Musk could release Tesla Phone if Apple, Google do this

Rumors and disinformation a few Tesla smartphone have been circulating for years now, however firm CEO Elon Musk has addressed the subject in a latest interview.

“No, we’re not doing a cellphone,” Musk instructed comic Joe Rogan on the Joe Rogan Expertise podcast. The billionaire added that Tesla was “most likely” in a greater place to create a non-Android and non-iOS smartphone than different corporations, pointing to the automaker’s software program.

“But it surely’s not one thing we wanna do until now we have to or one thing,” he defined.

Musk outlined what it could take for Tesla to step into the smartphone area:

If Apple and Google slash Android began doing actually dangerous issues, like, I don’t know, censorship of apps or… simply being like gatekeepers, in a extremely dangerous manner, then I assume we’d make a cellphone (sic).

It’s price noting that regulatory companies world wide, most notably the European Union, dominated that Apple and Google had been gatekeepers within the smartphone area to various levels.

The argument for and towards a Tesla cellphone

Tesla’s leisure system in its automobiles certainly gives entry to quite a lot of apps and video games, so it looks like this software program could possibly be a basis of types for any future non-Android smartphone. It additionally stands to purpose that Tesla may leverage SpaceX’s Starlink satellite tv for pc service for some type of connectivity. The corporate is already testing a so-called direct-to-cell service for texting help and emergency alerts on T-Cellular smartphones.

In saying so, it’s far simpler stated than carried out to create a smartphone that isn’t powered by Android or iOS. Microsoft discovered this out the exhausting manner with its Home windows Telephone platform. Microsoft struggled to courtroom builders to make apps for its platform. Simply the most important holdout was Google, which refused to deliver the vast majority of its companies to Microsoft’s platform. This might be a hurdle for Tesla too.

Even basing your cellphone on Android isn’t a assure of success as Amazon discovered with its 2014 Fireplace Telephone. This handset ran a forked model of Android dubbed Fireplace OS. Amazon had a number of benefits too, together with its personal app retailer and an enormous on-line retail footprint. That didn’t cease the Fireplace Telephone from being a flop, though Fireplace OS remains to be used on the agency’s tablets and streaming devices.

We’ve additionally seen tens of millions of People stick with Apple due to iMessage, although Apple’s messaging platform now helps RCS for extra fashionable texting between iPhones and Android telephones. So that is one other massive impediment dealing with a possible Tesla cellphone.

It also needs to go with out saying that Musk’s dealing with of Twitter doesn’t bode nicely for a Tesla cellphone, both, as the corporate’s valuation has reportedly plummeted for the reason that billionaire acquired it.