Apple’s participation in the auto business has been on a fairly basic level. With CarPlay, you can “play” or stream some apps from your iPhone onto your vehicle’s infotainment system. While you can keep tabs on email and other messages, it works best with mapping and music. Unfortunately, it’s also somewhat awkward to use, because you have to connect your iPhone to the auto’s USB port with a lightning cable.

I’ve had limited opportunities to use CarPlay, since a couple of friends have new cars that support the system. But to be fair to everyone, car makers generally also support Google’s competitor, Android Auto, which is meant to offer similar features.

Eventually, you’ll be free of the need for cabling. Beginning in 2017, the BMW 5 Series sedan will support the wireless version of CarPlay. But it’s an expensive alternative, since the 5 Series usually costs upwards of $50,000 unless your dealer is offering a smokin’ deal.

Other than wireless, where is Apple going with its auto initiative? Well, not so long ago, rumors arose about the rise of Project Titan, said to be the code name for an Apple R&D program that would reportedly result in the production of what the media referred to as an Apple Car.

But this is something Apple has never confirmed, even if the company admits to being interested in the automobile business. But remember, Apple expressed interest in the living room and the best they have offered, so far, is a revamped Apple TV. That’s not even a half step.

Now after months of reports of hirings, people are reportedly being let go. The reputed project leader, Steve Zadesky, reportedly left Apple earlier this year admit reports of a lack of focus. Former Apple hardware executive Mike Mansfield took over, and there are published reports of further bloodletting, mostly people who are skilled at engineering the components of a motor vehicle in place of people who are focused on software development. So Dan Dodge, the creator of BlackBerry’s QNX car platform, is said to have taken on a greater role at Project Titan.

So what’s Apple really up to?

Understand that Apple routinely engages in different R&D projects, but few of them result in an actual retail ducts. Take several years of reports that Apple was developing a smart TV set. The rumors were fueled by comments by Steve Jobs, in Water Isaacson’s authorized biography, that he had devised a magical TV interface, the best ever. Maybe so, or maybe he was just saying things to freak out the rest of the industry. At one time even Lenovo, known primarily as a PC maker, was said to be building a TV set for the Asian market, but it never saw the light of day.

In the end, there is no Apple smart TV. Perhaps some prototypes were sampled, but at the end of the day Apple decided there was no place for it in a highly saturated marketplace. It’s not the same as digital music players, smartphones and tablets, and even smartwatches, where there were untapped markets that Apple found ways to exploit.

But the same may be true for the auto industry. There are loads of players, many of whom are busy developing electric cars and self-driving systems. There is already an active and potentially successful car company that some consider to function in the spirit of Apple, and that’s Tesla Motors. Yes, Tesla isn’t making money yet, and hasn’t demonstrated it can build hundreds of thousands of affordable electric cars, the forthcoming Model 3, each year. But recent reports indicate that production problems with existing models have been largely overcome, so it’s too early to write them off.

Other car companies are doing their part. GM Chevrolet Bolt, a head-on competitor to the upcoming Tesla midsize vehicle, promises a driving range of over 200 miles and a price similar to the Model 3.

Stung by problems meeting U.S. emissions requirements with its diesel engines, Volkswagen is going electric too, having already demonstrated a potential future design. So your next Passat may well be powered by a battery rather than a gas engine, or perhaps it’ll be a lineup of all-new models with different names.

Into this crowded marketplace, there may be no place for an Apple entry. Tesla has already assumed some of the qualifies of Apple, such as having its own factory dealer network to avoid the Persian bazaar atmosphere of the typical dealership. And I’m sure most of you have stories about dealing with car stores at different levels, and being treated like dirt even when you’re attempting to make what may be one of the most expensive purchases in your entire life. How can that be a good thing?

So where does Apple go if there’s no Apple Car? If it can’t conquer Detroit, perhaps there will be something that I call Apple Drive, an autonomous driving system that  would be licensed to auto manufacturers. I suppose the main question is how it would be integrated with existing onboard systems on a car, unless devised a set of minimum requirements for safety, braking and handling that could be abstracted in the new Apple system.

According to the latest Project Titan scuttlebutt, Apple will decide by late 2017 what direction to take, or even if the project is destined to continue.

Whenever I read about yet another hack of an email or credit card system, I wonder about the price of almost constant online access and what we have to give up when it comes expectations of privacy. It almost seems as if nothing is safe regardless of what you do.

So I wasn’t too surprised to read that some 500 million Yahoo email accounts have been hacked. Unfortunately, it doesn’t appear that Yahoo bothered to disclose the extent of this massive intrusion to the executives at Verizon who were doing their due diligence in advance of acquiring the company. Does that mean that Verizon is going to abandon this deal? Probably not, although they might demand some financial concessions.

Now as many of you know, I do have email accounts with a some of the larger fee services, and I quickly took the appropriate steps to protect my Yahoo account. I do notice that you can take advantage of two-factor authentication, which means that you need to authenticate with two systems to login. This may include a standard password — and one hopes it’s strong — and having the service send a text message to your mobile phone with an additional passcode. If you don’t successfully manage both tasks, you cannot connect to your account.

Continue Reading…

With so much time elapsing since the last appearance of an influx of new Macs, questions have arisen about Apple’s commitment to the platform. It’s made worse by published reports of an up to 13% dip on Mac sales in the September quarter. Compare that to the report that some PC makers actually reported slight increases for the same period.

True, such numbers are estimates, and only Apple’s actual financials, to be revealed later this month, can be taken as accurate. Indeed, it’s possible the sales downturn won’t be quite as bad.

Still why is Apple apparently losing pace against an already declining PC industry? Is there something wrong in Apple’s marketing of new Macs? Is it about the fact that Macs, even though usually better equipped, are still in the mid- or high-priced segments of the market? Should Apple be selling cheaper Macs, or is it all about the lack of recent updates?

Now I grant that a lot of my readers pay attention when new Macs arrive from Apple. They receive regular coverage across the world, even when the news is announced via a press release rather than a media event of some sort. But I also suspect most people who want to buy a new computer don’t wait for the new model to arrive, unless it appears imminent. Otherwise sales would be stacked in a short period across the year, and that’s not what is happening.

Still, there are question marks about how much Apple is willing to invest in the Mac platform. Other than the MacBook, which was refreshed earlier this year, there have only been rumors about one model, amounting to a major MacBook Pro revision. Supposedly it’ll be thinner and lighter, sporting a context-sensitive OLED strip that replaces the function keys. I’m not at all sure why you need it, but it’ll be different. There could, I suppose, be a Touch ID button, since it’s about time Apple added a fingerprint sensor to Macs. This is a feature already available on PCs.

Obviously, the Intel processor and graphics will be faster. A lot faster? Probably not, since improvements in Intel hardware have been mostly incremental in recent years. Indeed, the argument for buying a new Mac has been less compelling, unless it’s a real old Mac, and you can no longer run the current operating system. Besides, wouldn’t a Retina display be nice?

There is that recent email reportedly from Tim Cook, not officially confirmed, in which new Macs were promised. For the sake of argument, I’ll accept that the message as real, since Apple hasn’t denied it. And it does make sense that new Macs would arrive this month.

Also don’t forget that Apple just released a macOS upgrade, Sierra, with the new branding, and it would hardly make sense to want to discontinue or fade out the platform and still make an investment to offer Siri to Mac users. There is clearly a long-range plan at work here and, besides, tens of millions of people still depend on their Macs for their work. Both iOS and macOS developers still require Macs to create software.

But even if the MacBook Pro receives a major refresh, what about the rest of the lineup? The MacBook Air also hasn’t been touched in a while, and what about a Retina display? Would that even be possible at a starting price of $899? I suspect it might be, since Apple has expanded 5K displays to all 27-inch iMacs without charging more. Even if there’s a slight price increase, the improved display might make sense, but I still harbor a feeling that Apple could offer it for the same price as last year’s model.

There might even be a new iMac with minor revisions.

But what about the stuff that has grown stale? The Mac mini hasn’t been touched since 2014, and it was hardly an improvement. Apple offered a new model without the option of four-core processors — popular for server use — or even the ability to upgrade RAM. Was that worth a $100 price cut? But it should be easy to refresh this model with the latest Intel hardware without a great R&D investment.

That leaves the Mac Pro. Apple made a huge deal of the new design in 2013, and just managed to ship some before 2014 arrived. But nothing has changed since then. Some tech pundits suggest that since Apple is using older parts, they should be charging less. But how much would it cost to put in newer Xeon processors and graphics? Would that be so big a deal?

Besides, is the current form factor, with limited internal expansion options, the best platform for high-end users? While the cylindrical shape is attractive, once it’s surrounded with a bunch of peripherals, along with various and sundry cables, it becomes a huge mess. Maybe Apple is considering some intermediate model, which restores the ability to add extra internal drives, more RAM, a second processor, and perhaps an expansion card or two. It shouldn’t require a 40-pound behemoth!

But, no, I don’t expect the Mac Pro form factor to change.

Or maybe Apple will look at the potential, and sales can’t be high, and put the Mac Pro out of its misery. A lot of former Mac Pro users went to the iMac anyway, and I suppose there could always be an iMac Pro, thicker, with more internal expansion options, to pick up some more former Mac Pro customers. But don’t hold out hope for such a thing. It’s just an offhand thought of mine.

I don’t really believe Apple wants to give up on Macs. But I would hope whatever is announced — and it should come later this month — will at least be reassuring.

The most frightening part of the recent New York Times article on the background of Samsung’s battery problems with the Galaxy Note 7 is that of the company’s ignorance. As of the day that article was written, Samsung, the world’s largest mobile handset maker, had no clue what went wrong, what caused batteries to overheat and sometimes burst into flame.

At first, it was thought the defects could be traced to one of their suppliers, but even when they used batteries from another supplier on the fixed versions, the problems recurred. So it couldn’t be the battery, unless the core design was defective to begin with. But you’d think Samsung has a handle on battery design by now, with hundreds and hundreds of millions of mobile handsets in use. Up till the Galaxy Note 7 arrived, few developed any such problems. It was essentially a non-issue.

Even after the problems occurred, Samsung, according to the Times report, was never able to duplicate the overheating phenomenon in their own testing. The article mentions the rather paranoid methods Samsung used, in which testers couldn’t even communicate with each other via email to compare notes. I understand the desire for secrecy, but when the public’s safety is endangered, there has to be a better way.

So even though Samsung reportedly had hundreds of employees trying to figure out what went wrong, they couldn’t make a dent in figuring it out. Part of that could be the paranoid corporate culture, described by what the Times described as a pair of former employees, as “militaristic.” Worse, the executives who were tasked with managing the problem evidently failed to understand what was going on and what went wrong.

Do they even have technology backgrounds?

As an outsider, I wouldn’t presume to guess just what Samsung needs to do to fix this problem. It may require overhauling the division that manages mobile engineering, or hiring executives with a better handle on the technology and the pitfalls in case the batteries or the supporting circuitry, weren’t properly designed.

I am especially troubled at Samsung’s apparent flailing when confronted with so serious a defect. It has the real and present danger of destroying the brand’s reputation as a maker of quality mobile handsets. Even though the Galaxy Note 7 is dead, will customers flock to the Galaxy Note 8, should there be one, or wait for others to test it first to make sure it’s safe? How does Samsung reassure customers?

What about other models? Is there the danger that the some of the Note 7’s design concepts might find their way into the Galaxy S8? If Samsung doesn’t know the cause of this problem, how do they keep another product from inheriting similar defects?

This problem is going to result in billions of dollars in losses, and not just in lost sales. Reputations are easily lost in the tech industry. Consider the brands that used to lead the market, but failed to recognize changes in customer tastes. BlackBerry hasn’t had reliability troubles, but the smartphone pioneer was bushwhacked by the iPhone and was never able to regain its footing.

Consider Motorola, once a market leader, which fell on hard times by failing to innovate by the time Google bought the division. While current models perform well, people aren’t paying much attention unless they just they just want something cheap that seems to perform beyond its price range.

Nokia had potential too, with well-reviewed products running Microsoft’s mobile OS in its various forms. Microsoft bought Nokia’s mobile handset division, in a move that appeared reminiscent of what Google did with Motorola. Thousands of Nokia employees soon found themselves without jobs as the market continued to move elsewhere.

Today it’s all about Android and iOS. But with Android, there are loads of similar models from a number of handset makers. If someone wants to go Android, or stick with the platform, nobody forces them to choose Samsung. The company is operating in a commodity market where other companies can deliver mobile gear with similar specs and performance. There’s little that distinctive about a Samsung, other than its often flaky software, to have it stand out from the pack.

This is a potentially troublesome situation, because if Samsung can’t find a way to reassure the public that it has a handle on the problem and that future models will be reliable, it’s very easy to see where other companies will prosper at their expense. If Pixel, Phone by Google, shows potential, Google could expand production, make it available at more wireless carriers, and engage a huge marketing campaign to get a leg up on the competition. Google is not going to refuse to sell as much gear as possible, even if it comes at the expense of its partners. Microsoft has already shown the way.

As I wrote in yesterday’s column, Apple also stands to benefit. The stock price continues to soar, and few doubt that a number of Samsung customers might just decide to ditch Android and go Apple. The ongoing iPhone 7 backorder situation may not help, particularly for people who need to exchange a Galaxy Note 7 now for something else. But even an iPhone 6s is better, so maybe that won’t be so much of a problem.

Clearly, time is short for Samsung, and it may require a major overhaul of the corporate culture to set things right.