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Camera-equipped minivan leased to Apple spotted in Bay Area may point to Street View-style mapping system

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Apple may be preparing a big update to its Maps application for iOS and OS X. San Francisco’s KPIX reported earlier today that a Dodge Caravan sporting an impressive array of cameras has been spotted roaming the area. The California DMV confirmed that the vehicle (seen in the photos above and below, via Claycord) was leased to Apple.

The CBS affiliate reached out to technology analyst Rob Enderle for his thoughts on what this might be. Enderle said that this van simply has too many cameras (a whopping twelve of them) to be a mapping car—though he failed to note that Google uses even more cameras on its own Street View cars.

Enderle endorsed a different idea, saying that he believes this is a test model for a self-driving vehicle. That belief stems from the appearance of a YouTube video (seen below) uploaded in September that shows a very similar van cruising through Brooklyn, claiming without any proof that it’s a self-driving prototype.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wVobOLCj8BM&ab_channel=iamyself]

Unfortunately for that theory, only six companies have been issued the permits necessary to test such vehicles, and Apple isn’t one of them. This brings us back to a much more likely conclusion: Apple is preparing to take on Google’s Street View with a similar offering in its own Maps software.

If Apple is truly preparing a Street View feature for Maps, it’s possible that we might see it in the iOS 9 upgrade that should debut later this year, if the company maintains its annual upgrade cycle. If that’s the case, the feature will likely only support a few major cities at launch (such as New York and San Francisco, where the vans were spotted).

It’s also possible that the feature may not be included until a later version of iOS, depending on how long Apple wants to spend collecting data before launch. The Maps application was notoriously buggy at launch, and Apple hasn’t been at the top of its software game lately, so a taking a little extra time to polish this new feature may be in order.

You can view the original KPIX report below.

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Comments

  1. greghughesduh - 9 years ago

    not a street view type car. street view cars are actually quite “simple”. i’ve seen 3 different types of them (google/bing/nokia) in my life and none of them have the sensors on the wheels.

    • drhalftone - 9 years ago

      Those “cameras” look more like Sick Ranger push-broom style LIDAR scanners. It looks like Apple is building LIDAR models with superimposed camera images. That would be consistent with their 3D city models but from ground level. Surprised I’m the first to notice the difference.

  2. Steve Grenier - 9 years ago

    I hope. Street View is one of my most missed aspects in the map switch. Of course I can, and do, still use Google Maps on occasion. Their Material Design interfaces are a little annoying though.

  3. Matt Sims (@Mercifull) - 9 years ago

    While Google Streetview is a bit of a gimmick it does have some value at looking around to get your bearings somewhere new. However, the real benefit (value) to these camera cars is to get accurate local ground truth such as sign placements, speed information, point of interest locations etc. If Apple took on more data from OSM and combined with their existing data from TomTom and their own ground truth vehicles their maps could easily match the quality of Google. Surpassing would require significant investment and speedy rollout. Rolling out the business POI website is another part of this puzzle and points to Apple taking mapping incredibly seriously.

    Some people have suggested a driverless car but that’s a bit useless without the accurate mapping and POI data from doing the above so I very much doubt it’s that. Plus Apple don’t have a licence to operate driverless cars on public roads.

  4. philboogie - 9 years ago

    If Apple wants to add Street View to its Maps application I don’t believe for a second that they would lease these cars themselves. Aren’t all Street View solutions outsourced? I see these camera cars quite often, and they are never from Nokia’s ‘Here’, Google’s ‘Street View’ or whatever but simply some unknown, to me, company.

    • I’ve seen a few with “Google” on the side of the door in the Bay Area. It may be for the bay only but I have seen them.

    • Gazoo Bee - 9 years ago

      Just to play devil’s advocate … I have literally NEVER seen a mapping car the DIDN’T have Google’s colourful branding all over it. They are always white cars (or the tricycle thing they use for pathways in parks), emblazoned with bright colourful Google logos and advertisements (at least in my neighbourhood).

    • Cory © (@Nardes) - 9 years ago

      There’s was a BING car driving around where I live in a Atlanta a month ago

    • gigglybeast - 9 years ago

      You must live somewhere that’s too dangerous for Google to send their on vehicle.

      • philboogie - 9 years ago

        Ah, well, the whole country I live in has Google Street View, so apparently outsourced as I haven’t seen a single Google camera car ever. But many non-Google camera cars.

  5. Grazia Desanto - 9 years ago

    Strange to me where the cameras are placed, one/more to each corner of the car does not allow a centered view field comparable to google street-view. Moreover in the video you can see two spinning cylinder (front/back) definitely a laser sensor or radar very similar to the ones used for self driving cars. Last but not least why having a sensor connected to the left rear wheel as in car prototypes if its just for mapping?

    • goodenglishgrammar - 9 years ago

      Everything is probably for advanced mapping measurements to improve upon the idea of simply putting cameras on top of a car and taking photos from the middle of the street. Who wants to be stuck in the middle of the street? 3D map-stuff maybe?

  6. mpias3785 - 9 years ago

    Apple should be using Teslas.

  7. sdpate956 - 9 years ago

    A senseless waste of energy. It’s too late for anyone to catch Google Street View. Companies should work cooperatively for the benefit of customers not try to create silos of exclusion.

    • shareef777 - 9 years ago

      Yes, because if YOU can’t do it, why should anyone else bother?

    • Atlas (@Metascover) - 9 years ago

      This won’t catch street view, this will be better.
      Street view imagery made by Google is shown to the user via a different interface than the usual one for exploring maps. Apple will probably incorporate street view imagery, maybe in 3D, among the existing flyover views so that people can seamlessly go from birds-eye view to street view and move in it linearly.

  8. graphicmac - 9 years ago

    This is the kind of stupid crap analysts use to hype up the stock then sell because any idiot knows this isn’t self-driving cars, but street view cameras instead.

  9. standardpull - 9 years ago

    Google street view is only for image capture and residential wifi network compromise. This is completely different.

  10. frankman91 - 9 years ago

    Why is no one mentioning how this is a blatant rip-off of an existing Google product. It is a key, unique, feature of Google maps, one that I do not find to be at all a gimmick, and Apple looks to be doing the same exact thing and no one is calling them out on it.

    If that was a Samsung car this forum would be exploding with hate, bashing and ‘Samescum at it again’.

    • The difference is Samsung rips everyone off in every industry not just phones (Google it).

      So yeah we can speculate this is copying Google (we don’t know that for sure) and maybe Apple should get flack for it if that is what it is but you can’t role out Samsung as an example and take the comment seriously.

      • frankman91 - 9 years ago

        I can 90% agree to your rebuttal; and I would absolutely agree that Samsung is more guilty than most companies, but I felt someone should at-least toss the statement that Apple seems to be making a very big attempt to photocopy Google Maps instead of just giving them a pass because they are Apple.

        For the record I have nothing against these companies doing this, and it happens in every single industry. Go to Loews and look at washers and driers, they are all identical across every brand; same with refrigerators, tv’s, computer monitors, car head-units, and so on. I am a product engineer and I know all too well how much this is done in the industry that I’m in.

        I just get mad when I come on these forums see when someone copies Apple people complain and then when Apple does it people say nothing at all.

    • Atlas (@Metascover) - 9 years ago

      Except this will clearly be different than Google Street view.

    • goodenglishgrammar - 9 years ago

      You’re right, if this rumor is true, Apple is copying a Google feature. One strike against Apple. Although, I’d bet Apple is not merely making a carbon copy of Street View, but doing it a little better somehow. Maybe you’re not stuck in the middle of the street like with Street View, but can actually move onto the sidewalk, turn around, and get a broader view. Improving upon ideas that came before is really what technology is all about, not merely making carbon copies. That’s why we love Apple and rip on Samsung, even though every company copies each other in some way.

    • orthorim - 9 years ago

      Huh? You can bet your behind Apple’s user interface for this data is not going to look anything like Google’s. Just not in Apple’s DNA.

      I think some copying should always be OK – even if Samsung is copying some things about how the iPhone works. Apple invented it, and they put a lot of effort into it – but should that give them the right to have a perpetual monopoly on all they have invented? Certainly not. They have to live with some amount of copying, as does everyone. But some things go too far – for example if you, as Samsung had done, make a device that looks so similar to an iPhone consumers could actually mix the two up. Or if you take icon designs and just use them, sometimes not even changing the color.

    • standardpull - 9 years ago

      How does it rip off any of Google’s IP? Automated street photography captured by vehicles is not a Google innovation. It was really first done in the large by Resolute Mapping in the late 1990s in London and Munich. Where is Google?

  11. chrisl84 - 9 years ago

    If its anything like flyover…a handful of cities are about to get a new feature!

  12. Atlas (@Metascover) - 9 years ago

    Enderle is so clueless it’s sad.

  13. Walter Disney - 9 years ago

    Is this article trying to suggest that Rob Enderle doesn’t know what he’s talking about? Shocking!

  14. silverhawk1 - 9 years ago

    Why would any media outlet ask Enderle for his opinion?

  15. Gazoo Bee - 9 years ago

    But even if true and even if they started tomorrow, it would take them five years or more to map any significant portion of the environment.

    • Mike Knopp (@mknopp) - 9 years ago

      This has to be the most clueless statement on this thread, and that is saying a lot.

      Apple is the company that just announced the largest corporate profits for any company EVER.

      According to one source there are about 4.04 million miles of road in the US. If Apple were to hire 1000 drivers and lease 1000 cars this would mean that each vehicle would need to cover about 4,000 miles. If we assume an average speed of 30 mph for these roads that would work out to about 135 hours of driving time. If we further break this down to six hours of drive time per day then these 1000 vehicles could cover those 4.04 million miles of road in 22.5 days. Work in a generous 10% down time and a five day work week and the United States could be covered in five weeks.

      Note that is weeks, not years. Let’s again be generous and figure that this is the same for Canada and Mexico. This means that North America could be mapped in 15 weeks.

      It would be a decent guess that this would be a similar time frame for each continent, the larger continents also having less population density and thus typically less roads or more high speed roads.

      So, again, being extremely generous and saying that instead of hiring 1000 vehicles per continent and covering them in parallel that they do them in series. This means that they could cover the six populated continents in 90 weeks, or about one and a quarter years.

      Now, let’s say that the lease and salary of this is about $75,000 per year. This means that Apple would pay out $131.25 million. Add on $28.75 million for fuel and that would bring the whole thing to about $160 million dollars.

      Apple made that much money in the time it took me to research and write this reply.

      Which means that they could easily run in parallel and thus, have the entire world covered in let’s say four to six months.

      • 1sugomac - 9 years ago

        Also it isn’t like Apple doesn’t have a mountain of data as to witch roads are most heavily trafficked. Using that they could start with the most used roads first and eventually get to the remote backwoods.
        This would significantly improve the timeframe of when Apple DriveThru™ would be a viable contender to StreetView.

        I don’t think the LIDAR equipped vans are the bottleneck. It is going to be writing the software and the data crunching time required to process the metric butt load of data they will be collecting.

        Also I hope Eddy Cue is applying the same lesson that they learned from the Beats acquisition…human curation matters! They are building lots of data centers but they also need humans checking to make sure things are right.

  16. orthorim - 9 years ago

    Two things.

    1 – Enderle is a troll. Will, and does, say anything for clicks. Has so far never predicted anything that was later found to be true. So he’s not only a troll, he’s also like a compass that always points south. We can pretty much rule out self driving cards just from these facts. Look him up folks – this is no mystery!

    2 – It’s no secret that Apple’s mapping team is putting feet / wheels on the ground to improve mapping. I recall that being news … maybe about 1 year ago, when they advertised many positions for this exact purpose.

    It’s collecting data for maps. That’s all.

    • Scott (@ScooterComputer) - 9 years ago

      Yes, this. I came to here to say what a dozen others have said, but this is the best response. That the TV news called Enderle for advice…well, glad I don’t live in that town, because I’d surely not watch that channel.

      I think it likely, as others have pointed out, that the Apple mapping car is maybe a generation ahead of what Google is currently operating, perhaps using LIDAR or some other differentiator with the cameras. They have to have SOME hook to say their approach is superior. But to all those who point out that Apple is “copying” Google…well no duh, morons. Street View is something that is a NECESSARY feature for a modern Maps app. Apple has the need, and the resources/money, this is EXACTLY what we (as Apple users) should be applauding: Apple getting into the game in a manner that we recognize from what their competition is already doing.

  17. Klaus Dietrich Lange - 9 years ago

    The cars for Street View I have seen had the cameras mounted higher so this setup does not appear to be for a similar purpose. In any case, a few minivans are not enough for any meaningful mapping job. Besides the car and camera mount are quite ugly. I don´t think Apple would use them for a major new service or even a completely new product. Maybe the cars are used for some improvement on maps, yes, but everything seems to be still very much in a testing stage.

  18. thaddeusbeier - 9 years ago

    The down-pointing LIDAR makes this seem much more like a self-driving car than a street-view car.

    • 1sugomac - 9 years ago

      They are capturing ground level geometry and texture maps. In future versions of Apple Maps you will be able to see medians and dividers as well as houses, storefronts and signs.

  19. vpndev - 9 years ago

    Why the heck is ANYONE talking to or quoting Enderle on something related to Apple ??

    He has no credibility at all. Zero. Nada. Zilch.

  20. 1sugomac - 9 years ago

    Flyover™ + Drivethru™ = new Apple Maps

  21. Judy Jones - 9 years ago

    One of these is in Scotts Valley as we speak!

  22. thaddeusbeier - 9 years ago

    I saw a near identical rig in Tokyo 8 years ago while shooting Fast and Furious 3: Tokyo Drift. It had the same four cameras, the same two LIDAR systems, the same dual GPS systems, on a similar sized van — although it didn’t have the beautiful curved platform that this has; it was all bolted to a 1-inch think aluminum sheet.

    I asked the guys what they were doing, and they snapped to attention and said “Are you an engineer?” I said “No, I’m a filmmaker, but I want to know what you are doing!”

    They were a bunch of grad students, working on mapping in 3D all the streets of Tokyo. Scanning the shape (with the Lidar scanners) and texture of each building (with the cameras). They said they were doing this for in-car navigation systems.

    The similarity between that rig and this one is astonishing. The biggest difference (besides the curved frame) is that the LIDAR on this rig is pointed down toward the ground; which says to me that they’re more interested in what’s on the ground (cars) than what’s around them on the streets (buildings).

  23. loganspurgeon - 9 years ago

    I honestly hate Street View. It has a terrible interface and experience. If Apple is making their own I hope it’s better.