Mysterious Apple Car Spotted Roaming Bay Area Streets
There have been multiple sightings of a mysterious van with a strange apparatus on its roof in Concord, CA and, according to CBS affiliate KPIX 5, the car is leased to Apple. Bay Area blog Claycord posted photos of the Dodge Caravan earlier today.
One possible use for the car could be for a mapping project, as the cameras on top of the vehicle are similar to other mapping cars. The Cupertino company has been planning on significantly improving its Maps application though, with plans for transit directions, improved points-of-interest data, indoor mapping and more. It would be likely that Apple would be prepping a feature similar to Google Street View or Bing StreetSide.
Claycord, however, noted that the Apple car looked similar to a self-driving Dodge Caravan spotted in New York in September 2014. Technology analyst Rob Enderle, who spoke to KPIX, also agreed that it's a self-driving car rather than a mapping car.
“Too many cameras,” said Enderle. “It has cameras that are angled down at all four corners of the vehicle.”
As noted by AppleInsider, Google's Street View cars do use a total of 15 5-megapixel cameras to stitch together its images. Apple's leased minivan appears to have similar technology, with 12 cameras that could potentially be used to stitch together images for a Street View-like picture.
Apple is not one of the six companies who have a permit for testing driverless cars, but Enderle says it wouldn't matter, noting that Apple could have a partnership with a manufacturer that allows them to lease and test a driverless car without a partner.
An Apple spokesperson told KPIX that the company had no comment.
Popular Stories
Unidentified governments are surveilling smartphone users by tracking push notifications that move through Google's and Apple's servers, a US senator warned on Wednesday (via Reuters). In a letter to the Department of Justice, Senator Ron Wyden said foreign officials were demanding the data from the tech giants to track smartphones. The traffic flowing from apps that send push notifications...
Best Buy's month-long holiday sale continues this weekend with multiple all-time low prices on Apple's line of MacBook Pro and MacBook Air computers. In addition to Apple notebooks, Best Buy's event has discounts sitewide on home appliances, TVs, video games, and more. Note: MacRumors is an affiliate partner with some of these vendors. When you click a link and make a purchase, we may receive...
iOS 17.2 has been in beta testing for over a month, and it should be released to all users in a few more weeks. The software update includes many new features and changes for iPhones, including the dozen that we have highlighted below. iOS 17.2 is expected to be released to the public in mid-December. To learn about even more features coming in the update, check out our full list. Journal ...
Apple appears to have closed the loophole that Beeper Mini used to bring iMessage to Android, putting a stop to blue bubbles from Android devices. Beeper Mini quit working earlier today, with users receiving "failed to lookup on server: lookup request timed out" error messages. Beeper said on Twitter that it is investigating the issue, but Beeper CEO Eric Migicovsky told TechCrunch that "all ...
Apple's iPhone 15 lineup came out in September, and while most reviews are done shortly after a new device launches, we like to follow up with a longer term review that gives us an opportunity to provide a deeper dive into what it's like using these phones on a day to day basis for months. Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more videos. MacRumors videographer Dan Barbera has been...
Amazon has a few big discounts on Apple Watch today, headlined by a new all-time low price on the Apple Watch Ultra 2. Many of these watches can be delivered by Christmas, with delivery dates around the middle of next week for most models. Note: MacRumors is an affiliate partner with Amazon. When you click a link and make a purchase, we may receive a small payment, which helps us keep the site ...
Recently, MacRumors has received details on the battery currently being tested on the upcoming fourth-generation iPhone SE, and the information corroborates previous findings in relation to the device. The iPhone SE 4, known by its device identifier D59, is expected to use the exact same battery found in the base model iPhone 14. Partially assembled prototypes of the next iPhone SE have been ...
Apple made the first beta of iOS 17.2 available to developers in October. Since then we've seen three more betas, and with each iteration Apple continues to add more new features and changes, many of which users have been anticipating for quite a while. Below, we've listed 35 new things that are coming to your iPhone when the finalized version is publicly released in mid-December. 1....
Top Rated Comments