As a fellow Mac user, I get it. Especially after the (to put it lightly) dry spell that was 2016, I understand wanting Apple to focus on the Mac and on making their current devices best-of-breed. And given what we just saw at WWDC, I'm inclined to think they're moving in that direction again.
But the way Tim is framing this, they're looking at it as an AI problem. He doesn't go into the feel of driving or the wonderfully bad user interfaces of current cars, he describes it as "the mother of all AI projects." So while this is "something that's never been in [their] wheelhouse", they're approaching it from the AI side. And AI, given WWDC, is something they are very much trying to make their wheelhouse. And it sounds like they're doing it in a very Apple-like way: work on the hardest problem they can, then take what they've learned and apply it.
Even if they don't make a car, or even a driving platform they can sell, the AI things they'll learn will show up in Siri, iOS, and everywhere else.
So yeah, I want them to focus on Mac hardware. But I also want them to learn and grow. And I think they might, might, be starting to do both.
But the way Tim is framing this, they're looking at it as an AI problem. He doesn't go into the feel of driving or the wonderfully bad user interfaces of current cars, he describes it as "the mother of all AI projects." So while this is "something that's never been in [their] wheelhouse", they're approaching it from the AI side. And AI, given WWDC, is something they are very much trying to make their wheelhouse. And it sounds like they're doing it in a very Apple-like way: work on the hardest problem they can, then take what they've learned and apply it.
Even if they don't make a car, or even a driving platform they can sell, the AI things they'll learn will show up in Siri, iOS, and everywhere else.
So yeah, I want them to focus on Mac hardware. But I also want them to learn and grow. And I think they might, might, be starting to do both.