RIM would disagree. It plenty profitable before the iPhone came out. And Apple already knew building computers was profitable. They cracked how to build a computer the size of a phone.

There aren't any RIM-like companies in the car industry right now. And cars aren't really very useful as computers. Or at least not more useful than phones and tablets and laptops.

Because they found a new approach (smartphones). There's nothing new with cars.

Self driving cars? Apple taxis service? Apple family self driving vans? Owning the entire experience of taking people from one place to another?

They simply thought it was too hard and went back to what was already working.

> Apple taxis service? Apple family self driving vans?

Taxis and buses are pretty old tech at this point. (Not just from an Uber/Lyft perspective either; taxis and coaches predate cars themselves, because the ideas/"tech" worked just fine with actual horse power.)

As for self-driving cars, so much of the efforts today remind me of that old Ford quote to the tune of "If I asked people what they wanted, they would have asked for a better horse". It doesn't feel like an innovative step change in transportation, it feels like a slightly better car (when it works). It doesn't fix any of the current big problems of cars and over-relying on cars as our primary transportation form factor.

So how would you solve moving person from A to B?

Personally, right now I'd invest in high speed trains. It's not "disruptive new tech", it's proven tech, so not exciting to a lot of the HN crowd hoping for AI miracles for self-driving. But it could be quite disruptive to car infrastructure and airlines given the right funding and development plan.

Do you think Apple is the one who can invest in high speed trains?

No, for many of the same reasons I don't think it made sense for them to invest in cars.

But also, yes, for the same reasons I appreciate that Walt Disney invested in trains and monorails. While Disney's train-oriented Experimental Prototype City of Tomorrow vision never got properly built, it was still such a cool disruptive vision to explore. Also, not just the Epcot theme park that borrows the name but not the concept/ideals, all of the Disney Parks owe their existence to Disney's interests in trains. (The first theme park ride Walt Disney was involved with was building a rideable model train in his own backyard.) I don't expect Apple to build theme parks either, but if investments in train technology and vision pay off with similar secondary effects that maybe the trains don't get built but other cool things do, Disney offers the precedent that an interest in trains by a company that isn't supposed to be in the train business can produce interesting results.

So basically, you don't believe cars are the future - therefore Apple should not invest in cars?