Apple's "squeeze toothpaste" innovation, it is time to end
Text/Shanshan Xu
Recently, Apple recruited Desi Ujkashevic, a female executive who has worked for Ford for more than 30 years, so that the "Titan" project has once again jumped on the major media platforms. The project has been around 8 years since it was exposed in 2014, but the substantive progress is still stuck in the management team's repeated "refurbishment".
In March this year, Tianfeng International analyst Guo Mingji tweeted that Apple's car-making team has been disbanded for some time, and the next three to six months of restructuring plans will be crucial to its 2025 mass production of Apple Car.
Apparently, Apple intends to tighten the strings of the car.
Can you win by robbing people?
This is not the first time that Apple's car-making team has restructured. In the past few years, Apple's "Titan" project has repeatedly reported layoffs and dissolution. Overturning and restarting seems to be a curse on apple car-making team. Correspondingly, due to internal differences of opinion and lack of progress in car-making projects, executive departures have become a new normal.
And when it comes to which company Apple trusts the most, the answer is undoubtedly Tesla. Judging from the media information disclosed in the past two years, Apple not only recruited Stuart Bowers, the former head of Tesla's Autopilot research and development, but also unceremoniously paid for QA, powertrain and other hardware engineers.
Apple has not yet announced the specific personnel information of the "Titan" project, but its "robbery war" with Tesla is continuing to be staged. However, recruiting talents with higher salaries cannot be retained, which has become a heart disease of Apple's car-making business.
Apple, which has won the world's first market value with a number of electronic products such as iPhones, must it be planted all the way to the car?
In ancient Greece, the era of the rule of the titans of the gods was considered the "golden age". In many European languages, the word "titan" is also interpreted as "huge" and "remarkable.". Whatever the meaning, it reveals that Apple seems to have only one way to go: success, and unprecedented success.
Otherwise, relying too much on "squeezing toothpaste" innovations, Apple is likely to fall off the altar.
Does Apple still have innovation?
There is no doubt that the iPhone has played the role of Apple's stormtrooper since its birth. In an era when Android phone performance lagged behind dramatically, holding an iPhone in hand was a symbol of petty bourgeoisie and fashion. But now, the chain of discrimination between Apple and the Android camp is constantly shortening, and the iPhone's competitiveness is much less than before.
Through the data of market research institute Gartner, it can be seen that the global smartphone market shipments increased by only 6% last year, continuing to maintain a weak posture, and Apple's 19.7% increase is higher than the overall level, but its market share has declined. Weak growth and saturation are one of the main characteristics of the mobile phone market in recent years.
In Apple's fiscal first quarter of fiscal 2022, iPhone sales revenue was $71.628 billion, accounting for 57.79% of the total revenue of $123.945 billion. This means that for the sake of longer-term interests, Apple must create a second "stormtrooper", otherwise it will be difficult to continue to maintain the "most profitable" label in the era of "iPhone is not fragrant".
What's more, it's time for Apple, which has lost its sense of innovation in the eyes of the public, to put an end to its perfunctory attitude. After all, no matter how strong the performance of the iPhone is, it is only a mobile phone after all.
In fact, when the Titan project came to light in 2014, the annual growth rate of iPhone sales had fallen below 30%. Apple's ups and downs in the car-making project, to the past two years of frequent news, but also reflects the mobile phone business left apple time is indeed not much.
In the new Shura Field, Apple must show its housekeeping skills.
Have you ever spelled model S's automotive black technology?
Software and ecology are Apple's two magic weapons, but it has always been a mystery as to how much spark car manufacturing will burst out.
According to the 2021 self-driving takeover data released by the California Transportation Authority (DMV), Apple's self-driving vehicles drove a total of 13,272 miles last year, with as many as 663 takeovers, and MPD only 20 miles, ranking 14th. In contrast, Google's Waymo won the first place in the list.
Apple's lane-changing autonomous driving is not false, but at this stage, the achievements are far from enough, at least not enough to bear the title of "Titan".
If the restructuring of Apple's car-making team in Guo Mingji's words is smooth, then it is not ruled out that the market can witness the birth of Apple Car in 2025. If not, Apple's car-making plan is likely to become a bubble again. Before that, it is necessary to be clear, what kind of car black technology does Apple want to make?
The information exposed by foreign media is that the first Apple Car will use a large number of titanium alloy raw materials, mainly focusing on the high-end electric vehicle market, with a bicycle price of about 100,000 US dollars, pointing to Tesla's Model S. With that alone, it's hard for Apple to beat Tesla.
To be routine or subversive, the reason why Apple's car project has repeatedly run aground may be here. According to the patently Apple website, Apple has issued 122 "Titan" related patents so far. Recently, Apple's ar/VR headset system patent was approved, which aims to improve the riding experience of motion sickness people by wearing AR/VR headphones to switch various scenes.
Perhaps, as the patent describes, the Apple Car will have no windows, as in the picture at the beginning of the article. As for the finished black technology, it will probably be known many years later.
Write at the end
Apple founder Steve Jobs said, "Consumers don't really know what they need, and they don't find out until we come up with a product, 'Oh this is what I want.'" Regardless of whether Apple will find Foxconn to produce Apple Car, whether this car product can replicate the glory of the iPhone in the field of mobile phones may be an important parameter affecting Apple's market value in the next decade.