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Comment by eddieh | Hacker News Reader

I'm a lifelong Apple fan. I own almost everything they sell, but I don't want an Apple car. Not even a little bit. I'm not even curious to see what they do. I just am not interested. With phones it was obvious that Apple could improve them. TV and smartwatches were obvious too. I fail to see how Apple's expertise can translate from personal electronics to something like a car. I'm not even interested in what the other smartcar people are up to. Cars are boring and should be completely utilitarian. I'd rather not even own a car.

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I on the other hand really enjoy using my car and I would love for it to be even better. Most cars have terrible usability for most of their functionality. Terrible touch screens, sluggish performance, confusing settings, it's a mess.

However I feel like Tesla is the Apple of cars and it's not clear what value Apple would provide above and beyond Tesla.

But perhaps more competition in that space would be a good thing. Or maybe Apple has the scale to take what Tesla started and bring it to the next level. Maybe they should buy Tesla instead.

Tesla replaced the tactile controls with a big touch screen. In my mind that is going backwards. The great thing about cars is the physical tactile controls that can be used without looking. Aftermarket stereos always have a worse interface than the OEM interface. Granted, I don't have a car with a touchscreen, but I would specifically look for a car with physical tactile controls if I was in the market. Disclaimer: not a Tesla fan at all.

I don't have a Tesla but my Dodge Charger also uses the touch screen for most controls. I don't have a problem with it. It still had physical buttons and knobs for things that matter. I have physical buttons on the wheel for phone/medial controls, and physical buttons for adjusting temperature. There are a few more physical buttons. Everything else I do on the touch screen and it works great. And this is on a much smaller touch screen than the Tesla. Touch screen per se is not an issue as long as the important controls are not buried deep in the UI.

The Charger isn't a great example of using the touch screen for "most controls", because if the inside of your Charger looks anything like this (I just Googled for a photo)

http://cdn.pinthiscars.com/images/dodge-charger-2013-interio...

Then you have buttons and knobs for turning the sound system on and off, adjusting the volume, adjusting the temperature, turning the fan on and off, adjusting the fan speed, toggling the A/C, recirculating air, front defrost, and rear defrost, as well as having a physical knob to scroll through and select options on the screen.

I'm sure that there are additional things you can do on the screen, like navigation and more advanced climate control, but you can definitely operate the important controls without needing to take your eyes off the road. That's the complaint about the Tesla screen - not that it exists, but that there aren't buttons and knobs for the important controls.

Most of the controls you just described have tactile steering wheel controls in a Tesla.

Tesla has lots of tactile controls. This point gets made in most threads about Tesla on HN.

I don't think Apple wants you to own a car either. Their billion dollar investment in Didi Chuxing and pursuit of autonomy points to something else.

It was so obvious with phone nobody did it before Apple, and most people criticize iPhone when it came out.

Same with iPad, it was so obvious with tablet that everyone ridicule it for being an oversized iPhone.

    Cars are boring and should be completely utilitarian. I'd rather not even own a car.

You should have started your comment with this. I'd imagine that if you thought that phones are boring and completely utilitarian that you wouldn't be interested in the iPhone either.

The iPhone is a pocket PC with a phone bolted on. The phone part can remain be just as boring and utilitarian as ever - I think my "phone" experience might have even been better with a Nokia.

Phones are boring and utilitarian too. The difference is I used my pre-iPhones and could nitpick about the UI and other aspects to no end. I get in my car and the only thing I nitpick is the shit integration with my iPhone, but I don't have a CarPlay stereo yet. Literally every other aspect of my car can't be improved. I see a lot of things that could regress in the name of advancing technology, but if I wanted that, I'd probably want a Tesla.

You will have to own their car, otherwise you are not a true fan.

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