Can Apple show its presence in the coming automated driving world?

Apple, which has grown to be the world's most profitable company by the iPhone, is expected to target "automatic driving car" as a promising market next to the iPhone. The New York Times interviewed officials of Apple's automotive development project Titan, and summarized the history, current situation and future prospects of the future.

Apple Scales Back Its Ambitions for a Self-Driving Car - The New York Times
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/22/technology/apple-self-driving-car.html

Winner-takes all effects in autonomous cars - Benedict Evans
http://ben-evans.com/benedictevans/2017/8/20/winner-takes-all

In June 2017, CEO Tim Cooke publicly acknowledged in Bloomberg 's interview that "focusing on the automatic driving system" about Apple's car development project, which has long been rumored.

"Apple is developing an automatic driving car technology" finally Tim Cook's official recognition of remarks - GIGAZINE


Apple's car development project "Titan" was known as an open secret in Silicon Valley, but secretive Apple never revealed concrete content. Apple often does not publish new technologies until technologists themselves fully understand them. For example, it has been known for several years that the iPhone that triggered the spread of smartphones all over the world has been thoroughly studied and aged technology on touch display. It is no wonder that even Titan would take several years before Apple's core technology to be seen by Apple is being determined.

However, when the The New York Times summarizes the story of the five parties involved in the Titan project that got information on anonymity, Titan is not smooth, and pillars of the development of an automatic driving car system come out through twists and turns I know that.

At Titan, which began in 2014, ambitions beyond the level of coordination and establishment of basic technologies were established. In other words, initially it was not developing the software part of the automatic driving car system like the present, but the goal was to in-house the entire car including the body called the car body in-house. If you look at products such as iPhones and Macs that develop all their hardware and software on their own, this is a common form of Apple.


Apple, who is trying to create innovative cars, has given various ideas including quietly opening and closing doors, steering wheel (steering wheel), car without pedals, new display with AR function. In particular, Apple, which places emphasis on the design of products, is discussing whether it is possible somehow to remove it from its appearance, thinking that radar devices such as Lidar provided by other competing automobile cars will hurt the design It is said that.


Furthermore, it was not a general tire that the side surface of the cylinder touches and rotates, but it was also studied about a completely new tire design with a spherical shape as a whole. If it is a spherical tire, it is an idea that it can move not only forward and backward but also to the left and right, and if you realize it, you can imagine it is a technology that will definitely be an innovative car.

ByAutomobile Italia

But the five Titan officials who contacted The New York Times testified that Apple lacked a clear vision for the car and that the development was difficult.

Initially Steve Zadesky, who had led Titan, was thinking about pursuing semi-automatic driving technology assuming the existence of a driver. However, the industrial design team led by Apple 's chief designer, Jonathan Ive, believes that a fully automatic driving car that does not require a driver is the one that will rebuild the experience of the car, and the grooves are not filled.

After all, Mr. Zadesky will leave Titan and when Mr. Bob Mansfield, known for the development of the iPad and MacBook Air in July 2016, becomes Titan's leader, he gave up car body development and became an automated driving technique A change of direction was devoted to concentrate on system development.


Currently, Apple's automobile driving project, which has undergone a major change in the development environment, such as a reduction in personnel, is accompanied by experts in machine learning technology, which is the key to automatic driving technology, and the direction is decided and the development is to be put on track It is seen as a stage. Test cars equipped with an automated driving system developed by Apple are about to be run as a shuttle bus between Silicon Valley offices.

It is no doubt that Apple wanted the next product of the iPhone as it launched into the automotive related field at all. Even though it is certain that the next iPhone commemorating the iPhone's birth anniversary will bring great benefits to Apple, Apple is suffering from birth to create the next source of revenue.

Although it is uncertain as to what type of manufacturer will be in the future about automatic driving cars, unlike the current automobile industry where there are huge players of more than 10 companies, huge two or three manufacturers There is an expectation that it will become a form to oligopolize. The reason for this is that "Network effectBecause it works greatly with automatic driving car technology.

For example, the accuracy of map data that is indispensable for automatic driving car technology and the accuracy of image recognition technology that reads peripheral information are steadily increased by the data collected by the automatic driving car running on the actual road. In other words, manufacturers who gathered more data gather further technology, manufacturers who have entered a good cycle to be supported by many users and get more data gathered will steadily raise their technological advantages, All players who did not enter will die in the market. The same situation that Google and Android with smartphone market and Apple with iOS came to dominate can happen even in the automatic driving car market.


In automatic operation car technology interests of the predecessor can be seen with the incredibly large, was a spin-off from Google, which has accumulated the data of Tesla and actual running experiments already collect large amounts of data from commercial vehiclesWaymo, Further, in addition to high-tech companies such as Baidu of Chinese companies can be expected to have a backup of the Chinese government, BMW, Ford, development competition for the upcoming automatic operation era to an existing automobile manufacturers high-tech armed, such as Nissan I am starting. It seems to be said that Apple can not be allowed to stagnate development for Apple who has been delayed in full-scale participation in order to become a giant who survives in the world where the network effect works and gains most of the market pie.