“Apple Inc may have entered the Chinese taxi-hailing app market by investing $1 billion in Didi Chuxing, but has the technology giant from Cupertino gotten its foot in the door in India’s app-based taxi market as well?” Tejal Yerunkar reports for Zee Business. “We think so.”
“With its $1 billion investment in Didi, Apple has indirectly entered the Indian app-based taxi hailing market and now owns a part of Ola,” Yerunkar reports. “Moreover, just like Lyft in the US, Didi in China, Apple is now also competing with Uber in India.”
Yerunkar reports, “In India, Ola is the largest taxi-hailing app company, competing head on with Uber, which is valued at over $60 billion.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Intertwined with “Project Titan” or is Apple’s interest in ride-sharing services a separate concern? Or, is it really just a goodwill investment into China that just so happens to have indirect ties to other countries?
SEE ALSO:
$1 billion Didi investment marks a major turning point for Apple – May 13, 2016
Tim Cook to visit Beijing with $1 billion in goodwill – May 13, 2015
Why Apple is really investing $1 billion in Didi, China’s version of Uber – May 13, 2016
Uber CEO responds to Apple’s $1 billion investment in Didi Chuxing – May 13, 2016
Things to know about China’s Didi, Apple’s latest $1 billion investment – May 13, 2016
Apple invests $1 billion in Chinese ride-hailing service Didi Chuxing – May 12, 2016
Apple’s battle with China offers a stark reminder of geopolitical risks – May 11, 2016
Apple’s Tim Cook to visit China for high-level government meetings later this month – May 6, 2016
Apple CEO Cook ‘pretty confident’ of soon resuming movie and book sales in China – May 3, 2016
The New Yorker: What Apple has to fear from China – April 30, 2016
China’s increasing censorship hits Apple, but Apple might punch back – April 22, 2016
China shutters Apple’s online book and movie services – April 22, 2016
Uber is very strong and very vulnerable at the same time. Uber does not own the primary assets, the cars or drivers, that get people from point A to point B. Therefore any better or different app can take those cars and drivers. Uber could lose 1/2 its market in any city in 2 months with a PR or advertising push… or just the millennials deciding that Uber is ‘over’
Or Uber (and Lyft) can lose all their market overnight, as they did in Austin by spending almost $9MM on an election over fingerprinting drivers and threatening to shut down if they lost… which they did.
Millennials are the mist un loyal, untrustworthy and unreliable demographic ever.
God help anyone dependent on them or any business planning based on their support.
I hope Apple had the foresight to build third-gender bathrooms in their spaceship campus. That’s going to be an expensive upgrade.
Have I missed something? Is there now a third gender? Apple was among the first companies in America to make it clear that all women are welcome in women’s restrooms without having to show a birth certificate and all men in men’s restrooms, so those two sorts should be sufficient. That said, “Ally McBeal” had unisex restrooms in 1997, so it is hardly a new concept if Apple decided to follow suit.
There are many genders possible TxUser, personally I consider the genetics as the foundation for gender identification. In humans there are 8 possible genders using this approach. I’ve included some well known folk for the more esoteric genders when possible.
46,XX (biological female)
46,XY (biological male)
45,X (Turner’s syndrome): Linda Hunt
47,XXY (Klinefelter syndrome): Kimber James
47,XYY (XYY syndrome): Arthur Shawcross
47,XXX (XXX syndrome): Patricia Ann Jacobs
48,XXYY (XXYY syndrome): ?
46,XX/XY mosaic: ?
Not to mention other possibilities like Androgen insensitivity syndrome and hermaphrodites.
Just in case you are wondering YY situations are non viable in humans and that points out something you might find relevant. In all cases of humans an X chromosome is required to survive.
It’s gets even more complex with other animals. Male honeybees for example are haploid (containing only one set of chromosomes from the mother) hence male honeybees have no father.
Food for thought.
Not super relevant but super interesting. Thanks for the science lesson.
My pleasure Higo. You say that it is not relevant but we are talking about India and that country does accept the concept of a third gender. The term “third gender” has been used to describe hijras of India, and there are an estimated 5 and 6 million hijras in India. Since 2005 Indian passport application forms include three gender options: M, F, and E (for male, female, and eunuch, respectively).
So doing business in India, which Apple does, requires respect for the local customs and traditions of the culture and in this case acceptance of a third gender concept.
Genetics gets us back to the birth certificate quandary; it may not correspond either with the individual’s gender self-identification or with how others see him/her.
Physiology limits us to a spectrum with male bathroom equipment at one end and female at the other, but no third gender outsiders that spectrum. Again, an individual’s physiology may not determine either their public or private identity.
Self-identification is also limited to a spectrum between those who strongly identify as male and those who strongly identify as female. Those who do not particularly identify with either are still on that spectrum. They do not constitute a third gender.
The birth certificate quandary is a social construct, so it will be limited by a particular society’s paradigm.
I don’t know if your comment about bathroom equipment refers to the anatomical equipment humans have but it you are talking about actual equipment used to go to the bathroom, well it’s as diverse as you want it to be, from porcelain palace to a spot near a tree.
Self-identification is another social construct and may not reflect the actually biological situation. For example there is a population at a village, Salinas in the Dominican republic where girls turn into boys at puberty. The situation has also been found in Turkey and New Guinea. There is a social construct there that incorporates that concept: Guevedoces (literal translation “penis at 12”) – who are also called “machihembras”, meaning “first a woman, then a man” – appear to be completely female at birth and are brought up to be little girls. Lobsters can do something similar as well.
The point is that there is diversity with biology, it’s often not a clear cut yes/no situation and often a dynamic changing one, even in humans. It’s a social construct that will bring forth the idea that there is no third gender. It’s a social construct that will bring forth the idea that there is a third gender (see also my response to Higo). It’s also a social construct for some societies to trust the socially constructed map more than the actual territory of reality. Galileo Galilei is a classic example of what happens to some people who have an insight into reality that does not conform to the social construct of the time.
In Rabat the facility was a hole in the floor of a central room with no ceiling. The cabin in the Appalachian woods had an outhouse. Both decidedly unisex, or nonsex. Both natural, both blessedly absent any taint of moralism.
Oh nice to get a post from you today. Hope all is well in your world. Say you ever like do the bidet thing?
Both bathrooms in my house are equipped with them, in the form of Toto Washlets. I recommend them to anyone with indoor plumbing and electricity.
Class and distinction my instincts serve me well. Have a wonderful week.
A company I worked for remodeled the bathrooms, and although they still had separate men’s and women’s rooms, they put in individual closets for each toilet that were lockable and vented. They still had men’s urinals, but if you had nothing exposed there probably wouldn’t be as much of an issue.
On the other hand, it you had “nothing to expose”, you have a big problem ‘at hand.’