Apple is said to be making a major project pivot. In February, the company cancelled its rumored, confirmed, and now-defunct "Apple car" program, and it's reportedly shifting toward a fairly unexpected new scheme: personal robot assistants.
Many of us thought back in January that Apple's electric vehicle was getting closer to hitting the road. After years of rumors, details leaked about "Project Titan," a semi-autonomous EV developed under Apple VP Kevin Lynch. The car, which was initially supposed to be fully autonomous and lack a steering wheel, would be capable of Level 2 self-driving—a feature employees reportedly found a bit boring, at least compared to what could have been. Analysts expected the vehicle to come out in 2028.
But just a month later, Lynch and chief operating officer Jeff Williams told the 2,000 employees assigned to Project Titan to call it quits. Many of those employees were shifted to Apple's generative AI division, and that was that. Now, it seems the defunct Apple EV left behind a gaping hole that AI alone couldn't fill.
According to sources who spoke with Bloomberg, Apple is dipping its toe into personal robotics to find its "next big thing." Engineers within Apple's hardware engineering division and machine learning group are reportedly exploring a robot capable of following users around their homes and a robotic tabletop that can move a display at the user's will. Both teams are led by executives Matt Costello and Brian Lynch, who are heavily involved in hardware development.
Both robot assistants are said to offer new potential revenue pathways for Apple, whose revenue still largely comes from the iPhone. After scrapping the EV idea, Apple is likely scrambling for a new headline-maker capable of bolstering brand interest and sales, even with the new Vision Pro under its belt. While the $3,500 augmented reality headset has already topped analysts' sales projections, it's nowhere near as popular—or accessible—enough to supplement Apple's more recognizable product lines.
For now, we don't know what exactly "exploring" means in the context of Apple's home robots. It could mean that both projects are still in the theoretical design phase or that rough prototypes are already sitting somewhere on Apple's expansive northern California campus. There is supposedly a "secret facility" on campus that resembles the inside of a house, allowing development teams to test home products in an environment that mimics the real world—so do with that what you will.
