jtshaw
Well-Known Member
- First Name
- John
- Joined
- Nov 18, 2020
- Threads
- 5
- Messages
- 288
- Reaction score
- 708
- Location
- Seattle, WA
- Vehicles
- Tesla Model 3, LE R1S
- Occupation
- Engineering VP
Amazon tried to compete with phones and fell flat on its face (as did Microsoft). Part of the issue in ecosystems like phones is there are two sides that are both very very important. The first side is core experience provided by the OS/handset vendors of the world (performance, OS UX, etc) and the second side is the app ecosystem. iOS and Android have ridiculously large user bases and rigidiculously deep app ecosystems because they moved quickly to create them and did it early. If you want to compete with them part of that is convincing all those app developers to support your platform, and that is very very hard because bandwidth is super limited at many of the app-producing companies, so they stick to the cash cows. Amazon likely focused on Alexa and FireTV because they occupied spaces that were, at the time, far less congested. FireTV somewhat mitigated the App developer part by using Android under the covers so the Apps port easily.The contradiction is that there's clear business advantage to Amazon for Rivian to exclude Apple and Google, but you disagree because there's no proof (fair enough) while posting that Amazon isn't influencing Rivian with no proof. Observing that Rivian has coded for Spotify is not relevant, nor is the architecture of home automation and voice interfaces (not that I'm a fan of Google listening in on my conversations, but it's a helluva lot more natural and effective than Alexa … and Siri is just plain brain dead.
I just thumbed back through this thread and see there's multiple back-n-forth on the topic, so I think there's some crossover of arguments leading to miscommunication (a shocking thing for an Internet forum … : )
My bottom line as stated by others is simply that Apple and Google are not dealbreakers – I think that's the feedback those companies should take to their product people. Tesla and BYD have both gone the vertical integration route (which Apple has maintained strategically for decades and is now stacked right down to the silicon) so I don't see this carplay/android auto approach as a long term strategy, more like Alpine and Kenwood "heads" … used to be state of the art, didn't make the transition to touchscreens in cars (I imagine they tried.) Like Garmin and nav … seemingly quit without even a struggle … how is it that Garmin isn't the most common app on phones, watches and "the" nav in cars? It's a tough game, especially when Apple and Google want your customer. Given your insider knowledge of Amazon, perhaps you can explain how and why Amazon doesn't compete with Apple and Google in key markets like phones, watches, wearables and leaves Samsung and LG alone in consumer products from TVs to fridges and almost every other major household durable purchase, yet burns serious R&D on Fire and Alexa … mystifying …
(and yeah, we're way off topic … sorry)
The Garmin example is interesting. I think a big part of their struggles is differentiation is a LOT harder when you are "just an App" relying on hardware you don't control. Garmin has drifted more into different markets where their hardware tech is super differentiated (like the lovely running GPS watch on my wrist that can do 40 hours of high-resolution activity tracking on a single charge).
Cars are interesting because, at least today, they are not generic computing platforms like phones are. The App ecosystem problem is a lot smaller because people are primarily focused on a smaller footprint of app types (navigation and audio stream being the vast majority of use-cases folks have). With autonomous cars, that could potentially change radically...
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