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Comment by k-mcgrady | Hacker News Reader

>> "Tesla is a product company, and any interference with the product will kill them instantly."

And Apple is one of the most successful product companies of the last decade.

One big thing they would get from Apple is international experience/operations experience. From Apple's perspective I read today that Tesla is working on a facility to double the worlds lithium ion battery production - that would benefit Apple.

>> "Furthermore, Tesla's entire software ecosystem is already mature, so there'd be no gain from Apple on that front."

Integration. Integrating peoples smartphones, tablets, computers, cars, TV's. Tesla doesn't have the best designed software either - something critically important if you're accessing it while driving. I'm sure Apple's expertise would be useful there.

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I'm afraid that in the useless and stupid quest for "ease of use," this would happen to the automobile:

http://assets.yodawgpics.com/hashed_silo_content/silo_conten...

Apple isn't fit to make vehicles. They're a whole different league from consumer electronics. It isn't realistic to expect a very clearly function-follows-form company to design a viable, aerodynamic, fluid, and well-engineered car.

Apple also isn't in any position to design a vehicle either – they outsource parts and are more assemblers with some in-house design going on.

> the useless and stupid quest for "ease of use,"

> a very clearly function-follows-form company

Your opinions about Apple are, to put it mildly, non-mainstream. I am a frigging software engineer, perfectly able to handle complexity, and I prefer Apple products precisely due to that "useless, stupid" ease of use. I also question that "function follows form" is their design ethos, but even if it is, the result is still better than anyone else's.

And that's the stupidest "yo dawg" I've ever seen. If there's anything that's too easy to use, it's online meme generator tools.

>>"And that's the stupidest "yo dawg" I've ever seen. If there's anything that's too easy to use, it's online meme generator tools."

This "Yo Dawg" meme is a joke about those infuriating one-button mice that Apple released a few years ago.

Apple is a consumer electronics company with supply chain expertise for sourcing a bunch of components from various manufactures. Aside from maybe sourcing battery cells, those skills do not meaningfully transfer. Perhaps their design expertise transfers. But, at least in terms of their industrial design, curved aluminum is pretty common for the automative industry. Indeed, one might argue that Apple was applying such design concepts, beautifully and with great skill,to electronics.

The software might help, but 1) isn't something Tesla need to differentiate themselves on further at lest yet and 2) excluding android may not be something Tesla is willing to do.

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