Charlie StrossFeb 27, 2024

Apple Cancels Work on Electric Car, Ending Decade long Effort

The most recent approach discussed internally was delaying a car release until 2028 and reducing self-driving specifications from Level 4 to Level 2+ technology.

Many employees on the car team — known as the Special Projects Group, or SPG — will be shifted to the artificial intelligence division

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-02-27/apple-cancels-work-on-electric-car-shifts-team-to-generative-ai

Apple to Wind Down Electric Car Effort After Decadelong Odyssey

Apple Inc. is canceling a decadelong effort to build an electric car, according to people with knowledge of the matter, abandoning one of the most ambitious projects in the history of the company.

Bloomberg
Show threadCharlie StrossFeb 27, 2024
It's a classic case of Christensen's "The Innovator's Dilemma". Also, it's REALLY HARD to make a breakout automobile. (Tesla almost did, but screwed the pooch with bad quality control, poor ergonomics, and toxic company culture.) And even if you do, Ford/GM/Toyota/VW will catch up within a decade and eat your lunch. It's why most auto startups seem to be hypercars with a 7-digit price tag—there's a ridiculous profit margin—but production volume is too tiny for Apple to touch.
Show threadDan SugalskiFeb 27, 2024

@cstross I can't say I'm surprised. All the Apple Car rumors made me wonder "where's the value for Apple here and why should they bother?" and I could never figure out an answer that seemed worth the hassle.

Apparently that's true of people inside Apple too.

Show threadCharlie StrossFeb 27, 2024
@wordshaper They *did* have a break out in the watch industry, of all places (Apple Watch went from zero to the world's bestselling luxury watch brand in 12 months flat, knocking Rolex off the top spot) ... but the Watch is a "hobby" project in Apple product terms: I'm still not sure why they went there.
Show threadFeralRobotsFeb 27, 2024
@cstross @wordshaper
I always assumed it was a halo lubricant. I think it works reasonably well for that. The revenues may be incremental, but they firm up commitment.
Show threadCharlie StrossFeb 27, 2024

@FeralRobots @wordshaper Per Statista (not the best site) Apple has sold about 54 million watches from 2015 through 2022. So maybe 60 million by now, at an average price of say $500 (assuming most folks buy the cheap model), that'd be $30Bn, or maybe $4-5Bn/year.

Yes, that's a SMALL product by Apple standards.

Show threadDan Sugalski

@cstross @FeralRobots ...it's entirely possible the Apple Watch exists because Tim Cook runs and was annoyed by how bad fitness trackers were. A petty reason but maybe the case. (And if so I'm good with it, I rather like mine as a fitness gadget)

Possibly they're also taking a long view and just waiting for some new health sensors -- if it ever gets blood pressure or glucose monitoring those sales numbers will get a nice boost.

Feb 27, 2024 at 8:48pmWeb
Show threadCharlie StrossFeb 27, 2024

@wordshaper @FeralRobots Wrist-mounted blood pressure is a non-starter: wrist cuff monitors exist, the accuracy is piss-poor (they depend on height relative to your heart). Non-invasive glucose monitoring would be the killer app, but the FDA just had to post a warning that no such devices exist yet and are licensed ...

https://www.fda.gov/medical-devices/safety-communications/do-not-use-smartwatches-or-smart-rings-measure-blood-glucose-levels-fda-safety-communication

Smartwatches, Rings Claiming to Measure Glucose are not FDA-Authorized

Do Not Use Smartwatches or Smart Rings to Measure Blood Glucose

U.S. Food and Drug Administration
Show threadDan SugalskiFeb 27, 2024
@cstross @FeralRobots Oh, yeah, I know they don't exist now. I'm not sure wrist-mounted BP will *ever* exist, though non-invasive glucose monitoring might one of these days. (Maybe if they get very clever with lasers and such. Maybe)
Show threadCharlie StrossFeb 27, 2024
@wordshaper @FeralRobots I *want* non-invasive glucose monitoring. As about 10% of us will end up with type ii diabetes eventually, that really *is* a killer app for smartwatches—although the flood of GLP-1 agonists hitting the market since Semaglutide (Wegovy/Ozempic/Rybelsus/etc) may render it less necessary.
Show threadSpeakerToManagersFeb 28, 2024
@wordshaper @cstross @FeralRobots
The technology for wrist mounted BP is available, it’s just going to take someone to put the development and manufacturing money into it. The idea is to use near infrared light which penetrates the skin to measure blood flow changes during the pulse and estimate pressure from that. The research on this dates back at least 45 years, I remember reading about it when I worked in a physiology lab in the 70s.
Show threadDan SugalskiFeb 28, 2024

@SpeakerToManagers @cstross @FeralRobots right, the tech for wrist mounted BP exists. Unfortunately the tech for *accurate* standalone wrist mounted BP tech doesn’t exist. Aside from a number of issues with calibration and skin tone, the existing tech is… not great. It needs to be externally calibrated regularly, has a significant set of error bars, and doesn’t work for lots of folks.

Samsung, for example, tried this. The results were unfortunately awful.

Show threadSpeakerToManagersFeb 28, 2024
@wordshaper @cstross @FeralRobots
Machine learning may be a solution for the calibration problem. I’m not optimistic any of the tech companies will be motivated to solve the skin tone problem, as they still haven’t built a bathroom towel dispenser or a sink faucet control that works right for non-white people.
Show threadDan SugalskiFeb 28, 2024

@SpeakerToManagers @cstross @FeralRobots it depends on the reasons for the inaccuracy. I suspect it’s not a calibration or tuning issue but rather that trying to measure blood pressure entirely optically is just inherently inaccurate.

If you have reliable measurements then machine learning algorithms can translate them into meaningful numbers, but if the underlying measurements have large error bars then no amount of statistical cleverness is going to help.