“Apple dismissed just over 200 employees this week from Project Titan, its stealthy autonomous vehicle group, people familiar with the matter told CNBC,” Lora Kolodny, Christina Farr, and Paul A. Eisenstein report for CNBC. “An Apple spokesperson acknowledged the layoffs and said the company still sees opportunity in the space.”
We have an incredibly talented team working on autonomous systems and associated technologies at Apple. As the team focuses their work on several key areas for 2019, some groups are being moved to projects in other parts of the company, where they will support machine learning and other initiatives, across all of Apple. We continue to believe there is a huge opportunity with autonomous systems, that Apple has unique capabilities to contribute, and that this is the most ambitious machine learning project ever. — Apple Inc.
“In August, Apple enlisted a Tesla engineering vice president and Apple veteran, Doug Field, to lead the Titan team alongside Bob Mansfield,” Kolodny, Farr, and Eisenstein report. “This week’s dismissals from the group were seen internally as anticipated restructuring under the relatively new leadership.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Expected.
We’d be more concerned if there weren’t any restructuring and refocusing under the new leadership.
SEE ALSO:
Apple hires designer Andrew Kim away from Tesla – December 17, 2018
Apple Car rumor roundup: Project Titan and what it means – September 1, 2018
Ming-Chi Kuo: Apple to launch revolutionary Apple Car within 5-7 years – August 15, 2018
Doug Field, former Tesla engineering chief, returns to Apple – August 10, 2018
Apple’s Project Titan is still a go, says analyst – June 28, 2018
Apple’s autonomous vehicle fleet grows to 62 vehicles in California – May 29, 2018
Apple’s autonomous vehicle project may be closer to fruition than it appears – May 25, 2018
Apple’s Bob Mansfield reboots Apple Car project, lays off several dozen employees – September 10, 2016
Apple hires founder of QNX with Apple Car project increasing focus on self-driving software – July 28, 2016
Apple taps Bob Mansfield to oversee Apple Car project – July 25, 2016
Money would have been better spent on Siri and MacOS.
Oh well, put your prayer hands together, signal that virtue Cook style and say Hallelujah.
Reasons:
SIRI is retarded
Cook has the attention span of a housefly
Ripping off Apple consumers is much more profitable
Cook and crew have parades and media interviews to attend to
Whine whine whine. Bitch bitch bitch. Gob – That is NOT constructive criticism.
With Tesla laying people off, too, where might these folks go, Google?
They are being reassigned not layed off .
I think it says some are being reassigned. The rest are probably laid off as stated.
I Stand corrected …
Apparently Apple has decided to go w/ autonomously designing autonomous vehicles?
“…that Apple has unique capabilities to contribute, and that this is the most ambitious machine learning project ever. — Apple Inc.”
Your prior history with Siri, Maps and general falling behind on top of neglectful leadership doesn’t give us much hope.
What about the areas of incredible unprecedented success?
The last unprecedented success Apple had was the iPhone 6.
Everything since has been modest evolution and useless accessories
FACT ; Not emotional bull:
260 billion in sales.. and Apple yet winning another ‘most admired brand in the world ” proves you wrong!
https://www.macrumors.com/2019/01/22/apple-worlds-most-admired-company-12th-year/
You and alike must be living under a rock… or…..
Interesting that when the huge federal subsidy for electric car is slashed and soon to be eliminated all the demand for electric cars disappears. And, amazing that there are no autonomous cars and trucks on our highways yet. The brainos who insisted everything would be electric are turning out to be wackos.
Kent, I don’t know how deep your head is buried but it’s clear you can’t see what’s happening today.
Despite the US federales in power now attempting—and failing—to further enrich coal and oil companies, the rest of the planet is making huge strides forward.
As the majority of humanity migrates toward big cities for work opportunities, their existing oil burners increasingly sit burning fumes in gridlock. And not everyone is going to buy a pricey downtown penthouse. New transportation is needed.
This announcement merely signifies that slow Pipeline finally woke up and realized that Tesla, Audi, Porsche, Mercedes, Cadillac, et al are so far ahead of Apple that there is no economic way for Apple to enter the market. A wise executive would have concentrated company resources expanding the capabilities Apple used to have (the Mac) into the enormous profitable opportunities ripe for picking, and partner with competent automakers to enter new markets where Apple is completely unequipped to prosper (automobiles, aviation, medical).
Timmy has too much money and too little brains to keep Apple focused. The whole enterprise is an out-of-touch leaderless mess of unsupervised managers pushing their secretive hobbies working at cross purposes and nobody responsible for entire product lines that used to be class leading. Only after billions are wasted chasing vaporware from Google or Snap or Uber does a beancounter wake up and alert Pipeline who is more interested in his social events.
If one has a brain they are not living in the bit cities because they are hellholes run by socialist nut jobs who have welcomed citizens who shit in the street and drug users and criminal aliens.
So, lets conveniently overlook the fact that fossil fuels receive 7x the amount of direct subsidies and favorable tax benefits as does the renewable energy industry. How about slashing all the subsidies for fossil fuels and see how the market shakes out.
Fossil fuels receive zero subsidies. And, the last administration implemented policies to eliminate the coal industry and cripple the oil industry. Fortunately, those policies are not working any longer and both coal and oil are thriving. They do provide about 70% of our energy needs, if you include natural gas so you are a major user of these incredible fuels. They are reliable sources unlike wind and solar which are inherently unreliable.
Kent…only someone with their head in the sand or who has never driven an electric car would ever think the way you do. Once you’ve experienced it…you know fairly quickly that the gasoline engine is a slow dying dinosaur. Subsidy or not…it’s coming and you won’t have any choice but to eventually see the light. I wish you well.
$25 Million per year in savings for Apple (200*125k). Thats a nice pick up that could be used to try and launch a damn MacPro in less than 6 years ><
Chill.. the ‘damn mac pro’ along with Apple displays are promised and due this year!
Toot toot