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Re:Toyota owners have to pay $8/month to keep using their ke... by ribosometronome on Monday December 13, 2021 @03:02PM (#29543856)
What features like that does Apple hide behind paywalls today? That doesn't sound at all like their strategy with iOS or Mac OS. I guess there's stuff like the Apple Developer Program, which I know a lot of folk have complaints about. But that's hardly a feature most folk would desire -- whereas all of those things you listed for a perspective car are.

That said, if Apple did bring some of these features to market at that price, they'd be doing considerably better than some of their competition. Tesla's Full Self Driving is locked behind a $10,000 cost or a $199 monthly subscription. You'd have to subscribe to your speculated service for 42 years before it cost more than that getting the upgrade on Tesla you had 4 decades ago.

Re:Toyota owners have to pay $8/month to keep using their ke... by LanceH on Monday December 13, 2021 @05:12PM (#29545347)
It wouldn't really be the monthly subscriptions.

The engine wouldn't be bolted in, everything would be welded into place. Parts to repair it would not be accessible, except at Apple dealerships. If it doesn't start, you could expect to replace the Main Driving Unit at a price roughly 90% of buying a new one.* The entire car would have tamper sensors. Also, they would make the car one inch shorter every year.

I can't imagine Apple as a car company.

* Seriously, the main logic board seems to always be the culprit and the replacement cost is up there with a new item.

Re:Toyota owners have to pay $8/month to keep using their ke... by elzbardico on Monday December 13, 2021 @08:46PM (#29547186)
This is the same for any other flagship notebook sold in the marketing, manufacturing has changed, most people want thinner and lighter machines with great battery life and good reliability. We are not in the 90s anymore.
Re:Toyota owners have to pay $8/month to keep using their ke... by LanceH on Tuesday December 14, 2021 @10:18AM (#29552458)
You picked out the tongue in cheek part of my comment, but sure, people like thinner computers. Not sure what battery life has to do with that sense the overall lifetime of the batter is probably worse with everything packed in and the battery experiencing more heat.

Some other problems from their obsession with thin. Broken keyboards for multiple years. And that's moving from already bad chiclet keyboards into broken keyboards.

There was also a couple year period when ethernet ports were on the corners and it seemed everyone had their macbook dented right at the ethernet port. It could have been reinforced at that point along the edge, but they have to aggressively bevel those edges for the marketing glamour shots that make them look impossibly thin.

Oh, speaking of the beveled edges, the early airs and ipads were rounded so far toward the center that if you placed them on a table, and pressed near the edge with any force at all it would flip the far side of the device off the table. A real problem for an ipad which is a touchscreen and for anyone who touches their palms to their keyboard while typing.

Those are problems from making things minimally thin, or worse, making them appear thinner than they are. I don't expect them to actually make cars one inch shorter every year. I do expect them to have some weird obsession that they will tout as the best thing ever and min/max it to death.

Re:Toyota owners have to pay $8/month to keep using their ke... by ClumsyPilot on Tuesday December 14, 2021 @04:20AM (#29549787)
"most people want thinner and lighter machines"

Not at the cost of repairability and reliability they don't.

In my dell XPS, friends lebovo, etc. I can replace battery, ssd, or any other part with just a screwdriver.

Re:Toyota owners have to pay $8/month to keep using their ke... by vardump on Monday December 13, 2021 @07:06PM (#29546443)
"You'd have to subscribe to your speculated service for 42 years"

Surely you meant 4.2 years? 10000/199/12 = 4.18760469012 (years).