Apple iCar: Specs and Rumors
A couple of snippets:
Apple’s investment in the automotive field has not stopped. According to incomplete statistics, Apple has applied for nearly 100 automotive patents since 2017, covering charging, autonomous driving, AR navigation, biometrics, and smart hardware.
In 2020, Apple has obtained at least 10 autonomous-driving patents, which involve the three major areas of autonomous driving sensors, communication, and control.
Cars use gestures (AR recognition) or eye movements (eye-tracking technology) to determine the driver’s intention to perform related operations.
According to Goldman Sachs, Apple can use cars as a hardware platform to support its services. However, the low level of profit in the auto industry may mean that investors can see a limited contribution to profitability from this move.
In the automotive industry, Apple also wants to control only the parts that represent high technological manufacturing and high profits in the future. After all, the industrial chain of the automotive industry is much more complicated than that of the mobile phone and PC industries.
Apple’s product ecosystem will achieve a closed-loop of overall travel from home, mobile travel to the company, and realize a unified lifestyle. Station-style “smart service”.
Therefore, in this sense, it depends on whether Apple is willing to sacrifice short-term returns and profits and use it as a core long track in the future for continuous investment.