Report: Apple Has 'Secret Team' Working on Satellites to Beam Data Directly to iPhones

[BradMacPro]

Apple has a dedicated research team looking into new ways to beam data like internet connectivity directly to iPhones and other devices, reports Bloomberg's Mark Gurman.

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According to the report, Apple's main aim is to beam data to a user's iPhone, potentially reducing the dependence on wireless carriers, or for linking devices together without a traditional network, thereby mitigating coverage issues. Apple could also be exploring satellites for more precise location tracking for its devices, enabling improved maps and new features.

Apple CEO Tim Cook has reportedly made the project a company priority, and Apple is said to be ramping up hiring, with new software and hardware experts being added to the team. The company has also hired additional executives from the aerospace and wireless data delivery fields, and is seeking engineers with experience in designing components for communications equipment. Apple is said to be hoping for the initiative to produce results within five years.

Back in 2017, Bloomberg reported that Apple had hired John Fenwick and Michael Trela, two Google executives who led the search giant's satellite and spacecraft operations. At the time, what the two would be doing at Apple was unclear, but Bloomberg now reports that Fenwick and Trela are leading the team dedicated to satellites and related wireless technology.

According to the report, the team has recently added people from the wireless industry, including engineer Matt Ettus, one of the foremost names in wireless technologies; Ashley Moore Williams, a longtime executive from Aerospace who focused on communication satellites; and Daniel Ellis, a former Netflix executive who helped oversee the company's Content Delivery Network. Ellis is said to have experience in building networks that can beam content and information on a global scale.

What remains unclear is whether Apple plans to develop its own satellite systems or make use of ground-based technology that could receive data from existing satellites and send it to mobile devices. Efforts by the likes of Facebook and Amazon to deploy satellites are a long way from becoming reality, but Apple could potentially look to existing satellite makers like Lockheed Martin or Boeing to provide the necessary hardware in the sky.

Article Link: Report: Apple Has 'Secret Team' Working on Satellites to Beam Data Directly to iPhones

There are already low earth orbit satellites for 5G transmission. It's not just for low power antennas on rooftops. Nothing particularly interesting here.

 

[PickUrPoison]

There are already low earth orbit satellites for 5G transmission. It's not just for low power antennas on rooftops. Nothing particularly interesting here.

What others are doing isn’t particularly relevant. If Apple decides to deploy a constellation of LEO satellites, for whatever purposes they may have, they will.

 

[VulchR]

LOL, no I wasn’t yet born in the 70s. I should hope that 50 years in technology advancement can solve those issues 😅

I was born in the 60's and I have done computing on punch cards. Trust me - the issue with mainframe sharing isn't just one of technology, although bottlenecks are a significant barrier (it costs money to overcome them, and for instance in rural areas a centralised processing service would be a non-starter). No, the main issue is the governance of a centralised facility. IT personnel in charge of a centralised service arrange things so that it is easy for them and protects their power and jobs, even at the costs of the users (ever see the movie Tron?). Even the network I have at work these days is controlled by IT authoritarians. They won't let us use the network to its full potential because of imagined unspecified security risks, they install batsh*t crazy security software (for a Mac!) that creates more problems than it solves, and pretty soon they'll be telling how to name files and demanding a one-size-fits-all directory structure.

Mark my words well: You want a personal computer: one that you - and you alone - control. That was the PC revolution that changed the world for the better, and those who are ignorant of history are bound to repeat it.

 

[mazz0]

I was born in the 60's and I have done computing on punch cards. Trust me - the issue with mainframe sharing isn't just one of technology, although bottlenecks are a significant barrier (it costs money to overcome them, and for instance in rural areas a centralised processing service would be a non-starter). No, the main issue is the governance of a centralised facility. IT personnel in charge of a centralised service arrange things so that it is easy for them and protects their power and jobs, even at the costs of the users (ever see the movie Tron?). Even the network I have at work these days is controlled by IT authoritarians. They won't let us use the network to its full potential because of imagined unspecified security risks, they install batsh*t crazy security software (for a Mac!) that creates more problems than it solves, and pretty soon they'll be telling how to name files and demanding a one-size-fits-all directory structure.

Mark my words well: You want a personal computer: one that you - and you alone - control. That was the PC revolution that changed the world for the better, and those who are ignorant of history are bound to repeat it.

Nah, what makes my personal computer personal is software, not the hardware (after all, in hardware it's the same as any other iPad Pro). It makes no difference to me where that software runs if the result is the same from the user's perspective.

The fact that some implementations of centralization have in the past been bad does not mean the principle is inherently flawed. The current hardware-as-a-service market would seem to be evidence of that.

 

[VulchR]

Nah, what makes my personal computer personal is software, not the hardware (after all, in hardware it's the same as any other iPad Pro). It makes no difference to me where that software runs if the result is the same from the user's perspective.

The fact that some implementations of centralization have in the past been bad does not mean the principle is inherently flawed. The current hardware-as-a-service market would seem to be evidence of that.

Centralised processing services are truly a step backward. Business like it because they can control the accountd of the employees. The operative word here being 'control'. Not to mention that centralised services are very prone to hacking and malware.