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.
Benjamin Lyon left Apple after being with the company for 21 years. He worked on a variety of products, but most recently he’d been a senior director in the team working on the Apple Car.
But he’s going to go be a rocket engineer instead.
Apple thinks that two men accused of stealing secrets from its mysterious self-driving car project are likely to flee the country if they aren‘t closely watched.
Despite the drama surrounding their arrests, what makes this case most interesting is that it absolutely confirms that Apple has a self-driving car in development.
Apple made a big update to the design of the sensor array that powers the autonomous functions on its self-driving fleet of cars.
Some eagle-eyed observers in the Cupertino area spotted the new array a couple of times over the last month or so. Instead of having LiDAR and camera sensors mounted on a rack around the car, Apple’s gearheads created a system that’s entirely enclosed. And it looks like they’ve ditched LiDAR in the process.
Watch Apple’s whip drive down the streets of Cupertino.
Apple’s fleet of self-driving cars has gotten smaller for the first time since the project’s inception.
In a recent filing with the California Department of Motor Vehicles, Apple revealed that both its number of cars and drivers permitted to test them have decreased since that company’s last report at the end of 2018.
The faster cellular data networks being rolled out now will bring tremendous benefits to Apple, according to a well-known industry analyst. Gene Munster even said today, “Apple will be one of 5G’s biggest beneficiaries.”
He listed a number of current and future products that will see gains from this nascent wireless tech.
Apple’s self-driving car project may be nearing the end of the road.
After rumors surfaced last month that the company slashed its workforce for Project Titan, Apple confirmed today that 190 employees in Santa Clara and Sunnyvale have been released from the self-driving car project.
Another alleged Chinese spy has been caught apparently trying to steal secrets from Apple’s mysterious self-driving car project.
The FBI reportedly arrested a Chinese national working for Apple the day before he planned to fly back to China with thousands of files on his laptop, including Apple’s intellectual property. He was reportedly planning to take all the info to a Chinese electric car manufacturer.
Apple’s fleet of vehicles used to gather data for Apple Maps appears to have gotten a significant upgrade and it could help make Apple Maps even better.
People in the Los Angeles area have spotted a second-generation version of Apple’s mapping vehicles in the wild. Unlike the previous version, these cars aren’t vans, as Apple has opted to use Subaru SUVs instead.
Apple still hasn’t publicly revealed whether it’s working on an autonomous car, but a company started by former Apple engineers certainly is.
Opening up about its plans, startup Aeva has revealed that it is building a smart sensor that will help self-driving cars make sense of the world. And, from its sleek design to its mix of hardware and software magic, it totally looks like the kind of product Apple would design and make!
