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Comment by achow | Hacker News Reader

There are many technical problems to overcome, including having hardware that can successfully roam through cluttered spaces and navigate buildings with multiple floors...

...For now, the technology is going to be incredibly expensive for both Apple to build and for consumers to buy. The company is also going to need more talent, including many more engineers, to bring something truly meaningful to market.

Why can't Apple acquire Boston Dynamics? BD may have solved lot of these problems already, and to boot would have lot of patents, which Apple would be glad to have. BD in 2020 was acquired by Hyundai for $1.1B.

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The Chinese guys are way beyond Boston Dynamics.

https://interestingengineering.com/innovation/unitrees-robot...

What exactly are they ahead in? only thing that stood out was price

What's the going price for an BD Atlas robot?

They’ve got brand new demos that I remember seeing 10+ years ago from Boston dynamics. I mean, that’s no small feat, but they don’t have an edge yet.

Check this one https://www.unitree.com/g1/ this is SOTA.

This is a lot better link, with humanoid robot: https://www.unitree.com/g1/

From what I understand they started mass producing this and you can buy it from 16k USD.

And here is h1 https://www.unitree.com/h1/

I don't personally understand some of these tech companies with such enormous hoards of cash. Apple could go on a massive acquisition spree in the space and buy Boston Dynamics, iRobot, all kinds of stuff and become a gigantic brand in home robotic automation with their well-functioning interoperable ecosystem. Are they afraid of antitrust?

These companies lose money, so it would hurt their ongoing margins.

None of that stuff seems useful to me in anything like its current form and I'm sort of an early adopter of a lot of things.

My brother has a (newly built) house that's more or less optimal for a Roomba-type thing. It's very single level. They also have dogs. I looked at and a much better solution was a Dyson stick vac I could spend a few minutes running now and then.

I'm just not sure where the big home automation wins are. Not sure the last time I've even heard Nest thermostats mentioned in print.

Grandparent said, "BD in 2020 was acquired by Hyundai for $1.1B."

Well, there is your answer: BD's market prospects are too meager for it to be worth Apple's management team's ongoing attention. (Apple's current market prospects are valuable enough that Apple has a current market cap of $3.45 trillion.)

(Also, Hyundai might not want to sell it.)

I imagine at least some part of it is that acquisitions are difficult, time consuming and rarely work 100%. There are almost always seams after the fact and problems with culture integration. Cash on hand also gives you the option to respond to market swings and changes. It allows you to invest in new opportunities, and to build a space organically from your own internal visions. Would the iPhone been what it was if Apple had just bought Nokia, or Ericson or any other phone vendor at the time? Maybe, but I strongly suspect not. And at least for Apple especially, the point isn't just to have the product, it's to have a well and tightly integrated product, and existing product lines might need to be so heavily re-worked any value in buying it as is would be lost in having to scrap so much of what's where.

With what happened when Google bought them, I doubt if Apple can handle thenlm. Hyundai feels like a much better fit. Japanese companies have had a longer history with robotics and less insistence on short term profitability.

Hyundai is Korean

What I would do for a robotic pack mule I could take camping or to the grocery store

The dog has a runtime of 4hr unburdened. Great for walks to the grocery store but not as great for long hikes.

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