Tim Cook teases Apple Car in new interview
Apple’s CEO wouldn’t indicate whether the company is working on a car or the software to power it, though
We may not know much about what the Apple Car might eventually entail, but we know it's coming. Thanks to a variety of leaks and information that have come to light about the autonomous vehicle Apple has in the works, we can guess. But until now, Apple has remained mum on what the car may look like or offer — until now.
Apple CEO Tim Cook appeared on a recent episode of Kara Swisher's Sway podcast to discuss a number of different topics, such as Apple’s augmented reality plans. But during that interview, Cook hinted at the upcoming car, calling an autonomous car a robot, "in a lot of ways." He noted that there are "lots of things you can do with autonomy," and "we'll see what Apple does."
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“We investigate so many things internally,” Cook said. "Many of them never see the light of day. I’m not saying that one will not."
Though Cook didn't elaborate on whether Apple is hard at work on an actual car or the tech to allow a vehicle to move autonomously, the Apple CEO shared a nugget that could be taken to mean the company is working on the whole package.
“We love to integrate hardware, software, and services, and find the intersection points of those because we think that’s where the magic occurs," he added. "And so that’s what we love to do. And we love to own the primary technology that’s around that.”
Rumors about the Apple Car have been swirling for a few years now. After buying autonomous vehicle startup Drive.ai in 2019, the company has been expected to drop some sort of concrete news about its automotive plans at some point, but nothing significant has surfaced yet, even after Apple brought in additional employees from Tesla to seemingly bolster its reserves of people.
For what it’s worth, most Apple Car rumors don’t expect an Apple-designed vehicle to arrive until 2024.Right now, it looks like we’ll still have to wait a bit to see what Cook and the rest of the company have up their sleeve.
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Brittany Vincent has been covering video games and tech for over 13 years for publications including Tom's Guide, MTV, Rolling Stone, CNN, Popular Science, Playboy, IGN, GamesRadar, Polygon, Kotaku, Maxim, and more. She's also appeared as a panelist at video game conventions like PAX East and PAX West and has coordinated social media for companies like CNET. When she's not writing or gaming, she's looking for the next great visual novel in the vein of Saya no Uta. You can follow her on Twitter @MolotovCupcake.