Apple car - page 7

Bob Mansfield has been chosen to head up Apple’s “secret” electric car project three years after stepping down from his executive role, according to a new report.

Mansfield was previously in charge of Mac hardware at Apple and led development of products like the MacBook Air, iMac and iPad.

Drivers won’t be hitting the highways in Apple’s self-driving vehicle at all this decade.

Apple has reportedly pushed back the goal launch date of its secretive electric car project that has been in the works since 2014. Previous rumors claimed Project Titan is aiming for an unveiling in 2019, but it may have hit a speed bump.

Some new data-gathering vehicles are roaming the streets of San Francisco. They’re unmarked, but are suspected to be Apple’s. They are laden with sensors, but what kind of data are they gathering, and what for?

Experts contacted by Cult of Mac say the mystery vans are next-generation mapping vehicles capable of capturing VR-style, 360-degree street photos. Plus, the vans use Lidar to create extraordinarily precise “point clouds,” a prerequisite for self-driving cars. Mesh those two databases together and you’ve laid the groundwork for an autonomous vehicle’s navigation system.

Apple has been busy working on its electric car project at secret facilities in Silicon Valley, but the tech that will make it totally autonomous might be hiding in plain sight throughout San Francisco.

During a drive across the Golden Gate Bridge, an eagle-eyed observer spotted what could be Apple’s latest self-driving car or mapping van, a vehicle that is armed with more sensors than ever.

This week’s Cult of Mac Magazine has loads in store for your weekend wind-down. Following our coverage of WWDC 2016 the previous week, we’ve got more iPhone 7 rumors for you including the possibility of a dual-lense camera.

And, discover the news changes and design overhauls iOS 10 brings to the Apple Music and Apple News apps. Plus, screaming terrific deals on the G-BOOM Bluetooth speaker, and the opportunity to get five years of unlimited cloud storage for just $29 per month.

Finally, the CultCast expounds on all those iPhone 7 leaks!

All this, and much much more, in Cult of Mac Magazine, free for you right now.

Here are this week’s top stories.

With all the recent rumors that Apple will build an electric car within the next few years, obviously Cupertino is going to be compared to the big electric car company of the moment, Tesla Motors.

Tesla sold more than 50,000 model S sedans in 2015, so I’m taking a look at four Apple Car lessons that Tim Cook and Jony Ive should learn from Tesla.

Check out the video below.

It will be years before we get to see how simple and amazing a car designed by Apple will be, but for now a new hardware startup created by ex-Apple engineers is ready to give us the next best thing.

Pearl Automation, an autonomous car tech startup co-founded by Apple veteran Bryson Gardner, revealed its first product today that makes your dumb car smarter by adding a new feature usually only found on luxury vehicles.

Although Apple is rumored to have already started prototyping its much-rumored Apple Car, what the vehicle will look like if and when it rolls out of Cupertino’s Product Realization Lab (yep, that’s a real place!) is still anyone’s guess.

With that in mind, the folks over at automotive industry website Motor1 recently took a stab at guessing how Apple’s Project Titan will appear.

Steve Jobs may not have been holding the reigns at Apple when the company started working on its first car, but the co-founder and former CEO certainly had an interest in futuristic vehicles.

In fact, back in May 2010, Jobs met with the creators of the secret V-Vehicle prototype — a small, lightweight car powered by gas that was designed to sell for just $14,000.

An iPhone sales slump couldn’t stop Apple from climbing up to third in the 2016 Fortune 500 list. The Cupertino company raked in $233.7 billion last year, helping it overtake both Chevron and Berkshire Hathaway.

Apple’s often-ridiculed Maps app is getting some much-needed assistance, thanks to a recent new hire who helped invent the satellite navigation systems used by a bevy of automakers. 

Sinisa Durekovic, a software engineer who was the principle architect and engineer for Harman International Industries’ navigation systems, has reportedly joined Apple, and the company won’t say what he is working on.

Apple should have started development on the Apple Car a lot earlier than it did, according to Space X and Tesla CEO Elon Musk.

The real-life comic-book superhero sat down for an interview at Code Conference and said that when it comes to autonomous cars, Google won’t be a competitor because they’re not a car company, however Apple will be.

Musk thinks it may be too late for Apple to be truly competitive though.

Check out Apple’s plans for the iCar as it prepares the groundwork for its charging infrastructure.

Learn more of what’s in store for the iCar in this week’s jam-packed Cult of Mac Magazine. Plus, Foxconn manages to replaces half its workers with robots.

All this, and much much more, in Cult of Mac Magazine, free for you right now.

Here are this week’s top stories.

Google’s self-driving car project is moving to Detroit.

The CEO of Alphabet’s driverless car project, John Krafcik, revealed today that the company plans to lay down roots in the Greater Detroit Area by establishing a self-driving technology development center.

The Apple Car isn’t expected to hit the road until 2020 at the earliest, but Apple’s engineers are already laying the foundation for one of the most challenging aspect of electric vehicles: keeping them charged up.

Apple appears to be preparing the ground work for its charging infrastructure, according to a new report claiming the company is scooping up engineers that specialize in electric charing stations.

Apple has invested $1 billion in Chinese Uber rival Didi Chuxing in a move that continues Apple’s push into China and confirms the company’s interest in shaking up the automotive industry.

According to Tim Cook, the deal “reflects our excitement about their growing business … and also our continued confidence in the long term in China’s economy.” Perhaps more importantly, it could give Apple strategic insights and competitive advantages when it comes to Apple Pay and a possible Apple Car.

Apple is seeking an 800,000-square-foot warehouse to work on the Apple Car, according to a West Coast real estate giant, who claims space for developing electric vehicles is currently “a hot demand item” in Silicon Valley.

Upstarts like Apple and Alphabet are apparently competing with traditional automakers to set up shop for next-gen research facilities in the tech mecca.

Apple may have reached peak iPhone this quarter after posting declining revenues for the first time since 2003, but rest assured the company is working on the next big thing. 

Tim Cook boasted about the amazingly innovative products coming down Apple’s pipeline, and the company’s latest spending figures show its throwing more money than ever at new ideas. 

Elon Musk has called the Apple Car an “open secret” and now, in a new interview, Ford CEO Mark Fields say that the automaker is acting on a “working assumption” that an Apple Car is not too far away.

Ford wouldn’t be willing to take on a contract manufacturing job, however — since it’s not into the “handset, commodity base business” as Fields puts it.

Progress on the Apple Car is coming along faster than anticipated after Project Titan hit some speed bumps earlier this year.

Based on a batch of new hires, it appears that Apple Car parts may have already entered the prototyping phase at the company’s Product Realization Lab, where machinists and engineers produce and test product designs.

Talks between Apple and German carmakers Daimler and BMW have fallen apart, after Apple sought to strike a deal with the companies for its electric car project. 

BMW and Apple have been rumored to be talking about a partnership for nearly a year now. Apple supposedly wanted to use BMW’s i3 carbon fiber body as the basis for its car but it appears that the company will have to go solo for now. 

Apple’s not-so-secret electric car project has added yet another Telsa engineer to its growing ranks.

Former Telsa VP of Vehicle Engineering Chris Porritt has reportedly been hired by Apple. Porritt also recently worked at Aston Martin as chief engineer. Now he’ll be working on “special projects” at Apple — like Project Titan.

It seems that research for Apple’s automotive “Project Titan” is picking up speed, with a newly published report claiming Cupertino has opened a small R&D office in Berlin — with the sole purpose of inventing the electric car of the future.

The new Apple car facility employs between 15 and 20 “top-class” employees, many of whom have previously worked in Germany’s buoyant automotive industry. Skills include everything from creating software to mechanical engineering and sales expertise.

This week on The CultCast: We recall how Steve Jobs and the industrial design team brought Apple back from the brink. Plus: The reason Jony Ive gave up his car for a chauffeur; one year with the Apple Watch; and we reveal the strange cultural phenomena we’ve been secretly loving in an all-new What We’re Into.

Our thanks for Freshbooks for supporting this episode. FreshBooks is the easy-to-use invoicing software designed to help small business owners get organized, save time invoicing and get paid faster. Get started now with a 30-day free trial.

The striking thing about Motor Trend‘s piece on the rumored Apple car is all the talk of the “user experience.”

The various auto designers and experts interviewed by Motor Trend speculate that Apple will try to redefine the car “experience.” They talk about stuff like acoustics, and look and feel, rather than specs like miles per gallon or engine torque.

They predict that Apple will bring a better “user experience” to the car of the future, not just a better physical product.

This reminded me of interviewing Apple’s designers for my Jony Ive book. They explained that the design group takes exactly this approach when thinking about new Apple products. Instead of starting with chip speeds or screen resolutions, they begin by asking each other how the new product should make the user feel.

And thinking about this made me realize why Jony Ive has a chauffeur. It’s not because he’s a one percenter. It’s about Project Titan, Apple’s future car.