Apple will use autopilot chips built by a South Korean firm in its first self-driving car, according to a new report.
The two companies joined forces around a year ago and are said to be working on a chipset package that is likely to include a CPU, GPU, memory and imaging interface to “oversee AI computations.”
This week on Cult of Mac’s podcast: iOS 15.4 packs a punch with some fun and useful new features. It’s still just a beta, but it will give us lots of new emoji for our critical, high-level communications when it goes live. Plus, the beta includes a convenient new way to unlock your iPhone while wearing a face mask — just in time for the end of the pandemic! 🤞
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The rumored Apple Car may not be on the verge of rolling off the assembly line, but someday a version of it may have sunroof glass that you can darken or lighten with the touch of a button or with a Siri command.
That’s according to a patent the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) granted Apple this week for a sunroof with variable-opacity glass. That means a driver could adjust its transparency.
Two monumental events happened this week. Apple became the first U.S. company to be worth an astonishing $3 trillion. And a day later came the official end of BlackBerry — a series of phones that once dominated the market.
The collapse of BlackBerry is proof that today’s winners aren‘t inevitably tomorrow’s. While in the coming years Apple could become the first company to reach $4 trillion, it also could start down a path that ends in failure.
Here’s some of what Apple will do so it doesn’t end up like BlackBerry.
Taking Apple products and patents for inspiration, A UK-based vehicle-leasing company called Vanarama has offered a detailed look at what it thinks the first Apple Car could look like. You can explore the 3D concept render inside and out.
This week on Cult of Mac’s podcast: Just how well does a new $3,500 M1 Max MacBook Pro perform against a $15,000 Mac Pro that’s only two years old? The results from the latest tests and benchmarks are simply insane.
Also on The CultCast:
Listen to this week’s episode of The CultCast in the Podcasts app or your favorite podcast app. (Be sure to subscribe and leave us a review if you like it!) Or watch the video livestream, embedded below.
Apple is reportedly committed to making a car capable of driving completely autonomously. The new head of the project won’t be satisfied with a vehicle with only limited capabilities.
The car might not need a steering wheel or pedals at all. And it could be on the road by 2025.
On the heels of Apple VP Doug Field’s departure as chief of the Apple Car project for a role at Ford, Cupertino has named longtime Apple Watch software head Kevin Lynch its new exec in charge of Project Titan. That’s the code name for the company’s self-driving electric car effort.
Apple resumed development of its autonomous electric vehicle on its own after failing to secure a major automotive partner, according to a new report. Cupertino supposedly is in touch with global auto parts manufacturers, indicating selection of a supplier(s) could be imminent.
Development of an Apple car just hit another speed bump. Doug Field, who’d reportedly been managing the project, just left to join the Ford Motor Company.
This is surely a blow to Apple’s secretive automotive efforts. And the company was already multiple years away from having anything to put in a showroom, according to the latest leaks.
Apple plans to start mass production of its very first car in 2024, according to a new report that cites sources familiar with the matter. Cupertino is now in talks with a number of suppliers, including LG Electronics and Toyota, over components.
Many people think Apple’s refusal to buy Tesla when the car-maker was struggling was a serious mistake. But it turns out there might have been a previously unknown condition of the deal that made Apple immediately end negotiations: Tesla’s Elon Musk reportedly wanted to become Apple CEO.
Elon Musk took a couple of potshots at Apple during Tesla’s Monday earnings call. The Tesla and SpaceX boss started by claiming that Apple uses more cobalt in its batteries than Tesla. He later on talked about “walled gardens” in tech, and fake-coughed while saying Apple’s name.
This isn’t the first time that Musk, who currently has a net worth of $160 billion, has dissed Apple.
Apple’s VP of Technology Kevin Lynch, one of the key figures in bringing the Apple Watch to market, is now working on the Apple Car project, Business Insider reports.
Lynch, who joined Apple from Adobe in 2013, will be taking on a leading role on the project, which has been going on for almost as long as he’s been at Apple. At present, the Apple Car project is under the leadership of Apple’s AI and machine learning boss John Giannandrea. Giannandrea in turn took over from Bob Mansfield, who retired in 2020.
Apple apparently wants to build car batteries on its home soil. The company is eyeing a number of manufacturers as it plans to set up factories in the United States, according to a new report.
Foxconn, already one of Apple’s largest manufacturing partners, or Advanced Lithium Electrochemistry (Aleees) could get battery orders from Cupertino in the future, sources say.
Ulrich Kranz, who once developed electric cars for auto-giant BMW, has reportedly been hired by Apple. He’ll become an important part of the Mac-maker’s ongoing efforts to create a self-driving Apple car.
Cupertino is reportedly in “early stage talks” with two Chinese battery companies, Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. and BYD Auto, about supplying batteries for an Apple car.
Apple is said to have developed breakthrough battery technology for its rumored vehicle, although it needs a third-party supplier to build these batteries. It may be one step closer to finding them.
The bumpy, pothole-filled road to Apple Car continues, with Bloomberg claiming Wednesday that Apple has “lost multiple top managers of its self-driving car team” in recent months.
The company reportedly has hundreds of engineers working on self-driving software, along with multiple groups of employees working on a physical vehicle. However, multiple managers on the project have thrown in the towel this year alone. That’s never a great look.
LG Magna e-Powertrain is the latest company to be linked with Apple to potentially build an electric car.
According to a Tuesday report, the two parties are “very near” to signing a deal, although contract fine print is still being discussed.
It’s an open secret that an Apple Car is on the drawing board, but no one has a clue what it’ll look like. A new collection of concept designs doesn’t make serious suggestions but takes the idea for a fun spin. The designs combine popular car models with Apple products
Take a look at what they dreamed up.
It’s never easy to get Apple’s CEO to talk about the future. But Kara Swisher from The New York Times managed to get Tim Cook to drop a few hints about some of the company’s future plans.
Cook says Apple is committed to Apple TV+. And to user privacy. But he’s not promising that the Apple Car will ever be real.
The arrival of the Apple car could push Apple’s market capitalization to an almost unimaginable $3 trillion, analysts at Citigroup and Wedbush claim.
Since Apple is currently worth $2.05 trillion, that would mean a surge of approximately 50% on its present value. Apple is already the most valuable public company in the world.
Toyota’s President Akio Toyoda has chimed in on the possibility of an Apple car, saying the automotive industry welcomes new players with “the potential to breathe [fresh] life into the auto industry and give customers a wider range of choices.”
However, he threw minor shade at new arrivals like the Cupertino tech giant, noting how much more experienced Toyota is. “After making a vehicle, I’d like them to be prepared to deal with customers and various changes for some 40 years,” Toyoda said during a Thursday press conference by the Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association.
After talks with potential automotive partners stalled, Cupertino could stick with its key iPhone manufacturer to produce an Apple car, a Thursday report from Bloomberg suggests.
This would mark a big change in Apple’s strategy for breaking into the auto industry. The company previously looked to hook up with an established automaker — albeit seemingly with Apple receiving top billing.
The Apple Car really is on the drawing board at Cupertino, but no one outside the company knows what it’ll look like. Vanarama came up with a concept design.
And it didn’t stop there. Its designers had fun imagining vehicles designed by Netflix, Peloton, Airbnb and Zoom if these other Big Tech companies got into the market.
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