Apple appointed one of its top software executives, Kevin Lynch, to oversee its ‘Project Titan’ electric vehicle project after the previous leader left for Ford Motor Co.
Mark Gurman for Bloomberg News:
Lynch, an Adobe Inc. veteran who joined Apple in 2013 to run the software group for the company’s smartwatch and health efforts, replaced Doug Field as the manager in charge of the car work, according to people with knowledge of the matter.
The executive first started working on the project earlier this year when he took over teams handling the underlying software. Now he is overseeing the whole group, which also includes hardware engineering and work on self-driving car sensors, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the move isn’t public…
Lynch made his name at Apple as a vice president of technology, creating the watchOS software. He also leads development of health-related software, which includes the Health app on iPhones and apps for research studies. He still contributes to Apple’s Watch and health software efforts, but has been less active in the development of those products in recent months…
It’s unclear if the company will eventually tap a different leader for its car effort — known internally as Project Titan — if it advances far enough for Apple to have confidence in launching a full self-driving vehicle. The choice of Lynch to head the car project indicates much of the company’s focus still remains on underlying software and self-driving technology — rather than the vehicle’s physical mechanics. Lynch has been a software executive for decades, not someone who oversees hardware teams. He’s also never worked at a car company.
MacDailyNews Take: Lynch is also the guy who, as Adobe CTO, tried and failed to defend the indefensible Flash pig, which Steve Jobs mercifully slaughtered. He’s done better work with Apple Watch (even if he did have to use millions of us early adopters as alpha testers).
The Apple Watch certainly found its way – we, the users, were the Apple Watch alpha and beta testers, collectively standing in for Steve Jobs, doing much of what the singular genius would have done before release by brute force and sheer numbers after release. It took four generations of Apple Watch, but we’re here now and we wouldn’t trade the experience for anything! — MacDailyNews, January 31, 2020
Knowing what a vehicle generally is already, versus much more of a shooting-in-the-dark situation (defining the world’s first real smartwatch), should contribute positively to Apple’s “Project Titan” development process. Good luck, Kevin et al.!