Self-driving car plans at Apple? So it has been a roaring few months for Apple as it seems every month they are releasing a new product or teasing a new idea. And at Mac Rental Company we could not be happier. Which is why we were overjoyed this week when the news moved away from all things portable – away from the new iPhone 8 (which is rumoured to stretch the ingenuity of even the top Apple advisors, the new iPad Pro with its bigger screen at the same size and the brand spanking new iMac, which offers a fantastic option for our creative clients and onto the self-driving car system).

As of 14th June 2017, Tim Cook, Apple’s Chief Executive, has confirmed that Apple is indeed developing a self-driving car system. By no means the only tech company doing this, Apple will be competing with the giants of the tech world – Tesla, Uber and Amazon are also in the race to develop the first ever self-driving car. And recently, General Motors announced that it had completed production of 130 self-driving Chevrolet Bolt cars at a factory in Michigan. In a detailed interview with the Bloomberg news agency, Cook stated that “we sort of see it as the mother of all AI (artificial intelligence) projects”.

In truth, Apple has been laying the groundwork for quite some time, with “Project Titan” (as the car team is known) having been founded in 2014 and employing more than 1,000 engineers to move this ambition forward. Although exploding costs and the sheer scale of employees meant that Apple stalwart Bob Mansfield was handed the reins in 2016. As we reported back in April, Apple managed to secure a permit from the California Department of Motor Vehicles to test three self-driving sports-utility vehicles, photos of which were released some weeks later. Not only that, but last year Apple invested $1 billion in China’s ride-hailing service Didi Chuxing. But noone really knows whether Apple plans on building the software to develop these self-driving cars, or the actual cars themselves. Especially as this is simply part of a grander plan by Apple to create a whole slew of AI products. Although in traditional Apple style, noone really knows what this AI hardware will look like – just that Apple are keeping themselves busy trying to change the world one machine at a time.

What are your thoughts on the driverless car? We would love to hear from you! Feel free to drop the Mac Rental Company team a line on sales@macrentalcompany.co.uk or give us a call on 0207 293 0447 if you would like to discuss the hire of any MacBook Pros and Macbook Pro Retina, iMacs and iMac Retinas. We offer a fantastic delivery service with same day one-hour delivery in London and same day delivery in the UK, delivered to your door at a time that works for you. We also have in-house engineers who are able to repair any Apple products that very same day.