Apple is officially joining the self-driving car competition. Company CEO Tim Cook has confirmed it is indeed working on a technology based on artificial intelligence to support an autonomous vehicle and not the car itself.
Speaking to Bloomberg, Cook has spilled the beans saying Apple is aiming to produce a system to help a car run independently. He says, "We're focusing on autonomous systems. It's a core technology that we view as very important... We sort of see it as the mother of all AI projects".
After years of speculations about the Project Titan, Apple is finally debunking rumours that it has been building a self-driving hardware. Samsung, Google, and several other companies have also been working on a technology system and partner with car manufacturers.
Back in 2016, amid the noise about the Project Titan, reports have circulated that Apple is giving up its ambitions to create a system supporting a self-driving vehicle and letting go of or reassigning "hundreds of members of the car team" because it was hesitant for the said project.
Now that Cook has confirmed the move, the project is expected to be in full swing. This system that Apple is trying to build this time gives the company "flexibility" to work with carmakers.
It can be noted that Cook has indirectly dissed Google, Uber, and Tesla for veering away from what they do best. This may well explain why Apple is not going to take the car-making path. Instead, it is sticking to the creation of a technology that would support its vision to bring to life the self-driving car vision.
In 2014, Apple was first seen in the car landscape with CarPlay, a navigation that is powered by an iPhone to show calls, maps, music, and messages. With the new iOS 11 update, the so-called Do Not Disturb While Driving technology has the ability to sense a user while driving and automatically silence notifications by keeping the display dim and free from distraction.
