Apple aims to go into the development of household robots, an area that would become one of the ever-changing "next big things," after abandoning its decade-long effort to produce an electric car, the Apple Car Project, according to ". Bloomberg."
The company canceled an electric car project in February, and the transition to augmented reality glasses is expected to take years before it becomes a major source of revenue, as its electric cars, which were expected to cost $100,000, were expected to bring in hundreds of billions of dollars.
Although the efforts are still in the early stages, and it is unclear whether the items will be released, Apple is under increasing pressure to develop new revenue streams.
According to informed sources, the American company's experts are looking into developing a mobile robot that can accompany consumers about their homes. They have created an advanced home device that sits on a table and employs robots to move the screen.
However, with house robots, Apple might get a stronger grip in consumers' homes while benefiting from developments in artificial intelligence, though it is unclear what route it will pursue.
Bloomberg believes that the bright side of the company’s “failed” endeavor in the automotive field is that it provided the foundations for other initiatives, as the neural engine (a series of the company’s own artificial intelligence accelerators located inside iPhones and Mac devices) was originally developed for the car, and the project also developed The basis for Vision Pro, because Apple investigated the use of virtual reality while driving.
3 future areas
Before canceling the electric car project, Apple told its senior executives that the company's future revolves around three areas: cars, home, and mixed reality.
But now the car is no longer around, and the company has already released its first mixed reality product, the Vision Pro headset, so the focus has turned to other future opportunities, including how the company can better compete in the smart home market.
The tabletop robotics project first excited the company's top executives a few years ago, including head of hardware engineering John Ternos and members of the industrial design team. The idea was to have the screen mimic the head gesture movements of someone in a FaceTime session.
But the company was concerned about whether consumers would be willing to pay large sums for such a device, and there were technical challenges related to balancing the weight of the motor on a small stand, while the main obstacle was disagreement between Apple executives over whether it should Proceed with the product or not.
The robotics work is done within Apple's Hardware Engineering division and the Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning group, which is run by John Giannandrea.
Matt Costello and Brian Lynch, two executives focused on home products, also oversaw development of the devices. However, Apple has not committed to either project as a company, and the work is still considered to be in the early research stage.
In Cupertino, California, Apple has a secret facility that resembles the interior of a home, a site where it can test future devices and initiatives for the home, and the company has been exploring other ideas for this market, including a new home central device with an iPad-like screen.
The robot business got a similar start, growing out of the company's Titan car project around 2019, when Doug Field, now a senior electric vehicle executive at Ford Motor Co., led the effort.
At that time, Field brought in a group of executives to work on robotics initiatives, ranging from silent indoor drones to home robots.
The working group included the former director of home products at Google , Nick Sims, and Dave Scott, who left Apple in 2021 to briefly run a mobile company for MRI machines, then returned in 2022 to work on Vision Pro, and Hans Wolfram Tabiner, co-founder, also participates. For the artificial intelligence and robotics company Ank
Shortly after Field left the company in 2021, the robotics work was moved to the home appliances group, and at least one former hardware team from the enclosed car project has recently been repurposed to work on home appliances and robotics.
Apple...is not the first
The original concept for the robot was a device that could move around entirely on its own without human intervention, like a car, and serve as a video conferencing tool.
One of Apple's amazing ideas was to make it capable of handling household chores, like cleaning dishes in the sink, but that would require overcoming very difficult engineering challenges, which is unlikely in this decade.
Artificial intelligence is another major focus, even if Apple is trying to catch up in the world of chatbots and other generative technologies, and here there could be some overlap with the work of robots.
While Apple AI researchers are still in the early stages, the company is investigating using algorithms to help robots navigate crowded spaces inside people's homes.
If the work progresses, Apple will not be the first giant technology company to develop a home robot, as Amazon previously presented a model called Astro in 2021, which currently costs $1,600, but the company was slow to provide the device in large quantities, as it is still a specialized product.
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