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Apple Receives Permit From California DMV to Test Self-Driving Cars [Updated]

Tycho24 said:
Hey, I found this part of the site for you: https://forums.macrumors.com/categories/macos.182/ !!!

Now you don't have to sulk about being salty about vehicle software, iOS, iPhones, iPads, Macs, and (of course) Tim Cook!!! You can save all that vitriol & just go to a paradise where people are talking about what you're interested in, & you won't be "forced" to thank God for your "superior phone", "superior mobile OS", and "superior mapping solution", w/ such haughtiness than I'm guessing you think you actually designed all those things; I mean... NOBODY could be that proud of themselves & have such contempt for everyone else, when literally the only thing they did was- choose to use the same thing as 81.7% of all smart phone users.
Yay! WOW! You're soooooooo smart & clever, mister.... a God among men.
Thank you for humbling yourself to come here & bother to scoff at us.

(jk.... it is rude, annoying, pompous, & tired- feel free to actually follow the link I posted)
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So let Tim Cook and Apple do anything they please without any justified criticism?

No.
 
TheShadowKnows! said:
Can this be serious though?

Six drivers, three test vehicles?

Sounds (to me) like an initial "proof of concept" as the complexity of driverless autonomy lies on wading safely through the infinite nuances of real-world, poor infrastructure, which is the exponentially-hard part.
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This x1000. Our roads and bridges are so crappy and ill maintained. If that wasn't the case, autonomous driving would be much further along imo.
 
justperry said:
This gets too old, Maps improved so much that it's on par with others.
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Which means Google doesn't get information about your whereabouts, and Apple saves some significant payments to Google.
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nutjob said:
Apple self driving cars will be great, but will not drive to adult bookstores or sex shops.
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All adult book stores and sex shops will advertise which shop is next door. Someone in an Apple self-driving car is likely to have some cash and some ability to spend. I'm just worried what might happen on the way home from the sex shop with both hands free...
 
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It's 2017 and Siri still sends me across the ocean when I want to go to the local store.
While directions are mostly accurate, Siri is garbage when it needs to interpret addresses and locations.
 
TallManNY said:
One of Apple's advantages is its custom CPUs. They are powerful and low power. The scanning and computation necessary for the car to self drive is apparently massive and gets into serious computing territory. However big computers use a lot of electricity. Apple might be able to go multi-core with custom low power CPUs and have a serious computation advantage over other car makers. Also you have to give the edge to Apple in the software writing department over Tesla, right? Finally there is design, attention to detail and supply chain management skills that Apple has. Apple might be able to make a very compelling self driving car.
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Why is it that people who don't know are the ones screaming the loudest. Do you have any idea what the electrical system in a car is like? Car headlights alone are around 55watts each, the IA core of the Intel Kaby Lake i7-7700 consumes a maximum of 40 watts (other parts of the die bring it up to around 55). Modern car alternators output around 150 amps (1800 watts at 12 volts).

Car stereo head unitss typically take 60-100 watts just because nobody cares to make them more efficient because so much power is available. Heck, they used to light a cigarette by shorting the battery through a piece of heater wire. Any idea how much power that takes.

That's just the current electical system. A 150HP engine is actually producing over 100,000 watts of power, most of which is going to propel the car. Even if you want to talk about an electric car, the amount of power going to propulsion makes little things like a top end Intel CPU or an electric heater for those of use in norther climates look like nothing as a power drain.

So, while there is zero reason to use custom silicon for power saving reasons....reliability is very, very important. And small run custom silicon glued together from modules Apple buys from several companies is not remotely as reliably as a mainstream CPU.
 
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justperry said:
Here's the point, software will never be 100% accurate in self driving cars, there could be a 100% safe system if all moving things have accurate GPS (=accurate up to a few inches) and communicate with each other and take action if needed.
But, this can't be done, you can't stick GPS in Humans and animals.!
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You make a completely wrong assumption here. Self driving cars will use GPS and SatNav in the same why humans do - as a tool to get near the place you want to go. To actually drive safely, they will completely ignore GPS - they will use cameras, laser, radar, whatevery to get an image of their surroundings and act according to what is around them.

For example, the self driving car will use GPS to find a location where a parking space near your post office is supposed to be. Just like you would. And just like you would, the self driving car will then check whether there is really a parking space, and make sure that no other car, or pedestrian, or a big hole with workers laying cables, are there.
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bladerunner2000 said:
When Apple makes a good computer, I might buy it.
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Unlikely, since you apparently missed the last forty years.
 
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repoman016 said:
I disagree. I still have to tell people to use Google maps to get to my house, and I've lived there over a year now...
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This doesn't tell me much. I have friends with homes where Google sends you to the wrong side of the town on a different street. As well as some where Apple will refuse to find on a search even though it looks correct on the map. And I know plenty of locations that are missing on one or the other.
I use both regularly and find the map quality to be essentially on par. My wife almost always uses Google and I most frequently use Apple and we both always get were we want efficiently. I like the lane guidance that Google provides, but prefer the Apple UI. Overall I'd give Google a slight edge in day to day use due to more features, but in practice it hardly makes any difference which I use. Both are generally excellent.
 
TallManNY said:
Also you have to give the edge to Apple in the software writing department over Tesla, right? Finally there is design, attention to detail and supply chain management skills that Apple has. Apple might be able to make a very compelling self driving car.
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Wait, what? You do realise that MobileMe, Maps and iCloud are Apple products? And it's not like Photos, iTunes and iWorks offerings are top notch either. So no, I don't consider Apple do be an excellent software developer.
 
gnasher729 said:
You make a completely wrong assumption here. Self driving cars will use GPS and SatNav in the same why humans do - as a tool to get near the place you want to go. To actually drive safely, they will completely ignore GPS - they will use cameras, laser, radar, whatevery to get an image of their surroundings and act according to what is around them.

For example, the self driving car will use GPS to find a location where a parking space near your post office is supposed to be. Just like you would. And just like you would, the self driving car will then check whether there is really a parking space, and make sure that no other car, or pedestrian, or a big hole with workers laying cables, are there.
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Unlikely, since you apparently missed the last forty years.
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I think you missed my point, I am aware that self driving cars don't rely on GPS(much), I was saying that if all moving things had GPS inside and communicate with each other (and take action) there won't be any accidents.

Edit: And connected to the internet so it can call back for road conditions or supply it with information about road conditions.
 
Relentless Power said:
You do know Apple has more than one Department that works on various projects within the Company?
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Not if the relative lack of development of iPhones, iMacs and MacBooks in recent years anything to go by.

But there are certainly some gorgeous wrist straps that must have tied them up for years (perhaps literally). <INNOVATIVE MILDLY AMUSING EMOJI HERE>
 
DevNull0 said:
Why is it that people who don't know are the ones screaming the loudest. ...

So, while there is zero reason to use custom silicon for power saving reasons....reliability is very, very important. And small run custom silicon glued together from modules Apple buys from several companies is not remotely as reliably as a mainstream CPU.
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Custom silicon makes infinite sense in the world of AI and knowledge-base systems, with autonomous driving being one use case.

Whereas you are speaking of a typical von Neumann, general-purpose architecture; custom silicon speaks of a rule-inference engine (if-then-else) optimized for massively-parallel computations guided by its knowledge base.

In my opinion, give the original OP dude partial claim about Apple's ad-hoc, silicon prowess. That gives them an edge. But, again in my opinion, you can safely dismiss all the other stuff.
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69Mustang said:
This x1000. Our roads and bridges are so crappy and ill maintained. If that wasn't the case, autonomous driving would be much further along imo.
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Totally.

And, 69Mustang, it is not only what we "know" (even if poorly maintained), but what "we do not know" (the zero-day FUBAR).
 
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From someone who loathed apple maps a couple years ago, I recently had a few problems with google not giving the right directions and have since gone back to apple maps. They must have been working pretty hard because since being back, I haven't had a problem and the UI is much easier than google. IMHO. Not saying it is perfect or better than google, just my preference now after hating it before.
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mi7chy said:
Still broken.

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Hilarious to watch, but to me, it appears that the problems are with SIRI, not Apple maps.
 
69Mustang said:
This x1000. Our roads and bridges are so crappy and ill maintained. If that wasn't the case, autonomous driving would be much further along imo.
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I dunno, I think a bigger hurdle would be implementation on a large scale for large amounts of autonomous vehicles.

I've always maintained that having a majority of people in autonomous cars would require a centralized terminal that directs traffic. Otherwise the algorithms will likely just all clog up the same few roads and not take alternate routes.
 
Self driving cars are years away from being mainstream, electric vehicles still have barely made a blip on the screen. Insurance is going to be a major hurdle to overcome. If a self driving car had an accident, who pays and is the manufacturer to be held responsible because they are basically in control of the vehicle?
 
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