Apple’s self-driving cars had trouble navigating streets, frequently bumped into curbs and veered out of lanes in the middle of intersections during test drives near the company’s Silicon Valley headquarters, according to a Monday report by The Information.
Ariel Zilber for the New York Post:
Apple’s self-driving cars had trouble navigating streets, frequently bumped into curbs and veered out of lanes in the middle of intersections during test drives near the company’s Silicon Valley headquarters, according to a report…
Engineers at the iPhone maker were dismayed when the test vehicles struggled to conduct basic navigation maneuvers on city streets near the company’s Cupertino, Calif., headquarters.
According to The Information, the cars slammed into curbs and often had trouble staying in their lanes after crossing intersections.
A source told The Information that a local jogger was nearly hit by one of Project Titan’s cars as the runner was crossing the street. The car apparently did not recognize that the jogger had the right of way.
Apple’s self-driving car would differ from those being developed by rivals such as Google-backed Waymo, General Motors’ Cruise, and Amazon’s Zoox since it would have no steering wheel and pedals, with interiors designed around hands-off driving.
MacDailyNews Take: Obviously, the vehicle and systems are still in testing, so errors are to be expected (and test drivers are aboard to grab the wheel and/or slam on the brakes). That said, regarding a first-release vehicle without a steering wheel or brake pedal, as we wrote earlier this morning:
We can see the Doonesbury strip already.
If Apple ever gets around to releasing the first iteration of their vehicle with “no steering wheel or brake pedal,” they should name that model “Boondoggle.”
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This is what happens when you hire Asian to program cars…
(come on, it’s a LITTLE bit funny)
Not funny, just racist.
And therein lies the problem with so many insecure leftist.
Can’t laugh at anything, so miserable and wanting to ruin it for everyone.
I see more and more humor like this on YouTube and TikTok in the past three months and the audiences love it as do most viewers.
Your narrow-minded view of the world and how everyone should conform has peaked.
Out with the skinny jeans and narrow minds…
I’m at a loss as to how it’s legal to test a car on public streets if it hasn’t already passed some very rigorous closed course tests built to be just like public streets, including pedestrians, potholes, a fallen tree in the road, other bad drivers, a ball rolling into the street, et cetera…
If true, no steering wheel, no pedals….what could possibly go wrong?
Apple can’t figure out spell check and Siri, after all these yrs, is still an idiot.
Who would presume then, they’re anywhere close to self-drive tech ready f the road?
“it doesn’t appeal to business customers because it doesn’t have a keyboard. Which makes it not a very good email machine.”
an apple car is such a bad idea, the profit margins are so low (around 1to 8%, vs apple’s average hardware of 35-38%) not to mention the exposure to bad press when an Apple branded product kills or hurts someone, not to mention logistic nightmare of service, parts, sales delivery… Tim cook’s fear of missing out, is leading to his first truly stupid idea
And to think, he could’ve had Tesla at a bargain basement price!
except Musk wanted Tims job as a condition of sale… for which he was told “ F- You “
Apple would be better off with Musk at the helm instead of virtue signal Tim.
Kerbs?
At least, with everyone facing inward, the chances are increased that one won’t see the tragedy, or their death coming.
Worth saying again, there will never be a shipping Apple car on any road at any time… ever..
And for MDN to merely blow off the incident with “its still in testing”, is ludicrous, it’s been in “testing” for years. How often over the past several years have we been treated to pictures of Lexus cars “in testing” by Apple. Not so much recently, most of the articles now are of all the people jumping ship or how someone is signing up and then nothing happens.
There will never be an OS that can manage the constant flux of driving in traffic on public streets, there are enough accidents with people, adding automation will probably make it worse. At most, eventually their “might” be self contained systems someday that will have automated vehicles that will take you to specific locations, and thats about it.
There will never be even a „self contained system” beyond maybe airport shuttles or closed business/university campuses. There are way too many variables when getting from point A to point B just about everywhere on the planet for any magical software/hardware combo to substitute for the human brain and its reflexes, experience, knowledge and judgement. As intelligence continues to decline and geniuses become even more scarce (ultra bureaucratic, accountant-run organizations like Apple long ago stopped being destinations for geniuses), you can bet your bottom dollar that such a complicated system will never be widespread, reliable or safe.
Apple and others would be far better served to develop tech that augments the capabilities of the driver to execute their role well rather than replace it. Just the idea of trying to put tens of millions of people who drive for a living out of work strikes me as very evil.
Hmm… never say never in the IT world.
We all all be dead by the time a car will not require a steering wheel a brake pedal.
Imagine the Apple Car exclusively tied to Apple Maps.. Not a pretty sight outside the major cities. Or maybe that’s the plan. To only run Apple Cars within Apple Map covered city boundaries.
Can I have a stylus at launch this time?
(No, I won’t call it a Pencil)
Look guys they’re actually making money selling that UI to other manufacturers, you gotta be super patient with this car project – this is going to take A WHILE
FUD