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Apple Hiring Automotive Experts

Posted by Soulskill on from the cars-with-just-one-button dept.

An anonymous reader writes: A report at the Financial Times (paywalled) says Apple is on an aggressive hiring push to pick up automotive experts. Recent rumors suggest Apple is putting together a transportation research lab, and nobody outside the company is quite sure why. It's unlikely they's want to build an entire car themselves, but quite possible they see a big space for Apple technology within motor vehicles, much as Google seems to. They already have CarPlay, and it will doubtless grow, but we still don't have anything approaching a dominant platform for car software. Whatever they're working on, it looks like the competition for more robust computer technology in cars is heating up.

7 of 138 comments (clear)

  1. It would be great if google and apple enter ... by 140Mandak262Jamuna · · Score: 5, Interesting
    The automotive electronics is in terrible shape. The auto engineers do not understand security, their computers have existed without network connections in isolation for a long time. Now data connections are making their way deep into the cars and recently BMW had a security update affecting some 2 million cars. It was apparently communicating to the servers nearly in clear text.

    Further the bean counters think the dash space to be some sort of profit center. "They bought our car right? Let us make them pay 200$ for map DVD upgrade, 1800$ for navigational package, ha ha haa, you negotiated 800$ using edmunds.com and truecar.com? Well buddy, I will get that money back, 900$ for mp3 player! ".

    Further they are used to product cycles running into decade or more and taking 9 months to admit the ignition switch has a problem and six years to hide it from NTSB. They are not used to software release cycle speeds of once in 8 months or once a year.

    They used to do this with car radios and make it impossible to install after market radios. Then SAE defined standard connectors and that market got some real competition. It is high time SAE define user interface API for the common things and allow third parties to come in with custom made tablets to be integrated into the cars. With the 3D printing advances, we could get clean molded plastic brackets that fit almost as good as factory made dash with custom tablets. The market is ripe. Hope two really big companies with good customer base enter and do a serious fight for market share.

    --
    sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
    1. Re:It would be great if google and apple enter ... by m00sh · · Score: 4, Interesting

      The automotive electronics is in terrible shape. The auto engineers do not understand security, their computers have existed without network connections in isolation for a long time. Now data connections are making their way deep into the cars and recently BMW had a security update affecting some 2 million cars. It was apparently communicating to the servers nearly in clear text.

      Further the bean counters think the dash space to be some sort of profit center. "They bought our car right? Let us make them pay 200$ for map DVD upgrade, 1800$ for navigational package, ha ha haa, you negotiated 800$ using edmunds.com and truecar.com? Well buddy, I will get that money back, 900$ for mp3 player! ".

      Further they are used to product cycles running into decade or more and taking 9 months to admit the ignition switch has a problem and six years to hide it from NTSB. They are not used to software release cycle speeds of once in 8 months or once a year.

      They used to do this with car radios and make it impossible to install after market radios. Then SAE defined standard connectors and that market got some real competition. It is high time SAE define user interface API for the common things and allow third parties to come in with custom made tablets to be integrated into the cars. With the 3D printing advances, we could get clean molded plastic brackets that fit almost as good as factory made dash with custom tablets. The market is ripe. Hope two really big companies with good customer base enter and do a serious fight for market share.

      Automotive electronics developers would say the same thing about consumer communication protocols. It is a mess that can't guarantee anything for even a simple control setup.

      There are plenty of people putting car computers etc in their cars. When manufacturers put in an entertainment system and someone crashes and dies because of something in it, fingers are pointed to the car manufacturers. They always have to worry about SAFETY!

      This isn't like a consumer device that if it crashes or freezes, it's not a big deal. If a car software system crashes, people die.

      Speaking of GM ignition switch problem, it perhaps affected one person or at most a few and they had to do multi-billion dollar recall. Windows has security holes that affects millions and they just issue a fix whenever they feel like it and just tell the users not to do stupid things. Completely different systems.

    2. Re:It would be great if google and apple enter ... by mcrbids · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I don't *want* fancy electronics my car that doesn't adhere to some standard interface.

      I want music to adhere to a standard interface, EG: RCA connectors. I don't expect navigation in the dash - I'm perfectly happy using my phone. I'd be good with it playing through the soundsystem via a standard interface, EG: bluetooth.

      If you take care of them, cars last a long time. I'm *still* driving a 2001 Chrysler convertible, and it not only has a CD player, but also a cassette tape! I can't imagine using CDs or tapes - all my music is in my phone. The car only has 120k miles, I'll probably get another half decade out of it, at least. (And yes, I'm aware that the Chrysler convertibles have a bad reputation; emphasis on take care of them )

      I want my car to be a car, and not try to include technology with a life cycle of 3-5 years. I don't *want* my car to have a built in cellular wifi, because the cellular network will likely be upgraded well before the car dies, making the feature worthless at best, but more likely a security or reliability concern. I don't *want* my car to have built-in navigation, as whatever system it has will be hopelessly obsolete long before I'm ready to turn in the drivetrain.

      Instead, I propose that cars can have an in-dash screen that may (or may not) have it's own "smarts" but is also usable as a simple screen via something like HDMI with touch feedback so that later, I can use some new whiz bang thingie that hasn't been invented yet.

      --
      I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
  2. Re:Sure by jcr · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I know you think you said something clever, but I should point out that there was a time when Apple didn't know how to make phones or run retail stores. They found and hired the experts they needed to become world leaders in those lines of business.

    I'm going way out on a limb here, but it seems to me that if Apple gets into the car business, they'll do so by hiring the top automotive engineers and designers in the world. I know they can outbid anyone else for them.

    -jcr

    --
    The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
  3. Tim Cook, Just buy Telsa by byrddtrader · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Apple has roughly 175 billion in cash and Tesla's current market cap is around 35B. If Apple wants to get into the car business might as well jump in feet first. Not to mention you get one of the greatest CEO visionaries Elon Musk, since Steve Jobs. The Wall Street Journal is reporting today that Apple is building its one electric vehicle that resembles a minivan.

    1. Re:Tim Cook, Just buy Telsa by ganjadude · · Score: 2, Interesting

      dear god no. do NOT ruin all the good over at tesla by bringing it under apple. that is the last thing i want to see with tesla

      --
      have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
    2. Re:Tim Cook, Just buy Telsa by jammz · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Good lord no!

      Tesla is still sexy even though their latest financials look rough. If Mr. Cook truly wanted to by them, it wouldn't be for $35B. Acquisitions like Tesla would demand a premium, bare minimum of 50% I'd guess. That's about $53B as a bare minimum. That would be very hard to justify, when given Apple's scale and expertise, they could likely build their own automotive group for $10-15B.

      Also keep in mind that Tim Cook is brilliant too. There probably isn't a better tech CEO anywhere when it comes to hardball negotiations, logistical strategy and planning. I doubt Mr. Cook or Mr. Musk would work well together. Now, as strategic partners? Maybe. But, that requires a lot of discussions, which we know they've been doing. The automotive space is very mature and definitely long overdue for a radical shake up. Apple and Tesla partnered up could be very compelling. Time will tell if something comes of it.