Apple is like other big companies, fundamentally risk averse. They seem incapable of straying too far from their core business, which at this point is making laptops and phones (and content delivery to those platforms). It's a very lucrative business and they've been gradually shifting revenue to software and content distribution. But that business in turn is ironically held back by the notion that it requires Apple hardware. They are not selling a lot to non Apple hardware owners. So, from that point of view, they actually should be expanding their platform to new areas. Like the living room or the car.
Which begs the question why there is no Apple gaming console, an Apple TV (as in an actual TV). Instead what we got was a rather underwhelming Apple TV thing that isn't very good as a gaming console and more of a chrome cast substitute aimed at people who want to experience a very watered down Apple experience on their non Apple TV. And we got the streaming service which so far isn't making too much of a dent in Netflix.
What's weird is that they've had a great chip for many years that is perfectly capable of running lots of games. A lot of their mobile apps are in fact games and they run great on IOS. And the M1/M2 chips are pretty decent at running GPU accelerated software as well. But what they did not do was open up the platform to games. They have a few game ports running on mac OS and the Apple TV is technically an IOS device and even has some games. But it's so crippled that that is very much a side show of a side show. The Apple TV itself is of course a side show and playing games on it is very much an afterthought; that's not what it's for.
Cars are much worse for Apple. They could do one on paper but they'd have to partner with someone on all the car bits, which is uncomfortable for Apple (it means they don't control the platform) because they don't have a lot of in house experience building cars. And there are a lot of new companies focusing on making great cars right now (Tesla famously being labeled the Apple of cars, for example). And, car ventures are very capital intensive. You'd need many billions of investment to produce even a small number of cars. Tens/hundreds of billions to scale up; like Tesla has done. That makes it a very risky business.
So, they did Apple Car play instead, which seems the closest Apple will get to the automotive experience and it's similar to the Apple TV in the sense that it's a watered down experience that only makes sense for existing Apple users. It expands their reach a little and it brings in some revenue. But it's not an Apple Car.
Which begs the question why there is no Apple gaming console, an Apple TV (as in an actual TV). Instead what we got was a rather underwhelming Apple TV thing that isn't very good as a gaming console and more of a chrome cast substitute aimed at people who want to experience a very watered down Apple experience on their non Apple TV. And we got the streaming service which so far isn't making too much of a dent in Netflix.
What's weird is that they've had a great chip for many years that is perfectly capable of running lots of games. A lot of their mobile apps are in fact games and they run great on IOS. And the M1/M2 chips are pretty decent at running GPU accelerated software as well. But what they did not do was open up the platform to games. They have a few game ports running on mac OS and the Apple TV is technically an IOS device and even has some games. But it's so crippled that that is very much a side show of a side show. The Apple TV itself is of course a side show and playing games on it is very much an afterthought; that's not what it's for.
Cars are much worse for Apple. They could do one on paper but they'd have to partner with someone on all the car bits, which is uncomfortable for Apple (it means they don't control the platform) because they don't have a lot of in house experience building cars. And there are a lot of new companies focusing on making great cars right now (Tesla famously being labeled the Apple of cars, for example). And, car ventures are very capital intensive. You'd need many billions of investment to produce even a small number of cars. Tens/hundreds of billions to scale up; like Tesla has done. That makes it a very risky business.
So, they did Apple Car play instead, which seems the closest Apple will get to the automotive experience and it's similar to the Apple TV in the sense that it's a watered down experience that only makes sense for existing Apple users. It expands their reach a little and it brings in some revenue. But it's not an Apple Car.