CultCast #377 - Apple axes the Apple car

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This week: Apple axes another 190 employees from their self-driving car division—is the Apple car dead? Plus: sleep tracking is coming to the Apple Watch; Apple is “rethinking” their high prices; and we wrap with the story of Apple's first legendary CEO, and you won’t believe who it was...

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On the show this week

@erfon / @lewiswallace / @lkahney

16-inch MacBook Pro - 8 things Apple BETTER get right!

Apple axes 190 employees from self-driving car division

• Apple’s self-driving car project may be nearing the end of the road.
• Project Titan was reportedly greenlit toward the end of 2014. Apple hired hundreds of engineers setting out to design and build its own self-driving car. Numerous roadblocks hit the struggling project and the company reportedly changed the focus toward just making the underlying autonomous driving technology instead of a complete car.
• After rumors surfaced last month that the company slashed its workforce for Project Titan, Apple confirmed today that 190 employees in Santa Clara and Sunnyvale have been released from the self-driving car project.
• Details of Apple’s self-driving car project were just posted by the company last week. Apple’s cars needed a driver to take over about once every 1.1 miles. By comparison, Google’s Waymo division only had a disengagement every 11,017 miles.
• It’s unclear what the future holds for Apple’s automotive ambitions from here. Tim Cook has said self-driving cars is the mother of all AI problems. With iPhone sales dropping though, the company appears to be tightening its focus by jettisoning projects that aren’t as promising.

Apple developing its own sleep-tracking tech for Apple Watch

• Apple Watch could soon add sleep-tracking tech that makes it an even more capable health monitor.
• Apple has been testing the new sleep-tracking technology at secret sites around Cupertino, a new report claims. And if it lives up to its promise, it could ship as part of the Apple Watch by 2020.
• The Health app for iOS has included sleep-tracking since 2014. However, it simply pulls in information from the Clock app’s alarm function, although third-party devices and apps can bolster the data.
• Apple acquired Finnish company Beddit, which makes a sleep-tracking sensor strip, in May 2017. At the end of last year, a new Beddit sleep monitor launched. This was the first version since Apple acquired the company.