Juli Clover, writing for MacRumors:
Apple’s Chief Operating Officer Jeff Williams today told approximately 2,000 employees working on the Apple Car that the project was canceled, and the information reportedly came as a surprise.
They had two thousand people working on this thing? Seriously?
➝ Source: macrumors.com
How many years have we had these rumors? It’s starting to feel like the Apple television rumors from fifteen years ago that just never materialized into a product.
➝ Source: bloomberg.com
I’m not even a little interested in traditional streaming music services, but this looks like a pretty neat piece of hardware.
➝ Source: 9to5mac.com
From the announcement on their website:
With fewer consumers purchasing and leasing vehicles and drivers on the road, we unfortunately do not see a path forward for our business. These are unprecedented times, and with so much uncertainty ahead, we have made the difficult decision to discontinue the Automatic connected car product, service and platform.
I’ve had one of these adapters in my car for about two-and-a-half years and purchased one for my wife’s car shortly thereafter. We enjoyed the peace of mind from the crash detection, being able to read check engine light codes, the parking location features, fuel usage tracking, and knowing when we arrived or left a location. The biggest disappointment with this news, though, is that there doesn’t seem to be an alternative on the market.
I know newer vehicles offer these sorts of features built-in, but It’ll be quite some time before we replace both of our cars. Maybe someone else will fill the void soon.
➝ Source: automatic.com
This is actually pretty rad and seems like a neat weekend project to play around with. But taking it a bit further, it makes me wonder how much it would cost and how difficult it would be to replace my car’s head unit with something that I could get wireless CarPlay on.
➝ Source: redmondpie.com
I bought this little Bluetooth adapter after Bradley Chambers recommended it on Tools & Toys. It arrived yesterday and, I have to say, it’s fantastic. I just plugged it in and ran the audio cable to my car’s aux-in jack. Conveniently, my car’s cigarette lighter and aux-in jack are located inside the same compartment, which means I can keep the entire setup out of sight.
After a quick pairing process in my iPhone’s settings, I was good to go. Now, every time I start my car, the adapter automatically pairs with my iPhone and I can start playing music or podcasts immediately.
I’ve looked at other Bluetooth adapters in the past, but most of them include funky playback control clusters that they expect you to mount inside your car. I don’t know if the folks at these companies have ever actually looked inside a car, but there isn’t a great place for them. The Griffin iTrip doesn’t include these unnecessary eye sores and leaves the playback controls on your device.
If you’re looking for a wireless in-car audio solution, I highly recommend giving this one a try.
Big Mess o’ Wires:
Is a constant 14.2 mA draw enough to worry about discharging the car’s battery? Probably not. From a few quick searches, I learned that a typical car battery has a capacity of around 40 ampere hours. At 14.2 mA, it would take 2817 hours or 117 days to completely discharge the car’s battery. Assuming I drive the car every day, then, it’s not a concern. Even parking the car for a week or two should be fine. But if I ever need to leave the car in storage for an extended period of time, that 14.2 mA could add up. Of course the car itself has its own standby current draw for the anti-theft system and keyless entry, so the USB charger may not even be the largest concern. For typical driving, at least, it appears the USB charger’s standby current draw won’t be a problem.
I thought it was unlikely that leaving a car charger plugged in would drain your battery, but I never had the courage to just leave it that way. The last thing I need is a car that won’t start because I was too lazy to unplug the thing. But now that I know it’s safe to do so, I won’t even worry about it.
Mark Harris, writing for The Guardian:
According to documents obtained by the Guardian, Mike Maletic, a senior legal counsel at Apple, had an hour-long meeting on 17 August with the department’s self-driving car experts Bernard Soriano, DMV deputy director, and Stephanie Dougherty, chief of strategic planning, who are co-sponsors of California’s autonomous vehicle regulation project, and Brian Soublet, the department’s deputy director and chief counsel.
