A rare puff of smoke has been spotted exiting Apple’s headquarters in Cupertino that sheds a tad more light on the company’s explorations into the automotive space. The California tech giant has kept information on its ‘Project Titan’ under tight guard, so any intelligence comes few and far between.
According to a Bloomberg report, Apple has just hired Dan Dodge into its automotive R&D team – a division reported to now be led by long-time Apple heavy hitter Bob Mansfield, responsible for some high-profile product launches in recent years.
Dodge comes from Blackberry, who acquired QNX in 2010 to form the basis for their now defunct BB10 operating system. However, while Blackberry’s efforts in the software platform fell flat, the underlying software has been adopted by manufacturers such as Volkswagen, Daimler, and Fiat Chrysler when, prior to its acquisition by the Canadian smartphone maker, were developing in-car navigation and entertainment software among other things.
QNX even forms the basis to which Ford developed its SYNC3 infotainment system and Tesla’s in-car computer interface.
Previous reports suggest that Apple’s dialogue with big-name automakers such as BMW and Mercedes-Benz – to forge potential partnerships – had stalled, prompting Apple to bring in Mr. Dodge. More recently, sources from some high profile publications have hinted that Apple’s focus has now shifted from creating their own self-driving car to developing autonomous vehicle technology that can be adapted for use by many manufacturers.
The software suite would take over the self-driving, machine learning, and fleet intelligence capabilities that may or may not be already baked into cars of the future, making autonomy a feature that can be implemented into most cars, regardless of whether a certain automaker has a proprietary solution or not.
Regardless of where Apple chooses to take Project Titan, the team responsible for it is said to be aiming for a product release – hardware and/or software – somewhere around 2020 or 2021.
CEO Tim Cook’s statement to investors during Apple’s quarterly earnings call did seem to suggest that they are likely to be investing a large amount of resources into this. He said: "The products that are in R&D — there is quite a bit of investment in there for products and services that are not currently shipping or derivations of what is currently shipping," Cook said in an earnings call on Tuesday. "There’s a lot of stuff that we’re doing beyond the current products."
