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Apple Puts Brakes on Self-driving Car Project, Report Says (theguardian.com)
Apple is following the road taken by Waymo, the autonomous vehicle subsidiary of Google-parent Alphabet, and downshifting on its still-unannounced self-driving car project, according to a report in the New York Times. From a report: The company has been working on its automotive technology under the internal code name "Project Titan" since at least 2014, and once intended to build its own vehicle from start to finish, creating a true "Apple Car." Now it's put the car-building side of the project on hold, perhaps indefinitely, as it instead focuses on creating and perfecting the software and hardware necessary to get a self-driving car on the streets. Apple is now planning on working with other car-makers to get its self-driving tech into the garages and driveways of customers, according to the paper. One upcoming example of that collaboration: an autonomous shuttle service that will ferry employees back and forth between the company's Silicon Valley offices in Palo Alto and Cupertino. That project, which will use conventional cars with self-driving kit bolted on, is known as "Pail", standing for Palo Alto to Infinite Loop, the street address of the company's main campus. The name highlights the delays in the project, since Apple's main campus is already in the process of being moved to Apple Park, an enormous ring-shaped office down the road.
That's what you get when you remove and remove features, at one point you might remove one that is crucial.
In the name of pedestrians everywhere, thanks for putting the brakes back onto your damn cars!
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Next Apple project - flailing around and reheating Job's leftover ideas. They need someone with vision or accept that they are a commodity supplier.
there are about 10 companies ahead of them in the race. They got put back in their box.
Sell Apple. You were foolish not to when he died. This is the 1990s all over again, at Apple, and that was not a good time for them.
Brakes... On a car project!
ROFL!
The only Apple location that I know about in Palo Alto is the Apple Store. Although the Palo Alto Apple Store is the flagship store, I find it confusing as to why Apple needs a self-driving shuttle to take employees from the Cupertino campuses to Palo Alto. Between the Infinite Loop and the Mothership campuses in Cupertino, sure. But not Palo Alto.
So sounds like they don't want all of the blame when things don't work as they should
What you crashed? Looks like Ford didn't make it to spec or something they did wasn't calibrated properly etc
Bickering amongst the two groups held responsible (car makers, computer engineers) will draw out court cases and put pressure on bereaved families to settle
Maybe once the dust settles then they will go back and make their complete car
a car with lights that cost $30 each dealer only service failed in the test marketing group.
And it's not just Apple. Major companies are running out of ideas. No vision. They're pinning their hopes on the "magic" of AI, but other than that they're turning to dystopian ideas of exploitation. It's going to be interesting to see what happens when AI doesn't pan out.
We need a criminal case with hard ass judge like the one from my cousin vinny. That will jail people for contempt of court if they try to delay Bickering among groups / sub contractor / contractors.
Also if they try to hide under an NDA / EULA / etc.
And here I thought self-driving cars braked themselves.
Unbelievable how they don't get that the vertical integration of the iOS architecture (hardware + software + services) is what makes them stand out with the grand majority of users (not talking about technologists and hobbyists, but mom, pops and most users)
Windows will never have that while catering to multiple hardware vendors
Android will never have that while catering to multiple hardware vendors
As far as I can tell Tesla is the only one doing the all-around solution approach, while others are going with accesorizing other's cars..
Incredible how that single factor being key in their success so far, doesn't make them go all the way in Cars as well. It's not that they don't have the money.. Not saying it's easy!! But come fucking on..! Take big obstacles HEAD ON, damn it!!
The hood is sealed, and you can't change the battery, and if the car needs to be serviced it's cheaper to buy a new one.
That's no reason to hang onto shares.
More and more people are coming to the conclusion that the "self driving" or autonomous car is still many years in the future. It's like the flying car. What if something goes wrong? You're f#@ked.
they should work on making osx suck less, before trying to venture into cars or tv.
Remember that for quite some time, the rumor was that Apple was going to release its own line of TV sets. Many people (including myself) thought that was a stupid idea, since it would put Apple into the TV manufacturing business, which is pretty cutthroat.
I think the same problems occur with the concept of Apple building its own self-driving car, except that car manufacturing is far more complex, capital-intensive, and labor-intensive than building TV sets, while still being just as cutthroat (note that US car mfgrs are dealing with slowing sales and mounting inventory). So, Apple's move is, generally speaking, a sane one.
On the other hand, Apple has largely blown its approach to the actual Apple TV to date (I own two and am a fan, but I love my Echo and Dot more), so who knows what it will achieve on the automotive front.
Bruce F. Webster (brucefwebster.com)
They've decided to only run over their own employees during the testing/learning phase.
This is not news.
a car with lights that cost $30 each dealer only service failed in the test marketing group.
Maybe they realized the problem with the upgrade to a new model every 2 years and discard/hand-down hardware demand model...
You can't hand down a car to anyone less than 16yo, and anyone above that age wants the new model not the old one....
Now on to business Plan B.
Two options. Either this was a stealth win by Google to get Apple to burn cash, or more likely, they patented something and will troll the shit out of the next decade and a half when the real innovators bring a product to market. Of course, they won't sue public ally, they'll quietly extort in order to keep the fanboys happy.
Because first they have to restrict to Apple-made gasoline and Apple-generated electricity. I hear they're working on that, too.
the apple only changing cables with an $200+ 120V outlet cable was to far and in the past when alienware tried an $50 add on for an better desktop power cable
Apple does not make its own phone, laptops or anything else as far as I know. All contract manufacturing. Even car companies outsource a large fraction of cars. Manufacturing is also not nearly as profitable as software. Making one more is not sending another copy of the sw via the internet.
If you move away from the fake news pushed by the mainstream media (the latest being the laughable lie that US Navy ships are having 'accidents' cos of 'hacking', and examine the reality of the self-driving car propaganda push, you'll discover something truly terrifying.
The BBC/Slashdot fake news about this is designed to GROOM the general population into accepting autonomous killing machines on the battlefields of the future. Tony Blair's mouthpieces in the UK were all about Britain rejecting UN moves to ban robot killing machines yesterday. And this is one clue as to the real story.
Google purchased every military robot R+D company it could get its hands on a few years back. Now Google is perfecting the software and hardware systems for a new generation of murder machines the owners of Google hope will enable the USA to declare war on Iran. Iran ewquires a ground war, and Google knows the US sheeple don't like ground wars that risk the lives of their butchers in uniform, even if the death ratio is ten thousand innocent civilians for every US uniformed butcher killed.
Clinton's own supreme monster, the lord of Blackwater (or whatever it is called today), likewise hopes to prove a mercenary army can get the job done (in Iran), but the Syria experience proves an anti-demon alliance can grind up any number of US proxy terror forces.
Back to Google. Google is perfecting, under civilian guise, the software algorithms their drone tank army will require. And on the battlefield, 'bugs' that would ruin any self driving car initiative in week one with insurance payouts, don't matter when the drone tank runs over a schoolbus full of (as Clinton voters would say) 'sub-Human' kids.
Outside of the military, drone cars (for in reality they have radio links to Human operators who can take them over at a moment's notice) require purpose built tracks to be safe enough to deploy in first world nations- and that's why Apple has now disavowed the project.
PS no Slashdot news about Russia's extermination of ISIS in Syria? Colour me surprised- not. Slashdot was quick to push the fake news about Russia not targeting ISIS when they first went in. Now Russia has ended Britain's, America's and Saudi Arabia's wahhabi project there, slashdot simply moves to other forms of fake news Russia demonising propganda.
a car with lights that cost $30 each dealer only service failed in the test marketing group.
The headlights on my 2017 Toyota Prius cost 1200$ EACH. This is not abnormal anymore.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
And you can't force it on me, either. Enjoy your wheeled death boxes. My new hobby will be holding up fake traffic signs, then having buddies hijack your shitty dumb self-driving car when it automatically stops. Should be a good chop-shop profit on the parts, LOL.
"an autonomous shuttle service that will ferry employees back and forth between the company's Silicon Valley offices in Palo Alto and Cupertino. That project, which will use conventional cars with self-driving kit bolted on, is known as "Pail", standing for Palo Alto to Infinite Loop, the street address of the company's main campus."
Wouldn't iLap make a lot more sense, on every level?
I don't know anyone other than overpaid CEOs that can afford to buy a new car every 3 years. It's bad enough they expect everyone to do that with their overpriced iPhones and iPads.
Can somebody explain this article with a car analogy?