Apple has officially added vehicles to the corporate documents describing the company’s activities, at least in Switzerland. The company’s lawyers added the following paragraph, reports Swiss site ApfelBlog.
Vehicles; Apparatus for locomotion by land, air or water; electronic hardware components for motor vehicles, rail cars and locomotives, ships and aircraft; Anti-theft devices; Theft alarms for vehicles; Bicycles; Golf carts; Wheelchairs; Air pumps; Motorcycles; Aftermarket parts (after-market parts) and accessories for the aforesaid goods.
It’s common to add catch-all terminology to company activities, so nothing should be read into the inclusion of ships and aircraft, though we’re sure there will be a breathless headline somewhere soon about an Apple plane …
The scale of automotive hires by Apple makes it clear that Apple is serious about the possibility of an Apple car, with Bloomberg recently claiming that the company has an ambitious 2020 date in mind. Nothing concrete is yet known about the specifics of the company’s plans, though we can of course speculate.
Apple’s first move into the automotive market may be use of the Apple Watch as a keyfob for existing cars, an application mentioned by Tim Cook in a recent interview.
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Looks like Apple has included whole vehicles industry in its activities. Maybe, same thing coming in other regions as well.
Screw the car. I personally cannot wait for the Apple Jet.
Flying cars only become possible when automatic flying becomes possible, so … not for many many years yet.
The actual mechanics of making a small car that can fly, (or even just giving people helicopters or autogyros), has been solved for many decades. For a long time now, the stumbling block is actually automatic flight which is necessary for the concept to work.
First Google (or someone) has to make a self-driving car that moves the 30% failure rate to 0%. then the same thing has to be done for aircraft. Then you can have a flying car. Probably by the end of this century if you live that long.
Now why would Apple change their registration this early, when they are rumoured to release the final product by 2020? They know, that changing the public record attracts attention…
Just as a hypothesis: What if Apple is much further along in the development of a car, than many of us think? What if they show something at the “spring forward” event? Haven’t you noticed? The invitation looks quite similar to the BP logo…
One can wish
one can imagine what the optional accessories would cost when lightning charger cable retails at US$ 15.00+
It looks like we are in for five years of crappy renders by friends of 9to5Mac judging by the picture on this article.
When are you guys going to realise that cool looking concept renders (and the one above does look pretty neat), have almost nothing to do with actual DESIGN? The one presented here is classic in that the design of the car is actually pretty horrible, but it looks cool so it works as a render.
I say cut out all the sic-fi render bullshit and get in touch with some real designers for your speculative reports on the Apple Car. Concepts and renders are absolutely useless and tell us nothing at all.
But at this point we know basically nothing…. What would you have them do, infiltrate apple hq so they can get a concept image right?
where is that render actually from? pretty nice indeed.
Since Apple has said nothing. And, everything I have read on the subject, following apple for years: I do not think that apple is going to make a car. Battery Electric Cars (true BEVs), like Tesla cars, or the Nissan Leaf, have a simple drivetrain…battery, electric motor, with a controller between them. I could see Apple making anything to do with this drivetrain, or any of the electronics associated with motor vehicles, including, but not limited to current and future technology (ABS, traction control, autonomy hardware/software, interior electronics, etc.), but, why would they bother to build an assembly line and build cars when they could simply make better tech for BEVs and sell that to carmakers? …They could even be designing after-market products, touch screen center consoles, smart keys (or, no key, use your iPhone/ Watch & geofencing/proximity), autonomy for cars already on the road. That’s my abbreviated version of what I think.
along with smart key, I would add security, as apple is better at security than most others out there.
It seems like Apple is going where the people are. Phones – useful devices that Apple made indispensable. Watches – really just jewelry that happens to keep time these days – are even more personal.
For many people that commute most days, the car is also a very intimate device. Just that right now, we have Nokias, Palms, and the like running the show. Look at Toyota’s recent decision to go Fuel-Cell – that’s tech that’s been “5 years away” for the past 25 years (see Ballard Fuel Cells) and ditch electric/hybrid (which is amusing because their hybrids are very well regarded as they pioneered the space). The Big 3 in the US aren’t any better. These companies essentially have tons of cross ownership and little to no incentive to drive innovation.
Apple isn’t a scrappy computer maker anymore, they have more money than any other company in the world (and 2x market cap of next biggest publicly traded company), they have the best supply chain in the world, and are the most well-regarded brand. While they may stumble a bit, they have lots of capital (both monetary and otherwise) to invest, and there are quite a few markets out there that deserve their touch.
I can’t wait!