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Documents Indicate Apple Is Building a Self-Driving Car
An anonymous reader writes: The Guardian has obtained correspondence through a public records request that indicate Apple is seeking a facility in the San Francisco area to test a self-driving car. "In May, engineers from Apple's secretive Special Project group met with officials from GoMentum Station, a 2,100-acre former naval base near San Francisco that is being turned into a high-security testing ground for autonomous vehicles." The station is a facility left over from WWII, and its 20 miles of highways and city streets are surrounded by barbed-wire fences. Honda and Mercedes-Benz have already used it to test their self-driving car technology. "This security is bound to appeal to Apple, which has hundreds of engineers quietly working on automotive technologies in an anonymous office building in Sunnyvale, four miles from its main campus in Cupertino."
During its most successful eras, when it was ruled by Steve Jobs, Apple attained this high level of success with a small number of very focused product offerings. The focus resulted in a high level of detail and care being put into the development of these products. They weren't just mediocre. They weren't just good. They were near-perfection.
Sometimes this meant that Apple would miss other opportunities. But that's what happens when one focuses: other things are ignored so the thing in focus can be perfected.
But today's Apple? I see it running wild, chasing at random opportunities without the focus that brought it so much success in the past. We see this in the watches that nobody wants, and the complication of their laptop lineup with the introduction of the very limited MacBook, and now what may be a foray into vehicles.
I don't think that Steve Jobs, the master of product development, would have even considered chasing vehicular products. They are not what Apple is about. It's much like when Debian adopted systemd; yes, it's possible, but it's not the right thing to do. It's a clash of cultures, where the successful culture is betrayed by that which is experimental.
Apple, return to your roots! Focus on the small number of devices and services that made you so great!
The cars that Apple and Google are developing will not be for sale. They are making self-driving taxis - these will be cheaper and more convenient than owning a car, especially in congested cities. UBER is also working on self-driving cars. At the latest TESLA earnings call Elon Musk was asked if they are working on such service, and after a long silence he refused to answer the question. Big changes ahead for the automotive industry,
I think the evolution of transport is quite comical. I still remember the old riding grocery store with a 80+ year old guy that still used his horse carriage to sell his vegetables to his customers. He was retired but lost his wife close after retirement. And instead of living their dream, he just continued working. He just wanted to forget his sorrows and used alcohol to forget, so he just went to the pubs whenever he had the money. At the end of the day he would be so drunk that he didn't know where he was. He just laid himself in his carriage and without saying anything, the horse knew he had to bring the old guy home. The horse stopped on busy crossroads and waited until it was clear, the horse also staid on the right side and stopped for anything that drove in front of him. And the horse knew where he had to go to bring his owner home, no matter at what pub his owner passed out.
According to my grand father there were many people like this in the 30ths, 50ths and 60ths (in the 40ths nothing was possible). He was just the last one of his kind. So whenever I hear about these stories about self driving cars, I've to think about the pre-auto time where everyone with a horse had a self driving car. One that could even make his own decision without being programmed or having to rely on an algorithm or the Internet.