like the right business to enter.

00:32:03 ◼   ► I mean, you mess this up, people die.

00:32:07 ◼   ► Like, it's very serious, it's very cumbersome

00:32:10 ◼   ► of a business to enter to be in at all.

00:32:13 ◼   ► It is extremely hyper-competitive.

00:32:16 ◼   ► - Well, I would not call it hyper-competitive.

00:32:19 ◼   ► I would call it, there are large barriers to entry,

00:32:22 ◼   ► which is kind of the opposite of hyper-competitive.

00:32:25 ◼   ► Like the fact that GM is still in business shows that,

00:32:28 ◼   ► how competitive can it really be

00:32:30 ◼   ► where when you go out of business,

00:32:31 ◼   ► the government puts you back into business

00:32:33 ◼   ► and your cars aren't really that great

00:32:34 ◼   ► and your cars do tend to kill people sometimes,

00:32:36 ◼   ► but it'll all work out in the end.

00:32:37 ◼   ► There are high barriers to entry,

00:32:41 ◼   ► but the argument that I see in a lot of places,

00:32:43 ◼   ► like even from the GM executive,

00:32:46 ◼   ► like you would kind of do with the TV business,

00:32:49 ◼   ► the car business is not like a high profit business.

00:32:52 ◼   ► It's low margin, it's difficult.

00:32:53 ◼   ► And I always see people saying that

00:32:55 ◼   ► whether it's about TVs or about cars,

00:32:56 ◼   ► like, well, then why the hell are you even in this business?

00:32:58 ◼   ► You just describe your own business

00:32:59 ◼   ► as pretty darn crappy, right?

00:33:01 ◼   ► But you could describe the PC market the same way.

00:33:03 ◼   ► Oh, it's low margin, it's a race to the bottom,

00:33:05 ◼   ► it's crappy, somehow Apple manages to make money there.

00:33:08 ◼   ► And the phone market in similar ways.

00:33:10 ◼   ► Apple's a big thing, kind of like Tesla at this point,

00:33:13 ◼   ► is we find the most profitable part of the market,

00:33:15 ◼   ► which is usually near the top,

00:33:16 ◼   ► and we make a lot of money in that part.

00:33:18 ◼   ► And maybe we expand down as we're able to,

00:33:20 ◼   ► but I don't think it's impossible for Apple

00:33:24 ◼   ► to make margins on its theoretical car

00:33:27 ◼   ► that would make GM cry,

00:33:29 ◼   ► because the Apple is better at,

00:33:31 ◼   ► because personal Apple's car is gonna be way simpler

00:33:33 ◼   ► than an internal combustion engine car.

00:33:35 ◼   ► Apple already has some of the expertise and contacts

00:33:39 ◼   ► to do the battery stuff.

00:33:40 ◼   ► - They already buy a lot of lithium batteries.

00:33:42 ◼   ► - Yeah, there is definite synergies there,

00:33:45 ◼   ► but I don't entirely buy this story either,

00:33:47 ◼   ► but almost every argument I've seen against it,

00:33:49 ◼   ► and even the TV for that matter,

00:33:51 ◼   ► Apple knows where to get LCDs from.

00:33:53 ◼   ► Apple can stick something inside it.

00:33:54 ◼   ► Is it a low margin business?

00:33:55 ◼   ► Apple's TV wouldn't be low margin.

00:33:58 ◼   ► If Apple makes a TV, it will not be like,

00:34:00 ◼   ► "Oh, we make $2 on every TV."

00:34:01 ◼   ► If Apple makes a car, it will not be a low margin car.

00:34:04 ◼   ► I don't know what the margins on the Model S are,

00:34:06 ◼   ► especially with all the government subsidies

00:34:07 ◼   ► being factored in, but if Apple was making the Model S,

00:34:10 ◼   ► they could make it for less money,

00:34:12 ◼   ► just because you gotta have money to make money.

00:34:14 ◼   ► You gotta have the deals, you gotta have the contracts.

00:34:17 ◼   ► Apple could make the Tesla for less money

00:34:20 ◼   ► than Tesla is making it.

00:34:21 ◼   ► So immediately, the car has higher margins

00:34:24 ◼   ► than it has there.

00:34:24 ◼   ► So all those arguments, again,

00:34:26 ◼   ► don't make, aren't as compelling to me as the idea

00:34:28 ◼   ► of like, that Apple doesn't wanna make cars,

00:34:32 ◼   ► 'cause like, why doesn't Apple make boats?

00:34:34 ◼   ► Why don't they make airplanes?

00:34:35 ◼   ► Why don't they sell real estate?

00:34:36 ◼   ► Like, they're, you know, they're a company

00:34:39 ◼   ► that uses technology to make people's lives better,

00:34:41 ◼   ► but at a certain point when you go into like cars,

00:34:43 ◼   ► or constructing buildings,

00:34:45 ◼   ► or opening medical clinics around the country,

00:34:49 ◼   ► these are all things that Apple could do,

00:34:51 ◼   ► but it starts to drift off of the path

00:34:54 ◼   ► of what I picture as a business

00:34:58 ◼   ► that Apple would want to get into.

00:34:59 ◼   ► Just because it involves technology,

00:35:01 ◼   ► everything involves technology at this point.

00:35:02 ◼   ► So I have, this one Wall Street Journal story

00:35:05 ◼   ► made me take it seriously,

00:35:06 ◼   ► but it does not convince me that it's happening.

00:35:08 ◼   ► - Right, 'cause I think what a few people have said

00:35:11 ◼   ► is that they worry about Apple's focus.

00:35:15 ◼   ► If this is true, and if they do end up making a car,

00:35:18 ◼   ► should we be worried about the focus?

00:35:19 ◼   ► And I think one way to look at this is,

00:35:21 ◼   ► you've heard, I'm pretty sure Steve used to say

00:35:24 ◼   ► I know Tim always says this, which is that Apple tends to only, or ideally, the ideal

00:35:31 ◼   ► Apple, maybe not the actual Apple, but the ideal Apple is a company that only enters

00:35:36 ◼   ► markets where they think they can make a really meaningful difference.

00:35:39 ◼   ► But that doesn't help you in here, does it?

00:35:41 ◼   ► Because don't you think they would say, "We can totally make a meaningful difference by

00:35:44 ◼   ► changing the way everybody drives?"

00:35:45 ◼   ► Like, this is totally a meaningful difference.

00:35:48 ◼   ► But from the product side, we already have electric cars.

00:35:52 ◼   ► I know, but they've never really been done right, and Tesla is being choked to death

00:35:56 ◼   ► by the rest of the automotive industry.

00:36:00 ◼   ► I kind of think of Tesla that way, it's like a fledgling little bird.

00:36:03 ◼   ► We all want it to fly, but it's constantly getting beaten down.

00:36:08 ◼   ► It's amazing that it has done as well as it can with government help and everything, but

00:36:13 ◼   ► wouldn't we all feel terrible if Tesla just didn't make it?

00:36:15 ◼   ► Yeah, that would be unfortunate.

00:36:17 ◼   ► We know that they've made a good car.

00:36:19 ◼   ► The Model S is a good car.

00:36:20 ◼   ► I don't care, I mean, yes, it's 100 grand.

00:36:22 ◼   ► It better be a good car, but it is a good car.

00:36:23 ◼   ► It's like the first good electric car.

00:36:25 ◼   ► Like the Roaster didn't even apply that.

00:36:27 ◼   ► It has limitations and so on and so forth.

00:36:28 ◼   ► It's like, wow, someone finally did it.

00:36:30 ◼   ► It's nice to drive, it's attractive.

00:36:33 ◼   ► It's got all the advantages you'd expect from an electric car.

00:36:36 ◼   ► It's really fun.

00:36:37 ◼   ► They did it, right?

00:36:39 ◼   ► And now you just keep, you know,

00:36:41 ◼   ► well, they can make a cheaper one.

00:36:42 ◼   ► They can make a $30,000 model.

00:36:43 ◼   ► They can make an SUV.

00:36:44 ◼   ► You want them to just spool up

00:36:46 ◼   ► and eventually become a real car company.

00:36:47 ◼   ► And if they failed, if they kind of like,

00:36:49 ◼   ► "Oh, we didn't quite make it,

00:36:49 ◼   ► "we're filing for bankruptcy or whatever."

00:36:51 ◼   ► Everyone would be disappointed.

00:36:53 ◼   ► So I think that shows that we want someone to come in

00:36:56 ◼   ► and make a significant difference in the industry.

00:36:59 ◼   ► Whether that has to involve Apple at all, I don't know.

00:37:02 ◼   ► I mean, if we don't wanna, like,

00:37:04 ◼   ► Markham keeps groaning,

00:37:05 ◼   ► 'cause he doesn't like the idea of Apple making a car.

00:37:07 ◼   ► But like, you don't think they're gonna be pulling people

00:37:09 ◼   ► off UI kit to work on the car, you know?

00:37:11 ◼   ► Maybe kind of for the interface, but--

00:37:13 ◼   ► - Of course they will.

00:37:14 ◼   ► - But not to the degree that like people got pulled off

00:37:16 ◼   ► OS X to work on UI kit.

00:37:17 ◼   ► Like there are no automotive engineers at Apple

00:37:19 ◼   ► who are gonna get pulled off their current project

00:37:21 ◼   ► to work on the car.

00:37:22 ◼   ► Like automotive engineers are, you know,

00:37:23 ◼   ► that's a different skill set.

00:37:24 ◼   ► A mechanical engineering, you know,

00:37:26 ◼   ► maybe the manufacturing people will be some crossover,

00:37:28 ◼   ► but I feel like it wouldn't be as big

00:37:32 ◼   ► of a focused diversion as many other things

00:37:34 ◼   ► that Apple does do.

00:37:35 ◼   ► So I'm not groaning quite as much about losing focus on,

00:37:39 ◼   ► you know, 'cause I assume they would just hire new people.

00:37:42 ◼   ► Or like I said, they would just buy Tesla.

00:37:43 ◼   ► They come with a bunch of people

00:37:44 ◼   ► who already know how to make cars.

00:37:46 ◼   ► What I was really getting at with the make a meaningful difference thing, think about

00:37:52 ◼   ► it from the buyer's perspective.

00:37:54 ◼   ► If you are buying an Apple car, or let's say right now you're buying a Tesla because

00:37:58 ◼   ► that's the closest thing we have to what we think this might be, the kind of thing

00:38:02 ◼   ► we think this would be.

00:38:03 ◼   ► Probably if you look at what's in the market today it would probably be closest to a Tesla

00:38:07 ◼   ► than any other vehicle.

00:38:09 ◼   ► Maybe a Leaf, but probably closer to a Tesla.

00:38:12 ◼   ► So if you think about that as a driver,

00:38:15 ◼   ► I mean none of us drive electric cars,

00:38:18 ◼   ► so we don't really, maybe this is not the right,

00:38:21 ◼   ► maybe we're not the right people to be

00:38:23 ◼   ► speculating on this part, but is there that much

00:38:26 ◼   ► of a difference when you're driving the car,

00:38:29 ◼   ► when you're owning the car, whether it's electric or gas,

00:38:32 ◼   ► so much so that an Apple car could be radically different

00:38:36 ◼   ► to own and operate and drive than any other car?

00:38:39 ◼   ► Like I don't think the differences are that big.

00:38:41 ◼   ► I think they are like I don't other than the battery which is still a concern

00:38:46 ◼   ► But Tesla has a built-in way to replace and everything like that

00:38:48 ◼   ► The maintenance the maintenance concerns and costs and the number of things that can go wrong

00:38:53 ◼   ► Like there's just less stuff in the damn car. It's electric motors and like once the brakes are electric - yeah

00:38:58 ◼   ► You got to replace brake pads, but like there's no fluids. There's no like, you know, the hydraulic system

00:39:04 ◼   ► It's just there's no oil. There's no gaskets

00:39:07 ◼   ► It's just so much stuff that you have to deal with with car maintenance goes away.

00:39:12 ◼   ► And so I just think that's a different experience of driving a car.

00:39:18 ◼   ► But what can Apple bring to that that Tesla and Nissan and everybody else can't?

00:39:25 ◼   ► That's why I think they should just buy Tesla.

00:39:27 ◼   ► That's the problem.

00:39:29 ◼   ► So what can Apple bring to it that the other companies can't?

00:39:31 ◼   ► Well what they can bring to it is an assured future for Tesla if they buy it, right?

00:39:36 ◼   ► Because if you're worried about Tesla, if they're not going to make it, if they can't

00:39:40 ◼   ► make, you know, $100,000 cars are fine, but if they can't feel the $30,000 model, they're

00:39:44 ◼   ► never going to be a player in the industry because you just have to come down and price

00:39:46 ◼   ► a little bit if you're going to sell, you know, any significant number of cars.

00:39:51 ◼   ► And if Tesla can't get that done on its own, Apple can make sure that that happens.

00:39:55 ◼   ► Yeah, that's a pretty weak argument though.

00:39:58 ◼   ► And obviously they would make the UI and the interface inside it much better than it is

00:40:02 ◼   ► now.

00:40:03 ◼   ► Hopefully, I mean, there are areas for simplification in the interior of a car that you would hope,

00:40:08 ◼   ► I mean, maybe not today's Apple, we've all lost faith in their ability to make decent

00:40:11 ◼   ► interfaces, but the Apple of old you would imagine could simplify the interior of the

00:40:16 ◼   ► car in the same way that the iPad simplified the music player and the iPhone simplified

00:40:19 ◼   ► the phone interface.

00:40:20 ◼   ► And again, maybe you could say Tesla already did that by putting a big iPad in the dashboard,

00:40:24 ◼   ► but I don't know.

00:40:25 ◼   ► I don't think Apple would be bringing as much to this as they brought to obviously as they brought to phones or anything like that

00:40:32 ◼   ► but

00:40:33 ◼   ► Like is that the question they're asking themselves like if you know

00:40:37 ◼   ► Tesla looks like they've already done a lot of the work so we shouldn't even bother maybe I don't know I keep coming back to

00:40:43 ◼   ► What's in it for Apple, and I think we've been dancing around that question

00:40:47 ◼   ► you know this entire discussion and what is it that that

00:40:52 ◼   ► Doing a car would would serve for Apple now. Maybe it would keep your engineers entertained

00:40:58 ◼   ► We've talked on and off about how the worst reason well

00:41:01 ◼   ► I'm not saying it's a good reason but your engineers would kill themselves to keep your designers entertained

00:41:05 ◼   ► Maybe whatever the case may be I mean we've talked about talent retention here and there over the years

00:41:09 ◼   ► And you know that would theoretically retain talent

00:41:13 ◼   ► But of course I'm also assuming that every nerd is also a car nut and that could not be further from the truth

00:41:18 ◼   ► The only other thing I can think of is what if there's some sort of technology that Apple has invented or

00:41:24 ◼   ► Figured out how to leverage in such a way that it lends itself

00:41:28 ◼   ► To a vehicle rather than to a piece of electronics what I'm thinking of is you know the click wheel

00:41:34 ◼   ► Made the iPod in many ways made the iPod the iPod Phil Schiller game well for that though click steering yeah exactly

00:41:42 ◼   ► It's different that like so give me what's an example?

00:41:46 ◼   ► technology hypothetical that you can imagine this being the case for so so to finish my thought just very quickly you know multi-touch

00:41:51 ◼   ► Yeah, it wasn't new but it was leveraged differently and and there are a couple other examples

00:41:55 ◼   ► I don't that I can't think of off the top of my head

00:41:57 ◼   ► But what if they had some crazy new battery technology and the reason it's not in iOS devices right now or or?

00:42:04 ◼   ► MacBooks right now is because it's just too freaking big you know maybe these batteries are

00:42:09 ◼   ► Hugely hugely hugely efficient they can charge in 12 seconds

00:42:14 ◼   ► But unfortunately, they're just freaking massive.

00:42:18 ◼   ► And so the only thing that this is really good for

00:42:22 ◼   ► is an electric vehicle.

00:42:24 ◼   ► Granted, this is all hugely hypothetical,

00:42:26 ◼   ► but in that case,

00:42:27 ◼   ► maybe they would have something to contribute.

00:42:30 ◼   ► And that seems to me to be the kind of thing

00:42:33 ◼   ► that would make Apple say,

00:42:35 ◼   ► "Well, maybe we should give this a shot."

00:42:37 ◼   ► Some sort of either different and interesting application

00:42:41 ◼   ► of an existing technology, or even better,

00:42:43 ◼   ► some sort of brand new technology that for whatever reason they just can't shoehorn into

00:42:49 ◼   ► a iPad or an iPhone or a MacBook Air or MacBook Pro or whatever.

00:42:53 ◼   ► You're thinking of Mr. Fusion aren't you?

00:42:56 ◼   ► That or a flux capacitor yeah.

00:42:57 ◼   ► Yeah the chat room had that one yeah but that's that is perhaps the least Apple like thing

00:43:01 ◼   ► that that we could possibly think of.

00:43:04 ◼   ► Like Google does tries to do basic research and even they don't do this type of thing.

00:43:08 ◼   ► There is no secret battery breakthrough technology that Apple has that only works with big batteries.

00:43:12 ◼   ► If anyone's going to come up with that, it's going to be a university, theoretical physicist.

00:43:20 ◼   ► First what's going to happen is the basic research is going to say that something is

00:43:23 ◼   ► potentially possible, and then a bunch of people are going to try to do it.

00:43:26 ◼   ► The first person to pull it off is probably not going to be ... Apple just doesn't do

00:43:29 ◼   ► that kind of basic research.

00:43:32 ◼   ► I don't think that's going to change about the company.

00:43:34 ◼   ► This is not the way they work.

00:43:36 ◼   ► What does it say?

00:43:37 ◼   ► Google outspends them in basic R&D by some big multiple, and Google is not compared to

00:43:41 ◼   ► to like, you know, the real basic research going on

00:43:44 ◼   ► in the fields of science and engineering,

00:43:47 ◼   ► Google self-driving cars are, you know,

00:43:50 ◼   ► not a drop in the bucket compared to people

00:43:53 ◼   ► who are trying to, spending like just years and years

00:43:55 ◼   ► working on whatever carbon nano two battery technology

00:43:57 ◼   ► type stuff like that, that stuff's gonna come.

00:44:00 ◼   ► And when it's, you know, Apple always grabs the stuff

00:44:02 ◼   ► that's just at the edge of what's possible

00:44:04 ◼   ► and they apply their engineering

00:44:05 ◼   ► and manufacturing expertise to bring it to existence.

00:44:07 ◼   ► But I don't think that Apple has anything like that

00:44:10 ◼   ► for batteries, like for something else,

00:44:13 ◼   ► maybe they have a really good idea about the interface

00:44:16 ◼   ► of a car, but there are a lot of limitations

00:44:18 ◼   ► on the interface of a car because people are kind of used

00:44:20 ◼   ► to what it is and there's government regulations

00:44:22 ◼   ► saying how it has to be.

00:44:23 ◼   ► - I also don't think I want Apple making the interface

00:44:27 ◼   ► to my car because there's, I mean,

00:44:29 ◼   ► for many of the same reasons, you know,

00:44:30 ◼   ► we discussed early on a neutral, which nobody listened to,

00:44:34 ◼   ► we discussed our feelings on touch screens

00:44:36 ◼   ► versus knobs and buttons versus a combination of the two.

00:44:40 ◼   ► And I think where we all came down is we actually don't like the Tesla approach of everything's

00:44:46 ◼   ► on the touchscreen.

00:44:48 ◼   ► I like knobs and buttons for all the controls that are necessary in my car for basic operations.

00:44:54 ◼   ► Things like the ventilation controls and anything that's on the center console that's not like

00:45:00 ◼   ► the navigation screen, I want knobs and buttons for.

00:45:03 ◼   ► And even the navigation screen, I don't want a touchscreen because the ones I've seen and

00:45:06 ◼   ► used have been terrible.

00:45:07 ◼   ► I want like the wheel, the iDrive wheel that BMWs have is great.

00:45:13 ◼   ► The Audi has a somewhat similar one.

00:45:15 ◼   ► Toyota and Lexus have a really weird terrible pointing stick system that's just awful and

00:45:20 ◼   ► I've seen many other hideous systems from other brands.

00:45:23 ◼   ► But for the most part I want knobs and buttons because what you need in a car for both safety,

00:45:31 ◼   ► especially number one safety, and also for just reduced annoyance, you need that button

00:45:37 ◼   ► to work every time.

00:45:39 ◼   ► You need to respond within the same amount of time every time.

00:45:43 ◼   ► Because what you don't need to be doing in a car, and what you shouldn't be doing in

00:45:46 ◼   ► a car, is having to check up on the state of what you think you just did to make sure

00:45:51 ◼   ► it took, or to reissue a command that the car misinterpreted.

00:45:57 ◼   ► And if you look at Apple's current software designs and systems and styles and just the

00:46:01 ◼   ► standards by which they hold themselves in reality, what we get from them in practice,

00:46:07 ◼   ► It's not that solid.

00:46:08 ◼   ► There are parts of it that are, like the kernel is pretty good these days, but the UIs, all

00:46:14 ◼   ► the stuff sitting on top, the services and everything, these are not...

00:46:19 ◼   ► This requires a very different degree of reliability than what consumer software for computers

00:46:26 ◼   ► and tablets and phones really requires.

00:46:29 ◼   ► The things in cars need to work every time.

00:46:33 ◼   ► If they miss just a little bit, if it's just a little bit buggy or a little bit slow or

00:46:37 ◼   ► a little bit inconsistent, it's really annoying and potentially very unsafe.

00:46:42 ◼   ► And so I don't think I would want Apple making that kind of software in my car, at least

00:46:46 ◼   ► as we know them today.

00:46:47 ◼   ► And maybe they can do that in the future, but I'd be very worried if they did it today.

00:46:50 ◼   ► Don't you think the Apple Watch is reassuring in this regard, though?

00:46:53 ◼   ► Because what mostly you're talking about is like what they did with the phone is they

00:46:56 ◼   ► made it all screen because they realized that the buttons were limiting and really the number

00:47:01 ◼   ► of interesting things you can do with the phone when it's just all screen just expand

00:47:04 ◼   ► greatly it becomes a general purpose computing device.

00:47:06 ◼   ► Whereas on the watch they made a slightly different decision, yeah it's all screen because

00:47:10 ◼   ► they expect similar type of things but the little digital crown thing and the button

00:47:13 ◼   ► on the side acknowledge that in this application it's not just about oh I can make this a general

00:47:19 ◼   ► purpose computing device because it's so darn small.

00:47:22 ◼   ► So other aspects like quick access and reliable use of you know like why don't I just make

00:47:27 ◼   ► people pinch on the screen well it's a different context here they're not afraid to make it

00:47:31 ◼   ► You know the highlight feature of their watch user interface to be a knob essentially

00:47:35 ◼   ► I would imagine if Apple had to take on a car like what you're what you're envisioning is like boy if Apple made a car

00:47:41 ◼   ► It would look like just a big giant iPad in the middle of the - that's essentially what Tesla did

00:47:45 ◼   ► I would hope that if Apple did a car they would recognize that this context is also different than the mobile phone

00:47:50 ◼   ► Context and that what's appropriate on a mobile phone making you just a giant screen

00:47:55 ◼   ► Would also not be appropriate here, so it would have not that it would have a digital crown

00:48:00 ◼   ► but that they would have knobs and buttons and stuff on it and they would not be entirely screen

00:48:04 ◼   ► I expect a big screen to be featured heavily

00:48:06 ◼   ► But I would not be surprised if an Apple designed car interior had more knobs and buttons than a Tesla one does

00:48:11 ◼   ► All right, so let's put this in the parking lot. I couldn't even say with a straight face

00:48:17 ◼   ► I tried so hard to get it out the straight face. Let's put this aside for a second and let's talk about something else

00:48:22 ◼   ► That's awesome. Our second sponsor this week is

00:48:25 ◼   ► Fracture.

00:48:26 ◼   ► Fracture prints your photos in vivid color directly on glass.

00:48:30 ◼   ► Go to FractureMe.com and use the coupon code ATP15 to get 15% off your first order and

00:48:38 ◼   ► of course let them know that you came from here.

00:48:40 ◼   ► So Fracture prints are awesome.

00:48:42 ◼   ► Again, as I said, it's photos on glass.

00:48:44 ◼   ► And what I love about them, I have a bunch of these around my house, what I love about

00:48:48 ◼   ► them is that they are their own frame.

00:48:52 ◼   ► You don't need to go buy a frame or a mount or try to keep it flat like with prints or

00:48:56 ◼   ► anything like that.

00:48:57 ◼   ► It's great.

00:48:58 ◼   ► It is just its own frame and the pricing considering that is really amazing.

00:49:03 ◼   ► Like if you try to get something framed or if you just go get big prints and buy frames,

00:49:08 ◼   ► dealing with frames is very expensive, very cumbersome.

00:49:10 ◼   ► Fracture prints are just awesome.

00:49:12 ◼   ► They look standalone, they look modern and they're just clean.

00:49:17 ◼   ► I can't say enough good things about fracture prints, not only from a visual point of view,

00:49:21 ◼   ► from a practical point of view.

00:49:23 ◼   ► And of course it's a great value as well.

00:49:25 ◼   ► I, as I said, I have a bug somewhere in my office.

00:49:27 ◼   ► People always ask about them.

00:49:28 ◼   ► I get compliments on them all the time

00:49:30 ◼   ► whenever people come over.

00:49:31 ◼   ► They really are great.

00:49:33 ◼   ► So anyway, they put everything you need

00:49:34 ◼   ► to get your photo on the wall or on a desk.

00:49:37 ◼   ► They put all that stuff right in the box.

00:49:39 ◼   ► So you have a little screw to mount it

00:49:41 ◼   ► or if you were the desk kit,

00:49:42 ◼   ► you have a little fold out leg to put it on your desk.

00:49:45 ◼   ► It is great.

00:49:46 ◼   ► Prices start at just $15 for a five by five square print.

00:49:50 ◼   ► They also have rectangles and other shapes that have four sides.

00:49:53 ◼   ► Every fracture is handmade and checked for quality by their small team in Gainesville,

00:49:57 ◼   ► Florida.

00:49:58 ◼   ► Fracture prints are thin and light.

00:50:00 ◼   ► You don't have to worry about some giant, heavy slab of glass falling off your wall.

00:50:05 ◼   ► They're very lightweight, very thin, and then it's mounted on a piece of foam board on the

00:50:09 ◼   ► back so you can hang with the picture hanging nail in the foam board.

00:50:12 ◼   ► So you're not hanging it directly on the glass.

00:50:15 ◼   ► Anyway, very practical, very convenient.

00:50:17 ◼   ► It ships well.

00:50:18 ◼   ► It's packed nicely.

00:50:19 ◼   ► We've ordered probably 10 of them so far, maybe.

00:50:23 ◼   ► None of them have ever broken in shipping.

00:50:24 ◼   ► They pack it very well, you don't have to worry about that.

00:50:26 ◼   ► They pack it nicely enough that you don't need to worry.

00:50:31 ◼   ► And of course if it does break,

00:50:32 ◼   ► I'm sure they'll send you a new one.

00:50:33 ◼   ► But anyway, go to fractureme.com,

00:50:36 ◼   ► use coupon code ATP15 to get 15% off your first order.

00:50:40 ◼   ► Once again, photos printed directly on glass.

00:50:43 ◼   ► I cannot recommend these guys enough.

00:50:45 ◼   ► Thank you very much to Fracture

00:50:46 ◼   ► for sponsoring our show once again.

00:50:48 ◼   ► - So let's assume for the sake of conversation

00:50:50 ◼   ► that CarPlay doesn't exist.

00:50:52 ◼   ► - It basically doesn't.

00:50:53 ◼   ► - Hey-o, God, the two of us are harsh today.

00:50:56 ◼   ► - No, I'm just, it hasn't gone very far.

00:50:58 ◼   ► Maybe it will in the future,

00:51:00 ◼   ► but right now it really has not gone very far.

00:51:02 ◼   ► - Yeah, and that's a fair point.

00:51:03 ◼   ► So if we take it that CarPlay

00:51:06 ◼   ► either doesn't exist or barely exists,

00:51:08 ◼   ► wouldn't it make the most sense

00:51:10 ◼   ► that all of these hires and all of this activity

00:51:13 ◼   ► is probably about making what we call carplay today.

00:51:18 ◼   ► I mean, that just seems the most obvious to me.

00:51:20 ◼   ► The thought of actually constructing an automobile

00:51:23 ◼   ► seems kind of crazy to me.

00:51:26 ◼   ► - Yeah, partnering, like if Apple is interested in cars,

00:51:29 ◼   ► partnering with a car manufacturer

00:51:31 ◼   ► just to do what we talked about back in Neutrals,

00:51:33 ◼   ► like these car makers all want to do it themselves.

00:51:36 ◼   ► They want to be like,

00:51:36 ◼   ► "Oh, we have our internal design group

00:51:38 ◼   ► that does all our Ford interiors

00:51:40 ◼   ► with the new, my Ford touch, whatever."

00:51:43 ◼   ► They want to do it themselves as a point of pride,

00:51:45 ◼   ► but they're terrible at it

00:51:46 ◼   ► because they don't have much experience.

00:51:47 ◼   ► Cars used to not be about software.

00:51:48 ◼   ► And then seemingly overnight,

00:51:51 ◼   ► big cars came about software.

00:51:52 ◼   ► First, the engines were about software,

00:51:53 ◼   ► but they were like, "Oh, it's not visible.

00:51:54 ◼   ► "It's not user interface."

00:51:56 ◼   ► So all of a sudden our engines

00:51:57 ◼   ► all have 20 computers in them.

00:51:59 ◼   ► They seem to make that transition okay.

00:52:01 ◼   ► But when it came to make human computer interfaces

00:52:04 ◼   ► inside the cars, they have not done well

00:52:07 ◼   ► and they haven't been able to attract that expertise.

00:52:09 ◼   ► So we're always looking like,

00:52:10 ◼   ► if you could just bring someone in from the outside,

00:52:12 ◼   ► Like let Apple do your interior,

00:52:13 ◼   ► but no car maker wants to let some computer company

00:52:16 ◼   ► come in and design that they want.

00:52:18 ◼   ► It's like BMW or whatever.

00:52:19 ◼   ► It's like, it's a point of pride.

00:52:20 ◼   ► We make the interiors and they just keep trying

00:52:22 ◼   ► and they refine them and they get better at them.

00:52:25 ◼   ► But I imagine if your Apple and all the people at Apple,

00:52:29 ◼   ► including the big fancy executives who make the decisions,

00:52:32 ◼   ► drive super expensive cars and kind of like

00:52:34 ◼   ► how all the executives had super expensive cell phones,

00:52:36 ◼   ► but still thought they were all crap,

00:52:38 ◼   ► I bet a lot of those executives of similar tastes

00:52:40 ◼   ► drive to work in their 100, $200,000 cars

00:52:43 ◼   ► and say, "Boy, the interior and interface of this car

00:52:45 ◼   ► is terrible and like, this is the best car you could buy.

00:52:47 ◼   ► Like I'm, it's not because it's a cheap car.

00:52:50 ◼   ► Like I'm rich, I have a lot of money.

00:52:52 ◼   ► I still have to use a crappy cell phone

00:52:54 ◼   ► and deal with my crappy TV set

00:52:57 ◼   ► and drive a car that I love everything about

00:52:59 ◼   ► except for the user interface and the interior."

00:53:01 ◼   ► Right?

00:53:02 ◼   ► And so the channeling that frustration would be like,

00:53:06 ◼   ► You know, can't we work with BMW, Mercedes, Porsche,

00:53:11 ◼   ► Honda, hell anybody, will anybody let us like work

00:53:13 ◼   ► with them at the level we wanna work with them and say,

00:53:16 ◼   ► we own the interior user interface of your car.

00:53:18 ◼   ► You do the engine, you do the car, you do the structure,

00:53:20 ◼   ► you do the suspension, you do everything else,

00:53:22 ◼   ► but we own how you turn the windshield wipers on,

00:53:24 ◼   ► how you adjust the radio, how you call someone

00:53:26 ◼   ► on a cell phone from your car.

00:53:27 ◼   ► Like let us do all that for you.

00:53:29 ◼   ► And so far, no car, if Apple has made those overtures,

00:53:33 ◼   ► no car manufacturer has taken them up on the deal.

00:53:35 ◼   ► And again, I don't blame them because if I was a car maker,

00:53:37 ◼   ► I'd be like, "F you, what you're basically doing

00:53:40 ◼   ► is cutting us out at the knees and saying,

00:53:41 ◼   ► you're half a car maker now.

00:53:43 ◼   ► We're the important, you know,

00:53:44 ◼   ► please Apple come in and become the most valuable

00:53:46 ◼   ► differentiator of our car line,

00:53:48 ◼   ► relegating us to a mere manufacturer

00:53:50 ◼   ► of a drive train and body shop."

00:53:53 ◼   ► Nobody wants to do that, right?

00:53:55 ◼   ► But I can imagine Apple wanting to do that.

00:53:57 ◼   ► And maybe that's plan A and plan B is,

00:53:59 ◼   ► well, can't we just buy Tesla?

00:54:00 ◼   ► And plan C is, we'll just make our own damn car.

00:54:03 ◼   ► And that's a hell of an extrapolation of the order of events.

00:54:07 ◼   ► And I don't know what kind of gaps there are between plan A, B, and C,

00:54:09 ◼   ► but plan A sounds plausible that Apple would want to be more involved in the

00:54:14 ◼   ► interior of a car. And CarPlay is like the weakest,

00:54:18 ◼   ► most piddling little attempt to get Apple anything inside a car.

00:54:21 ◼   ► Yeah, that's exactly what I was driving at.

00:54:23 ◼   ► And I come back to maybe, you know,

00:54:27 ◼   ► when we started this conversation, one of you, I think John had asked, well,

00:54:31 ◼   ► Who is the apple of cars?

00:54:33 ◼   ► And maybe the better question is, who's the AT&T?

00:54:37 ◼   ► Who is the most beleaguered?

00:54:38 ◼   ► Who is the most desperate?

00:54:40 ◼   ► Who is the most willing to let Apple just saunter in?

00:54:44 ◼   ► - I think you mean singular.

00:54:45 ◼   ► - Actually, you're right.

00:54:46 ◼   ► I'm sorry, that's very true.

00:54:47 ◼   ► I do mean singular.

00:54:48 ◼   ► So who is the most desperate and most willing

00:54:51 ◼   ► to let Apple just waltz in and kind of take over the show?

00:54:56 ◼   ► And I don't know who that is today.

00:54:59 ◼   ► - Alpha Romeo.

00:54:59 ◼   ► - Oh, wait, let's try again.

00:55:01 ◼   ► Everyone's already owned by somebody else.

00:55:04 ◼   ► Like any beleaguered brand, like, you know,

00:55:06 ◼   ► Tata or Fiat already bought them, so who's left?

00:55:10 ◼   ► - I bet you see my point, right?

00:55:11 ◼   ► I mean, who is most willing to do that?

00:55:13 ◼   ► I think Saab before they disappeared,

00:55:16 ◼   ► 'cause Saab is dead now, right?

00:55:18 ◼   ► - Yeah, GM bought them, right?

00:55:19 ◼   ► And then--

00:55:20 ◼   ► - And then spun them off, I thought,

00:55:21 ◼   ► or just let them die, one or the other.

00:55:23 ◼   ► - Yeah, Saab is gone.

00:55:24 ◼   ► - So I don't, Saturn, you know?

00:55:26 ◼   ► - No, they're gone too.

00:55:27 ◼   ► What kind of shape is Nissan in?

00:55:30 ◼   ► - I thought they were doing well.

00:55:31 ◼   ► Mitsubishi was hurting last I heard.

00:55:32 ◼   ► - Yeah, Mitsubishi, but they don't offer a good car

00:55:36 ◼   ► to travel to put its stuff inside.

00:55:38 ◼   ► The car is a much more important part of the entire product

00:55:43 ◼   ► than the cell network was for the iPhone, arguably,

00:55:46 ◼   ► even when they picked the bad cell network.

00:55:49 ◼   ► And also, the phone always had sort of like,

00:55:51 ◼   ► if we do well, obviously we'll expand outward.

00:55:54 ◼   ► We won't be AT&T or singular only forever if we're successful.

00:55:56 ◼   ► Whereas if you're successful with a car,

00:55:58 ◼   ► what do you think every car company is gonna be like,

00:56:00 ◼   ► "Oh yeah, totally Apple come and do R."

00:56:02 ◼   ► Like it's not, I don't see a path forward for that.

00:56:05 ◼   ► It's like you just,

00:56:06 ◼   ► either you do something like CarPlay

00:56:08 ◼   ► where you try to get buy-in from,

00:56:09 ◼   ► and this gets, CarPlay could still work.

00:56:11 ◼   ► Like you're not owning the interior,

00:56:13 ◼   ► but every interior has a place where you can put your crap

00:56:16 ◼   ► and some limited integration.

00:56:17 ◼   ► Of course, Android's trying to do the same thing.

00:56:19 ◼   ► Like I think the prospects for CarPlay

00:56:22 ◼   ► are similar for the prospects of,

00:56:25 ◼   ► you buy your TV from someone else

00:56:27 ◼   ► and let us control some part of the interface.

00:56:29 ◼   ► And in practice, that kind of sorta works.

00:56:31 ◼   ► Like that's the puck device category.

00:56:33 ◼   ► Like, well, we don't make your TV.

00:56:35 ◼   ► We don't control the interface.

00:56:36 ◼   ► Those menus you bring up to adjust the picture controls,

00:56:38 ◼   ► we don't control any of that.

00:56:41 ◼   ► We don't control your remote,

00:56:42 ◼   ► but you can attach this box to one of your inputs

00:56:44 ◼   ► and use our own little remote.

00:56:45 ◼   ► And then we sort of take over your TV

00:56:47 ◼   ► for a small period of time.

00:56:48 ◼   ► And it's not great, but it works.

00:56:50 ◼   ► And other people try to do it.

00:56:51 ◼   ► So that's CarPlay, that's the Android car thing or whatever,

00:56:54 ◼   ► But that's not gonna get us to like,

00:56:56 ◼   ► that's not gonna resolve our dissatisfaction

00:56:58 ◼   ► in the same way that doesn't something make us all

00:56:59 ◼   ► love our TVs because we have seven pucks attached to them.

00:57:02 ◼   ► - Well and also it's not a great metaphor

00:57:04 ◼   ► because TVs are kinda just made to be taken over.

00:57:08 ◼   ► Whereas if you wanna properly integrate into a car system

00:57:11 ◼   ► and take over the UI, you need to be integrated

00:57:14 ◼   ► into a lot more, it's a lot more complicated

00:57:16 ◼   ► than just like, oh, there's a giant screen, take it over.

00:57:20 ◼   ► Most cars have multiple displays and gauges

00:57:23 ◼   ► and different control surfaces all over the place

00:57:25 ◼   ► and all sorts of different things you gotta hook into

00:57:27 ◼   ► if you really wanted to take it over.

00:57:29 ◼   ► And over time, it's only gonna get more complicated.

00:57:32 ◼   ► Look at what our fancy cars have.

00:57:33 ◼   ► We have the heads-up displays,

00:57:35 ◼   ► we have cameras in the mirror to look at stuff on the road,

00:57:38 ◼   ► you got sensors all around the car,

00:57:39 ◼   ► you got the navigation screen, you got media controls,

00:57:42 ◼   ► you got navigation itself, you have all these,

00:57:45 ◼   ► the mobile office BS, all these different things.

00:57:48 ◼   ► And the number of systems in cars

00:57:51 ◼   ► that are gonna be integrated into everyday models

00:57:54 ◼   ► is gonna keep going up over time as these things get cheaper.

00:57:58 ◼   ► So the model of what CarPlay is doing now

00:58:03 ◼   ► is always going to be very limited

00:58:06 ◼   ► and is really, if anything, gonna keep being relegated

00:58:09 ◼   ► to a smaller and smaller proportion

00:58:12 ◼   ► of the car's overall smarts and displays.

00:58:15 ◼   ► - But like television, the car interior is under attack

00:58:18 ◼   ► from usurpers from the outside, right?

00:58:20 ◼   ► like automatic as an example,

00:58:22 ◼   ► like a previous sponsor of the podcast

00:58:24 ◼   ► lets you shove a thing into a standard port on your car

00:58:26 ◼   ► and give it a bunch of features that it should have had

00:58:28 ◼   ► and already if car manufacturers knew

00:58:30 ◼   ► what the hell they were doing, but they don't, so use this.

00:58:32 ◼   ► When we all used to have GPS's stuck inside our cars,

00:58:34 ◼   ► when it wasn't on our phones

00:58:37 ◼   ► and when it wasn't built into the cars,

00:58:38 ◼   ► that was an attack from the outside.

00:58:40 ◼   ► Hey, if car makers knew what the hell they were doing,

00:58:41 ◼   ► every car would have GPS built in, but they don't,

00:58:43 ◼   ► so buy this Garmin thing

00:58:44 ◼   ► and suck your cup into your dashboard, right?

00:58:47 ◼   ► Us, everyone connecting iPods to their stereo systems

00:58:49 ◼   ► long before car makers got a clue.

00:58:51 ◼   ► There is a constant assault from outside world

00:58:54 ◼   ► of the faster moving technology sector

00:58:57 ◼   ► to do things that sometimes it's just kind of like

00:59:00 ◼   ► taking advantage of your car hardware,

00:59:02 ◼   ► sometimes it's an entirely separate system like the GPS,

00:59:04 ◼   ► but sometimes like automatic, it's like,

00:59:06 ◼   ► help you find your car in the parking lot.

00:59:08 ◼   ► Why can't you do that already?

00:59:09 ◼   ► 'Cause car makers have no idea what they're doing.

00:59:10 ◼   ► Buy this thing and we'll help you do it, right?

00:59:13 ◼   ► And I don't know, that's not,

00:59:14 ◼   ► it's not like they're gonna win,

00:59:15 ◼   ► like they're gonna overwhelm it from the outside

00:59:17 ◼   ► because they can't, and Marco, you're totally right.

00:59:19 ◼   ► like attaching a bunch of these things is like,

00:59:21 ◼   ► it's worse than attaching pucks to IT

00:59:23 ◼   ► 'cause like the experience should be entirely integrated.

00:59:26 ◼   ► It should know how fast your car is going,

00:59:27 ◼   ► where you're probably going to,

00:59:29 ◼   ► how much pressure is in the tires,

00:59:30 ◼   ► what the current G-force being pulled is,

00:59:32 ◼   ► whether it's okay to interrupt you with a call

00:59:34 ◼   ► because it knows how you're like total integration.

00:59:37 ◼   ► Like that's, you know, you ask what could Apple add

00:59:39 ◼   ► to the car experience?

00:59:41 ◼   ► If, you know, this is maybe the idealized Apple,

00:59:43 ◼   ► they could add an interface that takes into account

00:59:45 ◼   ► all those things in a way no car maker has

00:59:48 ◼   ► Do it all without relying on a bunch of other stuff that you stick inside the car

00:59:52 ◼   ► Yeah, I think you guys are both right the only thing that um

00:59:57 ◼   ► That makes me doubt you is what if they were to?

01:00:01 ◼   ► Enter into a car into work with a car manufacturer that already has a bus like I think Volkswagen for example

01:00:09 ◼   ► And I'm not talking buses in what the Brits would call a coach. I'm saying a

01:00:13 ◼   ► Service bus and so as an example

01:00:16 ◼   ► I think that Volkswagen has some hilariously named and mildly inappropriate

01:00:22 ◼   ► service bus that all of their different components talk to and I think BMW does the same thing actually and

01:00:29 ◼   ► Presumably most modern car manufacturers do so maybe this isn't really narrowing it down at all

01:00:35 ◼   ► But like my friend Brian had who had a Volkswagen r32

01:00:39 ◼   ► I remember that he had done something I don't recall the specifics

01:00:43 ◼   ► But he had done something with the Volkswagen can bus as I believe what it's called. Thank you Matt Donders in the chat

01:00:49 ◼   ► Where he had like added a gauge or something like that whatever he did

01:00:53 ◼   ► He did something that was possible because basically all of the cars different computers were talking to each other on one common bus

01:01:01 ◼   ► And so if that were the case in say a Volkswagen or BMW or something like that

01:01:05 ◼   ► then maybe they could do something more than just the

01:01:10 ◼   ► Fairly rudimentary carplay implementation they have now maybe they could add gauges not not to say the gauges are really be all end all but

01:01:16 ◼   ► Just as a simple example

01:01:18 ◼   ► You know something like that is possible without presumably too much work if they can just get their selves that get themselves onto the canvas

01:01:24 ◼   ► Yeah, but as soon as anyone does that as soon as Apple pulls into that they're gonna just lock it down

01:01:29 ◼   ► You know because like as John said like the car manufacturers

01:01:33 ◼   ► Kind of don't want someone else to come take over their systems and plug into their systems like they want to control the whole thing

01:01:39 ◼   ► for lots of good reasons, like for themselves,

01:01:43 ◼   ► for their businesses, for safety.

01:01:44 ◼   ► Like there's so many reasons why they're not gonna let

01:01:47 ◼   ► anyone else just plug into their bus and drive all over it.

01:01:50 ◼   ► - It's like, well Microsoft did that with Ford, right?

01:01:53 ◼   ► Weren't they the Ford, My Touch interior thing,

01:01:56 ◼   ► like Microsoft partnered with them?

01:01:58 ◼   ► - Yeah, but that was like two desperate companies.

01:01:59 ◼   ► - Right, well the whole idea is like that it's almost as if

01:02:04 ◼   ► it was to Ford's advantage for that interface

01:02:07 ◼   ► to not be too good.

01:02:08 ◼   ► Because like I said, if the reason people are buying your car is because everybody knows

01:02:12 ◼   ► it's the car with the awesome Apple interface and like you got to check it.

01:02:15 ◼   ► Like if that becomes the value proposition of your car, if it is the differentiator,

01:02:20 ◼   ► you don't like people are buying your car not because of something you did.

01:02:23 ◼   ► You are giving some portion of value and attractiveness inherent in your product and you're giving

01:02:29 ◼   ► the most important portion of that to Apple.

01:02:31 ◼   ► Like it's kind of like that, you know, the cell network, you know, we want the iPhone

01:02:35 ◼   ► Network and turns out that people don't care what network it is

01:02:38 ◼   ► They'll get AT&T if it means they get to have the iPhone the iPhone becomes the most important thing

01:02:42 ◼   ► It's not like oh, this is gonna make people love AT&T. No it's gonna make people love the iPhone

01:02:47 ◼   ► That is the differentiator and that's where the value is and they just want you to be a dumb pipe and now you're sad

01:02:51 ◼   ► Well, but that's exactly what Ford did with the my Ford

01:02:55 ◼   ► Sync or whatever was that which was Microsoft behind the scenes, and they made it clear that it was Microsoft

01:03:00 ◼   ► That was a selling point right, but it wasn't that good and no one was buying

01:03:04 ◼   ► Ford because of the like if all of a sudden people bought forwards because everyone knew that forwards of the cars with the great

01:03:11 ◼   ► interfaces that like they never had that reputation that was that was never the value proposition of a Ford and if it had become one if

01:03:18 ◼   ► It would be like I wasn't gonna buy it for but now everybody tells me like the same reason like I'm not into Apple

01:03:23 ◼   ► But everyone tells me an iPhone is an awesome cell phone, so I'm interested and I'm gonna check it out, right I?

01:03:28 ◼   ► Guess but I mean to take it on its flip side

01:03:31 ◼   ► I feel like I've heard many times that say

01:03:34 ◼   ► Cadillacs navigation interface is just atrociously bad and we talked a long time especially Marco about how awful the Lexus interface is

01:03:42 ◼   ► So yeah, maybe you don't want it to be a selling point, but you certainly don't want it to be a liability either

01:03:46 ◼   ► Yeah, well you're kind of right that it was you know Microsoft desperation, but Ford is actually one of the American car companies that is not

01:03:52 ◼   ► Constantly making terrible cars and being bailed out by the government and like you know if you had to pick

01:03:57 ◼   ► What is what is the best American car maker? I?

01:04:00 ◼   ► Think Ford is a pretty strong case to be made sure forward in terms of both

01:04:04 ◼   ► Financial health of the company and the quality of the vehicles they put out this there's spot exceptions

01:04:09 ◼   ► you can see you can find exceptional cars and you know all the other makers as well, but

01:04:13 ◼   ► Ford overall was it was not the most desperate of all companies

01:04:18 ◼   ► Our final sponsor this week is our best friends Squarespace

01:04:24 ◼   ► Squarespace is the all-in-one platform that makes it fast and easy to create your own

01:04:28 ◼   ► professional website, portfolio, and/or online store.

01:04:31 ◼   ► For a free trial and 10% off, visit squarespace.com and enter offer code ATP at checkout.

01:04:37 ◼   ► Now you probably saw, if you are a regular person and not me, you probably saw the Super

01:04:42 ◼   ► Bowl commercial during the Super Bowl with Jeff Bridges and that cool project.

01:04:45 ◼   ► You can go to Dreaming with Jeff to see that, we'll put the link there.

01:04:48 ◼   ► So they did this cool project with Jeff Bridges, also known as The Dude, the actor who played

01:04:52 ◼   ► The Dude.

01:04:54 ◼   ► stuff with this, he has some kind of like, in my opinion, kind of strange album of sleep

01:05:00 ◼   ► sounds.

01:05:01 ◼   ► It's interesting, go check it out.

01:05:02 ◼   ► They built it all on Squarespace and it's a fantastic demo for what Squarespace can

01:05:05 ◼   ► do.

01:05:06 ◼   ► Building a website with Squarespace is incredibly powerful and incredibly easy.

01:05:11 ◼   ► They make ridiculous amounts of power available to you in an easy, gooey, easy drag and drop

01:05:17 ◼   ► interface.

01:05:18 ◼   ► Everything is what you see is what you get.

01:05:20 ◼   ► It is so advanced and so powerful.

01:05:23 ◼   ► They recently redesigned it this past fall into Squarespace 7.

01:05:28 ◼   ► It has tons of new features, great new design, where everything, like you're always on the

01:05:32 ◼   ► page.

01:05:33 ◼   ► Like there is no separate management interface that you have to go to anymore.

01:05:38 ◼   ► Everything like you are editing the page live right there in the interface.

01:05:43 ◼   ► Everything is WYSIWYG as I said.

01:05:45 ◼   ► They have all new stuff.

01:05:46 ◼   ► They have integration with Google Apps.

01:05:48 ◼   ► They have partnerships with Getty Images.

01:05:49 ◼   ► You can automatically put Getty Images into your stuff for just $10 and it's all fully

01:05:54 ◼   ► integrated.

01:05:55 ◼   ► Great deal, great integration, very easy to do.

01:05:57 ◼   ► They have all new templates.

01:05:58 ◼   ► They have a cool feature called cover pages where if you want to put up a temporary or

01:06:02 ◼   ► permanent splash page like before people enter your site, if you want to promote something

01:06:06 ◼   ► new or if you just want like a different design for that, you can do that, turn it on or off,

01:06:10 ◼   ► change it very, very quickly and easily whenever you want.

01:06:13 ◼   ► As usual, Squarespace is beautiful, simple and powerful.

01:06:17 ◼   ► They have 24/7 support if you need it.

01:06:19 ◼   ► All this is just $8 a month and if you buy a whole year up front you get a free domain

01:06:24 ◼   ► name with that.

01:06:26 ◼   ► Squarespace sites are all, they all have responsive design.

01:06:28 ◼   ► Your sites will look great on any screen size, any device.

01:06:32 ◼   ► They will look like your site.

01:06:33 ◼   ► It's themed to your site.

01:06:34 ◼   ► If you change the theme, if you change colors and stuff like that, you can change all that

01:06:38 ◼   ► stuff.

01:06:39 ◼   ► That all matches no matter what size layout you're looking at.

01:06:41 ◼   ► They also have commerce that if you want to sell stuff, physical or digital goods, they

01:06:45 ◼   ► They have a commerce platform integrated, no additional charge for that.

01:06:49 ◼   ► Every website can have a store if you want to.

01:06:52 ◼   ► You can start your free trial today for Squarespace.

01:06:54 ◼   ► Go there, check it out, just try to build something.

01:06:56 ◼   ► They're very generous with their free trials.

01:06:58 ◼   ► And just give it a shot.

01:06:59 ◼   ► You don't have to enter a credit card to start.

01:07:02 ◼   ► There is a real free trial here.

01:07:03 ◼   ► You don't type in a credit card and then hope you remember to cancel it or anything like

01:07:07 ◼   ► that.

01:07:08 ◼   ► Real free trial, no credit card required.

01:07:10 ◼   ► Go to squarespace.com, enter offer code ATP at checkout to get 10% off.

01:07:15 ◼   ► Thanks a lot to Squarespace for supporting our show.

01:07:17 ◼   ► Squarespace, start here, go anywhere.

01:07:19 ◼   ► - All right, anything else on cars?

01:07:21 ◼   ► - Yeah, one more thing, I think.

01:07:23 ◼   ► - We have more than one more thing.

01:07:24 ◼   ► - Well, one more major thing to bring this back down to Earth

01:07:28 ◼   ► now that we're too busy.

01:07:29 ◼   ► - Followed by three weeks of follow-up.

01:07:30 ◼   ► - Too busy speculating about this.

01:07:32 ◼   ► Let's all now assume that Apple is not going to make a car.

01:07:35 ◼   ► But let's assume that these rumors about some large project

01:07:40 ◼   ► at Apple involving cars in some way that is not Street View

01:07:44 ◼   ► and that is not merely an extension of existing carplay exists.

01:07:46 ◼   ► Because if this Wall Street Journal article, like say it gets a bunch of things wrong and

01:07:50 ◼   ► it guesses wrong about what these people are doing, but there really is a large number

01:07:54 ◼   ► of people, Apple's gearing up and how, like Margo said, it seems crazy that these people

01:07:59 ◼   ► would all be working on carplay.

01:08:00 ◼   ► So if they're not making a car, and if it's not about street view, and if it's not carplay,

01:08:05 ◼   ► but it is car related, what the hell is it?

01:08:08 ◼   ► I mean, honestly, I think a street view style project from those little minivans that we've

01:08:13 ◼   ► we've already seen pictures of that, I don't know if we definitely know that they're from

01:08:17 ◼   ► Apple, I think that's kind of vague as to what the connection is, but assume they are.

01:08:22 ◼   ► I think that would be enough to have a big staff and a big lab.

01:08:27 ◼   ► That might be the reason, that might be all this is, because "all this is" is actually

01:08:33 ◼   ► to do a Street View kind of thing is a huge project.

01:08:36 ◼   ► But why would that be in a big building?

01:08:38 ◼   ► It's a lot of data a lot of software to write a lot of a lot of data to manage and people to manage and

01:08:43 ◼   ► A fleet of vehicles to manage. I mean, that's that's a big job. Like there's a reason why

01:08:48 ◼   ► Why only Google has that feature right now?

01:08:51 ◼   ► Like I don't did anybody else ever do a street view like people in the flyover works are not nearly as good

01:08:55 ◼   ► I don't think anyone else did Street View except them right not to my knowledge

01:09:00 ◼   ► So the rumor is like a thousand person team like if they were doing Street View

01:09:03 ◼   ► Which I probably think they are I would imagine this effort to be more distributed like necessarily more

01:09:08 ◼   ► distributed. It's not as if all the cars are leaving from California and coming

01:09:11 ◼   ► back to California. Well it is Apple. It's like all the AOL traffic going through

01:09:15 ◼   ► Virginia. Yeah. I don't know, it just it doesn't seem to like I believe the

01:09:21 ◼   ► street view thing 100% and I suppose that could take maybe a hundred people

01:09:25 ◼   ► but not a thousand and I'm not sure I would hire anyone from a car company to

01:09:30 ◼   ► lead that because that's more of a I would hire someone from like a mapping

01:09:34 ◼   ► company or someone who you know they already has acquisitions from that you

01:09:37 ◼   ► the keyhole or whatever company that gave them their map data.

01:09:43 ◼   ► It doesn't fit with this rumor.

01:09:45 ◼   ► I guess it depends on how much of the Wall Street Journal article you think they got

01:09:49 ◼   ► correct.

01:09:50 ◼   ► I'm willing to believe that they got everything correct except for what these people are doing.

01:09:52 ◼   ► I'm willing to believe that the number of people is right, that their sort of general

01:09:57 ◼   ► location is right, that the people who are leading them are correctly identified, but

01:10:02 ◼   ► they just are guessing wrong about what these people are doing because they're not actually

01:10:05 ◼   ► making a car, they're doing something.

01:10:07 ◼   ► And I'm not sure what that something is.

01:10:10 ◼   ► - I mean, the reality is, like, if you take

01:10:12 ◼   ► these little collection of facts, assuming they're true,

01:10:16 ◼   ► I think making a car is the most likely conclusion

01:10:19 ◼   ► to draw from that.

01:10:21 ◼   ► It's not what I want them to be doing,

01:10:22 ◼   ► it's not what I think they should be doing,

01:10:24 ◼   ► from what I know today.

01:10:25 ◼   ► I mean, this could also, you know,

01:10:28 ◼   ► if you said to people in 2004,

01:10:31 ◼   ► Shappo make a phone, you'd hear from a lot of people

01:10:34 ◼   ► who would say yes and a lot of people who would say, "Well, maybe they should just

01:10:37 ◼   ► really focus on the computers."

01:10:41 ◼   ► I don't know by saying, "I don't think they should really do this.

01:10:46 ◼   ► Maybe they will blow us away."

01:10:47 ◼   ► I don't think that's very likely, just because I think they can make a car that

01:10:52 ◼   ► is designed very well, but I think about if you look at TVs and why—again, I know I

01:11:00 ◼   ► said a lot of this earlier—but if you look at why they don't make a TV, I think one

01:11:03 ◼   ► One of the reasons they don't make a TV is that TVs really have very little interface.

01:11:09 ◼   ► Like the TV itself, like the boxes that plug into it have an interface.

01:11:13 ◼   ► The TV itself has very little interface, really.

01:11:17 ◼   ► You're basically making tiny adjustments sometimes, adjusting the volume maybe, and then picking

01:11:22 ◼   ► inputs.

01:11:23 ◼   ► That's basically what you're doing.

01:11:25 ◼   ► Everything else now, you know, you're plugging a box and do things there.

01:11:28 ◼   ► So TVs, Apple could not bring a whole lot to that

01:11:31 ◼   ► because most of what a TV does is a dumb screen

01:11:34 ◼   ► that you turn on and off and pick inputs from.

01:11:36 ◼   ► - But they would own the whole screen.

01:11:38 ◼   ► It's like, what can they bring to the phone?

01:11:39 ◼   ► It's basically just a big screen.

01:11:40 ◼   ► They own everything on the screen.

01:11:41 ◼   ► It defines the experience.

01:11:43 ◼   ► - But they already have that with the box.

01:11:45 ◼   ► Anyway, so compare that to the car, to actual car usage.

01:11:50 ◼   ► Like, this is kind of what I was getting at earlier

01:11:52 ◼   ► when I was saying, how much can Apple bring to this?

01:11:54 ◼   ► Like, as you're using your car,

01:11:57 ◼   ► what parts of what you're doing in your car,

01:12:01 ◼   ► when you're actually owning and driving a car,

01:12:03 ◼   ► what parts of that process and that experience

01:12:07 ◼   ► are you heavily interacting with something

01:12:09 ◼   ► where interface quality is that important?

01:12:11 ◼   ► I think one of the reasons why cars

01:12:13 ◼   ► have such mediocre interfaces so often

01:12:16 ◼   ► is because it doesn't really matter that much.

01:12:18 ◼   ► Because for the most part,

01:12:19 ◼   ► you're barely ever looking at the controls, I hope,

01:12:22 ◼   ► and you're not doing that much.

01:12:24 ◼   ► There's like 12 buttons.

01:12:26 ◼   ► You're not doing a massive amount of things.

01:12:29 ◼   ► You're not running freeform software

01:12:31 ◼   ► for plenty of good reasons that probably won't change.

01:12:34 ◼   ► There's not that much going on there.

01:12:37 ◼   ► And many of these advances probably shouldn't happen

01:12:41 ◼   ► for safety reasons.

01:12:42 ◼   ► So I really doubt what value Apple

01:12:46 ◼   ► could realistically bring to this

01:12:48 ◼   ► that would make it worth all this trouble,

01:12:50 ◼   ► all this hassle, all the risk, all the expense,

01:12:52 ◼   ► all the loss of focus.

01:12:54 ◼   ► I don't know, like, what problem are we really desperate for an Apple car to solve?

01:13:01 ◼   ► And because look, all of us agree that cars often have, you know, pretty mediocre interfaces,

01:13:08 ◼   ► but all of us still drive these cars with pretty mediocre interfaces.

01:13:12 ◼   ► We all chose to buy the ones we bought for different reasons, really.

01:13:17 ◼   ► So not only do I not think Apple could make a huge difference here, but I'm also skeptical

01:13:22 ◼   ► to whether they would succeed much in the market because people buy cars for so many

01:13:26 ◼   ► different reasons beyond the things Apple's good at.

01:13:30 ◼   ► Well, I mean, Apple's good at fashion too, and people buy cars for those reasons, but

01:13:33 ◼   ► I think your view of what Apple can bring to this is too narrow.

01:13:36 ◼   ► It's not just about the user interface.

01:13:38 ◼   ► Like I said, it's bringing the things that Tesla has essentially already brought to it,

01:13:40 ◼   ► only bringing it to more people.

01:13:43 ◼   ► The ownership and use experience of an electric car is, I think, significantly different from

01:13:47 ◼   ► an internal combustion engine car, and it's also different from a hybrid.

01:13:51 ◼   ► all the parts of the car that don't necessarily have to do with driving getting in and out of it that like the ownership experience the

01:13:57 ◼   ► Maintenance experience like what the car looks like how big it can be where it can fit like all this the places you can innovate

01:14:03 ◼   ► With an electric car where you can't innovate with internal combustion energy because you have different constraints and Tesla is doing that now and that

01:14:09 ◼   ► That is the that's why I call them the Apple of cars like that is what they're bringing it to it

01:14:13 ◼   ► And yes also

01:14:14 ◼   ► Hopefully making the interior have nicer interface and having integration with your iPhone and having all this other you know

01:14:18 ◼   ► like all the things you would expect them to do,

01:14:21 ◼   ► but I think it's the sort of total ownership experience

01:14:25 ◼   ► that Apple would be bringing to it.

01:14:28 ◼   ► But like, I think we keep going back

01:14:29 ◼   ► to what Apple is making with the car.

01:14:31 ◼   ► And you said, if this rumor is true,

01:14:33 ◼   ► the most likely thing,

01:14:35 ◼   ► like if you think they're right about everything,

01:14:37 ◼   ► is that they're making a car.

01:14:38 ◼   ► I have to think that like a thousand persons seems too small.

01:14:42 ◼   ► And I would think that they would have to be something

01:14:44 ◼   ► in this article about them hiring away

01:14:46 ◼   ► automotive engineers from car makers,

01:14:47 ◼   ► like poaching people from different parts

01:14:49 ◼   ► of the organization.

01:14:50 ◼   ► Like if I just look at these facts,

01:14:52 ◼   ► what it looks like they're doing,

01:14:53 ◼   ► if I say every fact in this Wall Street Journal article

01:14:55 ◼   ► is correct, is they're working on something having to do

01:14:58 ◼   ► with interfaces inside cars.

01:15:00 ◼   ► It does not look to me like they're making a car

01:15:02 ◼   ► because this, I mean, you know, again,

01:15:04 ◼   ► if everything in this article is true,

01:15:05 ◼   ► I would think you should be hiring way, way, way, way, way

01:15:08 ◼   ► more mechanical engineers, automotive engineers,

01:15:11 ◼   ► and stuff like that, and be much less concerned

01:15:15 ◼   ► about like poaching people from the rest

01:15:17 ◼   ► of the organization to do like software and just hiring.

01:15:19 ◼   ► It just seems like, again, unless you're buying Tesla,

01:15:22 ◼   ► which already comes with those people,

01:15:24 ◼   ► this rumor, the most likely thing,

01:15:28 ◼   ► if everything was intruding to this article,

01:15:29 ◼   ► it's like, oh, they're doing something much more significant

01:15:32 ◼   ► having to do with the interior of cars.

01:15:34 ◼   ► That's what it looks like to me.

01:15:36 ◼   ► I'm bored by that too, though.

01:15:37 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:15:39 ◼   ► - Speaking of boring, what if it's something

01:15:41 ◼   ► even more boring than anything we've discussed?

01:15:43 ◼   ► What if they're just using their knowledge of system on a chip and building an ECU?

01:15:52 ◼   ► Or what if they're building a custom ECU to work with their custom head unit to vertically

01:15:56 ◼   ► integrate or whatever the business-y term is?

01:15:59 ◼   ► All the electronics and software in a car.

01:16:02 ◼   ► But it could be any car.

01:16:03 ◼   ► It could be GMs, it could be Fords, it could be Bentley, who cares?

01:16:07 ◼   ► I mean, it's a very boring answer, which is why I don't think it's really Apple style,

01:16:10 ◼   ► but it's a possibility.

01:16:11 ◼   ► I mean, they've gotten pretty good at chip design.

01:16:14 ◼   ► - Yeah, but like, again, who's gonna buy that?

01:16:16 ◼   ► Like, I don't think they wanna be a parts vendor

01:16:18 ◼   ► for car makers, like that's a loser business.

01:16:20 ◼   ► And like anything where you think an Apple will then

01:16:24 ◼   ► do this product or service or technology

01:16:26 ◼   ► to all the car makers, that is kind of the same reason

01:16:29 ◼   ► they can't seem to make a TV.

01:16:30 ◼   ► It's like, and Apple will let this technology

01:16:33 ◼   ► work with every cable company and all the TV.

01:16:35 ◼   ► Like the industry does not want that.

01:16:37 ◼   ► Industry does not want Apple to come in

01:16:39 ◼   ► and sort of do what they did to the,

01:16:42 ◼   ► remember they did the music industry

01:16:43 ◼   ► and it's like, oh, well, Apple's not gonna do that

01:16:45 ◼   ► to my industry, right?

01:16:46 ◼   ► And they basically did it to the cell phone industry too.

01:16:49 ◼   ► Like it was all about, they did to the music industry

01:16:51 ◼   ► and it's like, damn, now Apple has way more power

01:16:53 ◼   ► than we ever wanted them to,

01:16:54 ◼   ► how do we get ourselves into this situation?

01:16:56 ◼   ► And then it was like the video companies,

01:16:58 ◼   ► you know, TV, movies are like,

01:16:59 ◼   ► we're not gonna let Apple do

01:17:01 ◼   ► what they did to the music companies

01:17:02 ◼   ► and they were super resistant and helped competitors

01:17:04 ◼   ► or whatever, it's like, ha, we learned our lesson.

01:17:07 ◼   ► The people who didn't learn that lesson

01:17:08 ◼   ► were the cell phone companies.

01:17:09 ◼   ► They weren't paying enough attention.

01:17:11 ◼   ► They're like, yeah, see what Apple did

01:17:12 ◼   ► the record companies?

01:17:13 ◼   ► Yeah, now like the movie studios are all scared of them.

01:17:15 ◼   ► Ha ha.

01:17:16 ◼   ► They weren't even thinking about themselves.

01:17:17 ◼   ► Then Apple came and did the same thing to them essentially.

01:17:19 ◼   ► It's like, how did this happen?

01:17:21 ◼   ► And the car makers, I would hope wouldn't let that type of,

01:17:25 ◼   ► if only because of pride and stubbornness,

01:17:28 ◼   ► which seems to be very strong in the car business

01:17:30 ◼   ► because there are so few car companies

01:17:32 ◼   ► and because so many of them have long story traditions

01:17:34 ◼   ► having to do with families and everything,

01:17:36 ◼   ► that they do not want an outsider coming in.

01:17:40 ◼   ► And like, first of all, everybody's got it,

01:17:42 ◼   ► it's not a differentiator, so screw that.

01:17:44 ◼   ► And second of all, they don't want anybody coming

01:17:46 ◼   ► and telling them their business.

01:17:47 ◼   ► But I don't know, like it seems to me that Apple,

01:17:52 ◼   ► if again, if these rumors are true,

01:17:54 ◼   ► wants to do something having to do with cars,

01:17:56 ◼   ► and I think they seem to be starting in the interior

01:17:58 ◼   ► and growing slowly.

01:17:59 ◼   ► And so unless they buy Tesla, which they totally should,

01:18:02 ◼   ► because it would be great, I don't see them making a car.

01:18:05 ◼   ► Thanks a lot to our three sponsors this week, Cards Against Humanity, Fracture, and Squarespace,

01:18:11 ◼   ► and we will see you next week.

01:18:13 ◼   ► [MUSIC]

01:18:23 ◼   ► Oh it was accidental.

01:18:25 ◼   ► Accidental.

01:18:26 ◼   ► John didn't do any research.

01:18:28 ◼   ► Margo and Casey wouldn't let him.

01:18:31 ◼   ► Cause it was accidental.

01:18:33 ◼   ► Accidental.

01:18:34 ◼   ► It was accidental.

01:18:35 ◼   ► Accidental.

01:18:36 ◼   ► And you can find the show notes at ATP.FM.

01:18:41 ◼   ► And if you're into Twitter, you can follow them at

01:18:47 ◼   ► C-A-S-E-Y-L-I-S-S, so that's Casey Liss M-A-R-C-O-A-R-M

01:18:55 ◼   ► Auntie Marco Arment S-I-R-A-C-U-S-A, Syracusa

01:19:03 ◼   ► It's accidental (It's accidental)

01:19:06 ◼   ► They didn't mean to, accidental (Accidental)

01:19:11 ◼   ► Tech broadcast, so long

01:19:16 ◼   ► We didn't even mention that oh, it's it's shaped like a minivan. Oh god, can you imagine that had me?

01:19:22 ◼   ► I have to be maybe like maybe it's a compact hatchback of some sort but even that's kind of they just mean it's shaped like

01:19:28 ◼   ► The where this is from or confront

01:19:31 ◼   ► well in electric cars

01:19:32 ◼   ► You can have things like the leaf that look sort of

01:19:35 ◼   ► Small or even like the smart cars that have small internal combustion like you can end up with a car that is

01:19:40 ◼   ► What for lack of a better term dorky looking and it's all just about like oh, it's a little commuter car

01:19:45 ◼   ► It's just for transportation purposes and like that's less interesting to me as well

01:19:50 ◼   ► But then I can imagine someone who doesn't know anything about cars seeing that and saying oh

01:19:53 ◼   ► It's like a minivan or hell seeing the Tesla Model X and seeing it's kind of like a minivan like anything that

01:19:57 ◼   ► Doesn't look like a you know a Ford Crown Victoria from their childhood

01:20:01 ◼   ► Well, wouldn't you wouldn't you default to SUV rather than minivan if you didn't know any better and didn't know anything about cars

01:20:09 ◼   ► I would imagine it has like a snub nose front like someone saying it looks like a minivan that like there's not a lot of

01:20:14 ◼   ► of front overhang because you don't have an engine there and you can get better passenger

01:20:18 ◼   ► package and like the smart cars look, you know what I mean?

01:20:20 ◼   ► Like and then if you make that a little bit larger and puff it up, if it doesn't have

01:20:23 ◼   ► like a nose, it doesn't have a hood, then it looks like a minivan or crossover.

01:20:28 ◼   ► I don't know.

01:20:29 ◼   ► That that that's of all the doomsday scenarios, them making some little electric commuter

01:20:35 ◼   ► car like a Leaf or like it's just so uninteresting because that is and I just I don't know.

01:20:41 ◼   ► We all read that big Johnny Ive interview, right?

01:20:43 ◼   ► I haven't finished it yet.

01:20:45 ◼   ► - Oh, it's so good.

01:20:45 ◼   ► - No homework, it was homework.

01:20:47 ◼   ► - I did like half of it so far, give me a break.

01:20:49 ◼   ► - Yeah, everyone was raving about that article,

01:20:51 ◼   ► but if you have read, what was it,

01:20:53 ◼   ► Leander Caney's "Johnny Ive" book,

01:20:55 ◼   ► a lot of that article read like a book report

01:20:57 ◼   ► on the "Johnny Ive" book,

01:20:58 ◼   ► which is not to say it's a bad thing,

01:20:59 ◼   ► 'cause it's great, like, if you haven't read the book,

01:21:01 ◼   ► there's a lot of good information,

01:21:02 ◼   ► and of course, he had actual interviews and access,

01:21:04 ◼   ► and that's the good part of the article,

01:21:05 ◼   ► but a lot of it, I felt like I was wading through information

01:21:07 ◼   ► that I already knew from the book.

01:21:09 ◼   ► That's not a slam in the article,

01:21:10 ◼   ► That's just why I found it difficult to get through.

01:21:12 ◼   ► But anyway, at one point,

01:21:14 ◼   ► Johnny Ive looks out of the window of his Bentley,

01:21:16 ◼   ► at the Toyota Echo next to him,

01:21:18 ◼   ► complains that the styling is terrible.

01:21:19 ◼   ► So I don't think it's beyond the realm of possibility

01:21:24 ◼   ► that Apple would be interested in designing a car

01:21:30 ◼   ► and that it would be a dorky car.

01:21:32 ◼   ► Like this is a dorky car done right.

01:21:33 ◼   ► You know what I mean?

01:21:34 ◼   ► Like small, you know, commuter car

01:21:37 ◼   ► for people who don't need to go long distances

01:21:39 ◼   ► and owning this is so much better for people who never even wanted to own a car,

01:21:43 ◼   ► owning this is so much unlike owning a car that it will be great for you and you'll be like,

01:21:46 ◼   ► "Oh, they would never do that. Eddy Cue is on the board of Ferrari and

01:21:49 ◼   ► Johnny Ive has Aston Martins and they like great, cool cars."

01:21:55 ◼   ► But Johnny Ive was looking disdainfully at the Eco, not because I think he thinks the Toyota Eco,

01:21:58 ◼   ► like the idea of a small economical car is terrible, but just because he thought it wasn't designed right.

01:22:03 ◼   ► In his mind, he's like, "I could do a little car that's much better than that."

01:22:06 ◼   ► And he was also picking on somebody who's already down.

01:22:08 ◼   ► I mean, Toyota has not made anything attractive since at least the 90s, if not earlier.

01:22:12 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:22:13 ◼   ► But as soon as the Super got all puffy, it was all downhill.

01:22:16 ◼   ► Although, some of the early Lexuses weren't that bad.

01:22:18 ◼   ► Like, remember the original Lexus SC coupe?

01:22:20 ◼   ► That was an interesting design, don't you think?

01:22:24 ◼   ► Really?

01:22:25 ◼   ► The Lexus SC, you talk about the convertible hardtop?

01:22:27 ◼   ► No, the original SC.

01:22:29 ◼   ► You guys maybe don't remember.

01:22:30 ◼   ► I'll get you your...

01:22:31 ◼   ► I'm looking it up, hold on.

01:22:32 ◼   ► That?

01:22:33 ◼   ► You like that?

01:22:34 ◼   ► No, like super old.

01:22:35 ◼   ► No, you gotta go back in time.

01:22:36 ◼   ► Like what, when did Lexus, when Lexus came out as a company?

01:22:39 ◼   ► - They have one that's like, they have a picture here

01:22:40 ◼   ► of a '93 and a '92.

01:22:43 ◼   ► - Try the SC300 or SC400.

01:22:46 ◼   ► - It looks kind of like an Integra and a Miata had a baby,

01:22:48 ◼   ► and this is like kind of what came out.

01:22:50 ◼   ► - I mean, but compare, like, this is comparatively

01:22:54 ◼   ► much tighter, like as in the skin is stretched

01:22:57 ◼   ► much tighter over this car than it was.

01:22:58 ◼   ► I think this is like, the innovative thing about this

01:23:00 ◼   ► doesn't look like it at the top, looking back,

01:23:02 ◼   ► but like, wow, look how smooth and curved

01:23:05 ◼   ► the front and back are. Like, this is before cars all became water balloons, but this is,

01:23:10 ◼   ► I remember reading a story about this, that one of the design inspirations for the styling

01:23:16 ◼   ► of this car was literally taking a water balloon and squeezing it and seeing, squeezing with

01:23:20 ◼   ► your hand and seeing the different shapes that it sort of bulges into. But compare this

01:23:25 ◼   ► to like current actual water balloon cars and this looks like sporty and spelt and just…

01:23:31 ◼   ► - Eh, I'm not sure I agree with you on how good this is.

01:23:35 ◼   ► - Yeah, I'm with Marco.

01:23:36 ◼   ► This is not a very attractive car at all.

01:23:38 ◼   ► - It's a little bit dated, but at the time it came out,

01:23:41 ◼   ► it was very refined and stylish, and it was a distinctive,

01:23:45 ◼   ► it didn't look like a Mercedes or BMW,

01:23:47 ◼   ► unlike, for example, the LS 400,

01:23:48 ◼   ► which was like, you know, the poor man's Mercedes,

01:23:51 ◼   ► literally only 10 times more reliable and quieter.

01:23:53 ◼   ► But it was like this in the original GS

01:23:57 ◼   ► actually had some distinctive styling cues

01:24:00 ◼   ► where you could say this is like,

01:24:01 ◼   ► you know the current line of Lexus is also a distinctive styling cues they're just all ugly

01:24:04 ◼   ► Our styling is a big giant ugly bowtie mouth. Yeah them and Acura

01:24:09 ◼   ► I I would really say like like this the last couple years have really not been kind to most car design

01:24:16 ◼   ► We've had some really really bad cars being made recently new

01:24:20 ◼   ► I really like the new Accord and I like the new 5 series to happen to be two of our cars

01:24:25 ◼   ► But I think the styling of those cars took a definite turn for the better because the previous generation

01:24:29 ◼   ► Accord was butt ugly and the previous generation 5 was not good

01:24:32 ◼   ► Yeah, I agree with those actually

01:24:34 ◼   ► But you can look around the industry and you can see a lot of things that get seem to keep getting worse

01:24:40 ◼   ► Yeah, like for example everything Acura makes yep every Acura every Lexus

01:24:45 ◼   ► Some BMWs if I can say I really don't like the new m3 styling as we just as we talked about with the skin flaps

01:24:51 ◼   ► I don't like that at all

01:24:53 ◼   ► I don't know like

01:24:54 ◼   ► Accurate I think is a little bit of an upswing because they had they had a really serious unfortunate beak error

01:25:00 ◼   ► And they're I think they're trying to come out of that like the MDX is like the low point

01:25:05 ◼   ► Just or maybe the ZDX whatever that other thing like I think they're starting to come out of it

01:25:11 ◼   ► I think when they merge that merge their high-end sedans back together

01:25:14 ◼   ► into whatever it is the RLX now that the TSX and the RL became the single car the RLX that is a

01:25:21 ◼   ► Personalization and the styling of that car is not entirely hideous and really the RL wasn't entirely hideous here either

01:25:26 ◼   ► But yeah, they're off in a weird direction

01:25:29 ◼   ► I think that I think they're trying to come back where like BMW went off in a weird direction, too

01:25:33 ◼   ► and they're trying to gather it back, but

01:25:35 ◼   ► I think you know

01:25:36 ◼   ► like you said the new the new 3 series starts to go off in a weird direction again like the 5 is 5 was the

01:25:41 ◼   ► Maybe the peak comeback period and we'll see what the next 5 looks like to see if that gets better or worse

01:25:46 ◼   ► God the Maxima is terrible these days. Sorry. Yeah, just don't even look at the Maxima anymore. Just don't look. Oh my god

01:25:52 ◼   ► I heard it was getting better because it had some dark times, but it just keeps getting worse

01:25:57 ◼   ► I missed I missed the 40 SC

01:25:59 ◼   ► Yeah, like I mean the one I had the 96 Maxima was it wasn't it wasn't incredibly attractive

01:26:04 ◼   ► But it was it was at least neutral ding. This is the new one. Oh boy

01:26:09 ◼   ► Jeez, what are they doing? What is wrong with Nissan? Oh

01:26:13 ◼   ► - Oh, what a shame.

01:26:14 ◼   ► The Maxima was so good.

01:26:16 ◼   ► It lost its way so severely.

01:26:18 ◼   ► - Yep.

01:26:19 ◼   ► - Nissan had some interesting things.

01:26:20 ◼   ► Like when the Altima did the wraparound tail lights,

01:26:23 ◼   ► like that was going a little bit too far,

01:26:25 ◼   ► but at least it was interesting.

01:26:26 ◼   ► And I think the Maxima, like one or two generations ago,

01:26:30 ◼   ► also had some interesting features.

01:26:32 ◼   ► It was still kind of puffy,

01:26:33 ◼   ► but they were kind of in the right direction.

01:26:35 ◼   ► And then they just lost it for the current generation.

01:26:38 ◼   ► - Oh man, I miss neutral.

01:26:40 ◼   ► - Wow, the Altima's pretty rough these days too.

01:26:43 ◼   ► boy what are they thinking?

01:26:44 ◼   ► - The car market is not that welcoming as of late.

01:26:49 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:26:50 ◼   ► I mean what is there really that's compelling these days?

01:26:53 ◼   ► - Well I think the move to electric is interesting,

01:26:55 ◼   ► you know, like it's still pretty limited and expensive,

01:26:59 ◼   ► but I think that's like, you know,

01:27:02 ◼   ► it's similar to the move to SSDs and computers,

01:27:04 ◼   ► like that is, that's clearly the way forward eventually.

01:27:09 ◼   ► Obviously it's gonna move a lot more slowly

01:27:11 ◼   ► I think than the SSD transition,

01:27:13 ◼   ► but 'cause turns out gas engines are good enough

01:27:17 ◼   ► for so many things and way better at certain other things

01:27:21 ◼   ► that like, yeah, it's gonna be a long time

01:27:24 ◼   ► before gas engines are even the minority.

01:27:27 ◼   ► But I think the electric cars are gonna be

01:27:30 ◼   ► where we are looking for excitement.

01:27:33 ◼   ► And you know, maybe that's why Apple wants

01:27:35 ◼   ► to be a part of it if they do, who knows,

01:27:36 ◼   ► but you know, clearly from people who have driven them

01:27:40 ◼   ► or from people who own them,

01:27:41 ◼   ► There are a lot of compelling differences to them.

01:27:44 ◼   ► There's still a lot of downsides, but we'll get there.

01:27:49 ◼   ► - I just looked at the 2015 Maxima.

01:27:51 ◼   ► I was thinking of the 2014 one.

01:27:54 ◼   ► The 2015 one, holy cow!

01:27:56 ◼   ► - Did they make it even worse?

01:27:58 ◼   ► - I am speechless.

01:28:04 ◼   ► I haven't felt this way since the last time,

01:28:06 ◼   ► when I first saw the rear end of the C7 Corvette.

01:28:09 ◼   ► Like that's the last time I felt this way.

01:28:12 ◼   ► - Let me see, what happened?

01:28:14 ◼   ► - I just put it in the chat room.

01:28:16 ◼   ► - What is that?

01:28:17 ◼   ► - I mean it's a concept, all right.

01:28:20 ◼   ► Maybe it's a concept.

01:28:22 ◼   ► I just did search for Nissan Maxima 2015.

01:28:25 ◼   ► If this is a concept I feel a little bit better, but like.

01:28:28 ◼   ► - Yeah, this is not a shipping car.

01:28:30 ◼   ► - But if it was, that would be a big mistake,

01:28:33 ◼   ► 'cause that is not an attractive vehicle.

01:28:35 ◼   ► - At least it would be different.

01:28:36 ◼   ► I mean, you could at least describe this one as polarizing,

01:28:41 ◼   ► whereas the regular Maxima you can just describe

01:28:44 ◼   ► as mediocre to bad.

01:28:45 ◼   ► Polarizing, somebody will love this.

01:28:49 ◼   ► People with bad taste probably, but somebody will love this.

01:28:52 ◼   ► Whereas the current Maxima, nobody can love it.

01:28:54 ◼   ► - That's what I was thinking of the current one,

01:28:55 ◼   ► where that design with the little corner cut

01:28:58 ◼   ► out of the headlights, the first time they did that

01:29:00 ◼   ► was interesting, but now the car's puffy and gross again.

01:29:04 ◼   ► - It looks like a mistake.

01:29:05 ◼   ► It's like it just look it looks like somebody like somebody just screwed up while dragging out this design and 3d modeling software

01:29:12 ◼   ► Everybody go over Honda Accord 2014 to cleanse your palate. Oh

01:29:15 ◼   ► God listen to this guy. Oh wait wait wait the Maxima was at the end of the really sappy Super Bowl commercial from this year

01:29:23 ◼   ► The one where the dad's a race car driver

01:29:26 ◼   ► And and he like picks his son up from school or something like that at the very is the one where they killed children to

01:29:31 ◼   ► advertise insurance

01:29:32 ◼   ► No, I said sappy not stupid

01:29:35 ◼   ► Anyway, the dad like picks up his kid after he's missed his entire childhood, but he picks him up in a new Maxima

01:29:41 ◼   ► So all is forgiven. I put the link in the chat about one minute and 16 seconds give or take a little bit

01:29:46 ◼   ► Wait this I'm looking at the 2014 Honda Accord to cleanse my impala and you're right

01:29:50 ◼   ► It did close out because it just looks completely forgettable. Like don't look at the hybrid don't look at the hybrid

01:29:55 ◼   ► I'm I'm looking at the LX sedan on automotive calm

01:30:00 ◼   ► It's just oh, it's just like it's just incredibly bland

01:30:04 ◼   ► It's even in in that light silver color that all incredibly bland cars in the last decade have been not bland it is

01:30:09 ◼   ► Distinctive it is non bloaty is attractive

01:30:12 ◼   ► It has nice wheels. I agree that it's non bloaty like the sheet metal is stuck to the car. Yes

01:30:20 ◼   ► Yeah, I will agree. I will give you that point and it is a car shaped car

01:30:24 ◼   ► Yes, Wow it's not shaped like a snail or a poop our standards are pretty low here

01:30:29 ◼   ► This is this is this is what I look at that friggin maxima. What is that shape like not a car?

01:30:34 ◼   ► I guess yeah that that is the epitome of water balloon design. I

01:30:37 ◼   ► Actually do not think the Accord is very good-looking to be honest with you

01:30:41 ◼   ► You know, it really needs that spoiler lip on the back to keep the wheels on the ground

01:30:45 ◼   ► It's really fast does a little extra downforce for that. I think

01:30:48 ◼   ► The rear end is not great, but it's better than past Accords

01:30:53 ◼   ► But I really like the front of it and even like I say oh

01:30:55 ◼   ► Isn't there just a little bit too much chrome on the front like just

01:30:57 ◼   ► Look at all the other Honda's that are trying to use the same design language, and how gross they are and this is the one

01:31:03 ◼   ► Car that got this design language to be attractive

01:31:06 ◼   ► I think this looks no different to me than what's the big Toyota the Camry?

01:31:11 ◼   ► This is so different go actually look at a camera a Camry now your Google camera

01:31:15 ◼   ► You will see there's a huge never never mind if you see them in person. It's not even close like

01:31:20 ◼   ► rectilinear headlights.

01:31:22 ◼   ► - All right, so I'm looking at a Camry now and--

01:31:24 ◼   ► - They look the exact same.

01:31:25 ◼   ► - No, it does not.

01:31:26 ◼   ► Are you crazy?

01:31:27 ◼   ► - I would say the Accord looks better.

01:31:29 ◼   ► - Way better.

01:31:29 ◼   ► - I would say the difference is pretty small.

01:31:31 ◼   ► - Thank you, I would agree with that, Marco.

01:31:32 ◼   ► - No way, look at the giant fish mouth and the friggin',

01:31:35 ◼   ► oh, I'm not gonna be Avalon, but like the Camry,

01:31:37 ◼   ► like it's just, the Camry has nothing going for it.

01:31:39 ◼   ► It has no, it has no distinction to its design.

01:31:42 ◼   ► It is just a series of little details

01:31:45 ◼   ► tacked onto a squishy shape.

01:31:47 ◼   ► - Well, I would say the same thing is true of the Accord.

01:31:49 ◼   ► but it just looks a little bit less squishy.

01:31:50 ◼   ► There's not a lot going on here.

01:31:52 ◼   ► It is a very, if you think about what would be

01:31:56 ◼   ► the dictionary definition of a car,

01:31:57 ◼   ► it would have a picture of this next to it.

01:31:59 ◼   ► If you ever see those pictures where they average

01:32:02 ◼   ► every human face and then it shows the most average face.

01:32:05 ◼   ► - No, but this would not be the average.

01:32:07 ◼   ► This is different, average together,

01:32:09 ◼   ► like the Camry and the Maxima.

01:32:11 ◼   ► You do not get the Accord, it is not the average.

01:32:14 ◼   ► It may have been the average of a bunch of cars

01:32:16 ◼   ► like a decade ago, but it is off the beaten path

01:32:19 ◼   ► of car makers now.

01:32:20 ◼   ► I think this car is attractive and classy, I would say.

01:32:23 ◼   ► Classy, it does not embarrass itself

01:32:26 ◼   ► in the way that the other cars do.

01:32:28 ◼   ► - 'Cause it just disappears.

01:32:29 ◼   ► It just blends right into whatever.

01:32:31 ◼   ► - I don't think it just disappears.

01:32:32 ◼   ► I think being classy in this way doesn't disappear

01:32:35 ◼   ► in the same way that like Casey's beloved 5 Series.

01:32:38 ◼   ► Like, whoa, this is boring.

01:32:39 ◼   ► It just kind of blends in with the background.

01:32:40 ◼   ► Just looks like a car.

01:32:41 ◼   ► The only thing that distinguishes this,

01:32:42 ◼   ► it's got little kidneys in the front,

01:32:43 ◼   ► but otherwise it's just a car-shaped car.

01:32:45 ◼   ► Remember when all the BMWs were all like the same shape,

01:32:47 ◼   ► just came in different sizes?

01:32:49 ◼   ► - Not that different from now, honestly.

01:32:50 ◼   ► - Well, it is now, but they all have these bulges

01:32:52 ◼   ► and ripples and flanges all over them,

01:32:55 ◼   ► and they all have different ripples and flanges.

01:32:56 ◼   ► But when they all look the same,

01:32:58 ◼   ► the complaint was it's too boring.

01:33:00 ◼   ► It doesn't have the excitement of, you know,

01:33:03 ◼   ► if I'm gonna spend this much money in a car,

01:33:05 ◼   ► I want it to look more exciting.

01:33:06 ◼   ► I just don't want it to look like the same car

01:33:08 ◼   ► in three sizes and super boring.

01:33:10 ◼   ► But I think that's a, you know,

01:33:13 ◼   ► Having restraint and being sort of a classy car that the places where it decides to emphasize

01:33:19 ◼   ► its attractiveness is in the small details, but the overall shape is very just simple

01:33:23 ◼   ► and non-showy.

01:33:26 ◼   ► I think it's a perfectly valid way to go.

01:33:27 ◼   ► I think I screwed it up with the back because the tail lights aren't particularly nice looking,

01:33:31 ◼   ► but the overall shape of the car I think is very pleasing.

01:33:34 ◼   ► See your definition of classy to me what you're describing is the E39 M5.

01:33:39 ◼   ► When I think of boring and unremarkable, I think of pretty much any Accord that's ever

01:33:43 ◼   ► been ever.

01:33:44 ◼   ► Another good example is the front air dam, like the big plastic front bumper thing, whatever

01:33:48 ◼   ► you're going to call that.

01:33:50 ◼   ► So many car makers, including I think most BMWs these days, just go nuts with that thing

01:33:55 ◼   ► and mess it up.

01:33:56 ◼   ► Oh, well, the, well, the thing with BMWs, you're right, is that, and I've talked about

01:34:00 ◼   ► this a million times, the non M sport front air dam on a regular BMW is like a little

01:34:05 ◼   ► slit and it looks awful.

01:34:07 ◼   ► It looks terrible.

01:34:08 ◼   ► of the reason I insisted on getting myself an M Sport 335 was not because of anything

01:34:14 ◼   ► else.

01:34:15 ◼   ► Like it doesn't really go any faster, it doesn't handle any better because I have an X Drive.

01:34:18 ◼   ► It was strictly for that air dam because it actually looks good.

01:34:22 ◼   ► I think most of the things try to make everything like it has giant jet intakes and big scoops

01:34:27 ◼   ► and flanges and things poking out of it and that's why I think that the M Sport ones look

01:34:30 ◼   ► worse than the other ones or like at least more gaudy.

01:34:34 ◼   ► And just look at the look at the big front piece of plastic on this Accord.

01:34:38 ◼   ► It is restrained, it does not call attention to itself.

01:34:42 ◼   ► It completes the shape of the car with maybe a little bit of smarty pretensions of like

01:34:47 ◼   ► sticking out at the bottom rim a little bit and with a little tiny chrome accent.

01:34:51 ◼   ► But it does not, I mean, just compare it to that same part on an M3, current generation

01:34:56 ◼   ► M3, which just like screams at you that I'm a Transformer.

01:34:59 ◼   ► Well but you're just, you're making our point, which is like, the Accord looks like, it looks

01:35:04 ◼   ► average and forgettable.

01:35:05 ◼   ► It is like, it doesn't jump out at you.

01:35:08 ◼   ► None of the design just jumps out and says,

01:35:10 ◼   ► look at me, I'm a huge design flaw.

01:35:13 ◼   ► It just, the whole car just looks like an average,

01:35:17 ◼   ► completely forgettable car.

01:35:18 ◼   ► - Well, average car doesn't have those wheels.

01:35:20 ◼   ► And I would say an average car doesn't have

01:35:21 ◼   ► the LED highlights and the headlights.

01:35:24 ◼   ► And the, you know, looking restrained,

01:35:27 ◼   ► I think it does make a stand.

01:35:28 ◼   ► Again, compare it to the Avalon,

01:35:29 ◼   ► which looks like a giant cheese grater fish grill

01:35:31 ◼   ► flying through the air with a chrome nose on it.

01:35:33 ◼   ► Like, that is what the average car looks like.

01:35:35 ◼   ► Go look at, you know.

01:35:37 ◼   ► It's not, this is the average car.

01:35:40 ◼   ► Like, the Altima is the average car.

01:35:42 ◼   ► The Maxima is the average car.

01:35:44 ◼   ► The Camry is the average car.

01:35:45 ◼   ► They do not look like, compare the thing I just pasted

01:35:47 ◼   ► in the chat room with the Accord.

01:35:49 ◼   ► And say like, well, you know, it calls attention to itself,

01:35:51 ◼   ► but in a bad way.

01:35:52 ◼   ► And if you averaged a bunch of cars together,

01:35:54 ◼   ► I think you would get something

01:35:54 ◼   ► that would look way more like the Avalon than like the Accord.