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I hope Cook forgets that Musk has complained about Apple 10,086 times

　　Musk is working to make Starlink "mobile."

　　On September 9, Musk revealed on Twitter that “there have been some promising conversations with Apple about the Starlink connection.”

　　If the partnership unfolds, it will be Musk's first collaboration with Apple.

　　At present, Musk is expanding Starlink to the mobile terminal. Just last month, he announced the "Starlink II" with the US wireless operator T-Mobile. The goal is to allow users to receive mobile phones as long as they can see the sky. Signal.

　　Although announced early, the service won't actually launch until the end of 2023.

　　On the other hand, the day before Musk said "promising conversations", Apple officially announced the launch of satellite communication functions at the iPhone 14 conference, and it is expected to meet users in the United States and Canada in November this year.

　　The current partner for Apple's mobile satellite communications is Globalstar, and Musk clearly wants to change that, or at least join it.

　　This seems to be a win-win situation: Musk has gotten his wish and cooperated with Apple, which has a market share of more than 50% of the US mobile phone market; Apple can also provide users with one more satellite connection service. Global smartphone manufacturers are targeting satellite communications. down, have some advantages.

　　But whether the cooperation can go from "promising dialogue" to reality is still unknown.

　　Even if it intends to cooperate, Apple may not agree immediately, and may choose to wait and see the results of Starlink's early beta test on T-Mobile.

　　It's also possible, of course, that Apple chose not to work with Musk. After all, before this, Musk and Apple not only did not cooperate, but also had some grudges.

　　1

　　Since the first Starlink satellite was launched in 2019, Starlink has deployed about 3,000 satellites in Earth's low-Earth orbit.

　　Musk's vision for Starlink services is "world coverage", but now three years have passed since the launch of the first satellite. Although Starlink has achieved some results, it is far from enough.

　　In May of this year, Musk's SpaceX company submitted a document to the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) showing that the company's satellite-based high-speed Internet service, Starlink, currently has more than 400,000 users worldwide.

　　This number was 250,000 two months ago and 145,000 at the beginning of the year, a significant growth rate.

　　But it is still a little far from the vision goal: the star chain project is very expensive, and Musk estimates that SpaceX may need $5 billion to $10 billion to achieve full operation of the star chain, and then invest as much as $20 billion to $30 billion in the long-term. Once deployed, it "could bring in up to $30 billion in annual revenue."

　　For users, using StarChain's services is also "burning money". Taking American users as an example, the ordinary package not only requires the purchase of a hardware device of $599 - that is, a "Star Chain Pot", but also a monthly service fee of about $110.

Cats in Canada keep warm on Starlink devices

　　If a rough estimate is made at this tariff level, Musk needs 15 million users to reach the "$30 billion per year" Starchain revenue. Although the tariffs are different in different regions, StarChain also has commercial packages with equipment costs as high as $2,500 and marine services with a monthly fee of $5,000, but even if "1" is removed from "15 million", the current 400,000 users are still ten thousand. Not even one part.

　　What's more, Musk's Starlink service has already started to cut tariffs in August. For example, the RV subscription service in the Netherlands has been reduced from 124 euros to 105 euros, the monthly fee in the UK has been reduced from 89 pounds to 75 pounds, and the monthly fee in some parts of the United States has been reduced from 110 dollars. down to $85.

　　Relying on users to pay for services to recover blood seems to be a long way off.

　　Musk has had other troubles as well. For example, competitors are eyeing them. For example, Amazon has already announced the "Kuiper Project" in 2019 to benchmark Starlink, and plans to launch 3,236 satellites into low-Earth orbit.

　　In addition, Musk's favorite "government subsidies" have also suffered setbacks, and also thanks to a competitor's whistleblower.

　　Previously, the FCC took out a $9.2 billion subsidy to encourage operators to cover the signal to rural areas, of which SpaceX applied for about $900 million.

　　But Starlink's competitor, VIASAT, reported to the FCC that Starlink's current technology is insufficient to meet the requirements of the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund. Recently, the FCC has refused to subsidize Musk’s SpaceX Starlink.

　　FCC Chairman Jessica Rosenworcel said that the Starlink service requires "users to buy a plate worth $600, and then we also give Musk $900 million over 10 years", and further said that "there is not much money, we must do our best." It can. We don’t have the money to subsidize businesses that are not meeting the promised pace, or are unlikely to meet the requirements of the plan.”

　　Switching to the mobile terminal, from government subsidies and sales of services to users, to cooperation with operators or mobile phone manufacturers, is a new attempt by Musk, and the cooperation with T-Mobile happened in this context - 2- 4Mbits, the network speed is not high, but it is enough to send and receive text messages and voice calls, covering the use scenario of "no signal". There is no need to make users accept the $600 "plate" and the monthly fee of hundreds of dollars, relying on the huge user base of the partner to quickly spread the StarChain service.

　　But Musk is still facing a lot of competitive pressure. Except for the Global Star, which has already received orders from Apple this time, Ericsson, Thales, and Qualcomm have all announced the launch of 5G space projects and plan to launch satellites within 4 to 5 years. The final network speed can achieve tens of Mbps, and the speed is between 4G and 5G.

　　In this case, Apple's mobile phone is obviously a piece of fat that Musk can eat right now, especially if it is the first to test in the United States, the market share of Apple's mobile phone has exceeded 50%, and it can become the star chain to open the mobile terminal layout in one fell swoop. That stepping stone.

　　Money is also on the one hand. As far as the global star that cooperates with Apple is concerned, in fact, Apple has decided to use a $450 million "advanced manufacturing fund" to support the construction of satellite communication infrastructure. Globalstar has selected Goldman Sachs as the investment bank for bond issuance and is expected to complete the financing in the fourth quarter of this year. You know, at present, Apple plans to take the lead in providing satellite communication functions only in the United States and Canada.

　　In addition, Musk has expectations for Starlink to go public. In a recording of Musk’s meeting with SpaceX’s staff this year, Musk mentioned guessing that Starlink’s listing time “may be three or four years later”, while Apple Cooperation will undoubtedly help Musk Star Chain go public.

　　2

　　Even if the ideal is full, whether the cooperation can really unfold or not depends on Cook's attitude.

　　Crucially, Musk and Cook have a years-long history of feuding.

　　For a long time in the past, several of Musk's businesses did not seem to compete with Apple, but in fact, Apple was revealed to have a car-building plan as early as 2014. Although Apple did not publicly admit its attempts in the automotive field before 2017, Apple's car building is basically an "open secret". It has poached people from Nvidia, Volkswagen and other companies, and of course it has also reached Tesla. side.

　　Musk was dismissive of this, saying in 2015: "They hired us to fire. We always jokingly called Apple the 'Tesla Graveyard'. If you're at Tesla If you can't get along, go to Apple. I'm not kidding," adding that cars are "much more complicated than smartphones and smart watches."

The Guardian report in 2015

　　When he said this, Musk may not have imagined that he will usher in the darkest moment in a few years.

　　In April 2016, Tesla released the new Model 3, and delivered more than 200,000 pre-orders within 36 hours of its release. Consumer enthusiasm is high, but Tesla has suffered from capacity problems, and until the fourth quarter of 2017, only more than 1,500 Model 3s were delivered.

　　It was also in 2017 that rumors of an Apple merger spread. According to foreign media reports, Apple will make a large-scale acquisition, and Tesla is one of the important targets. Musk has been asked the same question many times.

　　In this regard, Musk once said that Apple was not interested in acquiring them, and when Musk mentioned it again later, he said that the two sides had no intention of cooperating.

　　By 2020, Apple has been revealed to have breakthrough battery technology progress, and the entire car project may speed up. At this time, Musk launched the "don't give face" skill and told a sad story.

　　Musk reiterated the old story, saying that the "darkest hour" had sought help from Apple, planning to sell Tesla to Apple for "one-tenth of its current value", and he even contacted Cook to discuss the possibility of an acquisition, but Cook declined to participate in the meeting.

　　When Musk said this, Tesla’s market value had reached 600 billion US dollars, which means that when he wanted to sell it to Cook for 60 billion US dollars, Cook ignored it. Now it has increased tenfold, and the top three Toyota, there is a kind of arrogance that "you can't climb high today".

　　Looking back at Musk's response to the outside world, we can also tell the mystery: "Apple is not interested in acquiring us" was verified by Musk himself, and "the two sides have no intention of cooperating" is after Musk's pain consciousness.

　　One thing to say, it is understandable that Tesla did not take over in about 2017. After all, Apple's car-building plan is not going well.

　　Eight years have passed since 2014, when it was reported that there was a car-building plan, and consumers were eagerly looking forward to it, but they couldn't wait for a "driveable iPhone". According to subsequent media reports, it is not difficult to see that in the long time when Musk experienced Tesla's darkest moment and bottomed out, Apple's car-building project has reorganized and changed teams many times, and the mass production plan is one. Drag and drag.

　　I haven't figured out my own car yet. What do I do with a Tesla whose production capacity just has a problem?

　　3

　　I don’t know if Musk is worried about the “don’t save” in the past, or he is afraid of Apple’s car-making ambition that gradually outlines its prototype, or both, after making public his sad past in 2020, Musk Obviously rude to Apple.

　　From time to time, he makes a voice that Cook frowns, even in areas that seem to have nothing to do with car building and not Musk's business.

　　As Tesla boss, Musk does like to pull Apple when talking about cars.

　　For example, at the earnings report for the second quarter of 2021, Musk talked about Tesla's plan to open up its charging network to other automakers, saying that Tesla was reluctant to build a "walled garden," meaning Apple. In addition, he talked about the outside world's use of cobalt by Tesla, and directly stated that Apple is actually the largest cobalt user.

　　At other times, Musk's "provocation" with Apple appears to have nothing to do with cars.

　　In October 2021, Cook tweeted to celebrate the launch of the new Istanbul store. Musk replied in the comment area: "Come and see the Apple polishing cloth." He teased a "high-priced polishing cloth" on Apple's official website, priced at 145 yuan.

　　More than a month later, Musk's Tesla put a "cyber whistle" on the shelves, priced at $50. It also sold high-priced small items, and Musk did not forget to push and pull Apple: "Don't waste your money on Apple polishing cloths, buy our whistle!"

Tesla Cyberwhistle Cyberwhistle

　　The most interesting thing is that in 2021, the Wall Street Journal reporter Tim Higgins released a new book, which revealed a detail: In 2016, when Tesla entered the dark days, when Musk was in financial crisis, he received a call from Cook. . Cook originally wanted to discuss the acquisition with Musk, but Musk proposed to be Apple's CEO, so angry that Cook swears and hangs up on the spot.

　　This highly dramatic (and inexplicably human-like) story is clearly a big departure from Musk's sad story of "Cook didn't attend the meeting", which both Musk and Cook later denied. authenticity.

　　But there are still some differences in the reactions of the two sides. Cook's "business" as always, in an interview with the "New York Times" said that he and Musk have never communicated, but he "very admire and respect" Tesla.

　　Musk's side is better, after denying the story that he wants to be Apple's CEO (tweeting saying "fake and boring"), and then tweeting to support game developer Epic suing Apple for high commissions, and saying that Apple's high commissions are "Internet Tax".

　　However, it must be noted that although Musk has ridiculed and even criticized Apple and Cook a lot, he is actually a loyal user of Apple’s mobile phones, and many criticisms of products in the past are based on his own experience.

　　For example, he once complained that Apple's news application (Apple News) had too much negative energy and was uninstalled, and he was very disappointed with iOS 13. Another example is that in 2020, when Musk discussed with people on Twitter that technology would not "get better by itself", he also took Apple as an example: "People are always used to mobile phones improving year by year. Just like I am iPhone users, but I don't think the latest system software updates have improved. The new updates are always bugging my mail system, which is a very basic feature."

　　At the end of the speech, Musk once again mentioned the "Tesla graveyard" theory, saying that "if you can't get along in Tesla, you have to go to work at Apple."

　　Compared to today, when SpaceX seeks Starlink to cooperate with Apple, Musk said that "the iPhone team is obviously super smart" is indeed somewhat ironic.

　　More ironically, Musk's own car has not supported Apple's in-vehicle system for 8 years, but satellite communication is intentionally connected to the latest generation of Apple mobile phones.

　　In terms of access hardware, Apple launched CarPlay in 2014, and now Tesla cars do not support it. This may not be a big deal in China, but at this year's WWDC conference, Apple data shows that 98% of cars in the United States are CarPlay can be applied. As such, Tesla is in that particular 2%.

CarPlay example image, screenshot from Apple's official website

　　For Tesla owners who want to use Apple CarPlay, the only option is to turn to third-party solutions, such as the open source project "Tesla Android" from Polish developers, using a customized version of Android 12. However, this method is relatively troublesome to implement, and it is really difficult to handle if you are not a digital enthusiast.

　　It wasn't until this year that Musk tweeted for the first time that he was considering adding Apple CarPlay to Tesla vehicles. It's time to speculate that the new generation of CarPlay released by Apple is indeed better, which has attracted Musk's attention, but now it seems that Musk may also be paving the way for future cooperation.

　　Although the cooperation between enterprises is not a "tit-for-tat" street fight, the unfamiliar and familiar relationship between Musk and Apple still makes people look forward to this possible cooperation.