As if yesterday’s report that Apple is working on an electric car codenamed “Titan” wasn’t surprising enough, this morning Reuters issued a follow up claiming Apple’s car is actually of the self-driving variety. And there’s more.
According to an anonymous source close to the project, Apple’s car project is all about developing a competitor to other high-profile self-driving car projects, including Google’s. And apparently, the project is less about the car itself than the software controlling it. “It’s a software game. It’s all about autonomous driving,” says the source in Reuters’ story, hinting that Apple is more interested in owning the operating system and interface that the self-driving cars of the future will run than the car itself.
Reuters’ Edward Taylor and Eric Auchard elaborate:
In addition to building a car, there is money to be made from the software operating system for a self-driving vehicle, as well as the services associated with autonomous driving, such as high-definition mapping, car-sharing and electric car recharging services, the auto industry source said.
So you might not be walking into a dealership and buying an Apple car anytime soon — but Apple is very keen to position itself to control the platform that the next generation of cars might use. Interesting stuff. We’ll be following this story as it moves along — more updates are sure to come soon. [Reuters]