Apple appears to me making waves compete aggressively with Google on its own turf. The company is currently testing a few mysterious vehicles that have mounted cameras attached to them. Chances are these vehicles could be for a possible Street View-like feature, or maybe the Cupertino giant is working on its own fleet of driverless cars.
The general consensus at the moment is the spotted cars that resemble Google’s own Street View cars, are more than likely not driverless cars, but cars with several cameras and sensors designed for taking pictures.
The cars spotted have an X-shaped device on top, which is similar to the Google Street View vehicles. There is also a few spinning devices, and AppleInsider speculates these devices could be that of the LiDAR sensors. LiDAR sensors are used to craft map imagery by using certain lasers, and from what we understand, these sensors are also used in driverless cars.
However, that doesn’t mean the Apple cars are driverless because the sensor technology is dated, and probably wouldn’t be efficient for driverless cars today. The first batches were launched back in 2008, and while they could still be in use by some companies today, we doubt Apple would set itself back with old technology to test driverless vehicles.
In addition, we also do not believe Apple is interested in having its own fleet of driverless cars roaming the nation’s streets, at least not for now. We suspect the company might be more interested in having its software as a central part of the experience rather than owning a fleet.
We also need to consider how far behind Apple is at the moment. Google is already planning to launch driverless taxi cars in the next 5-years; there is no way Apple could begin testing right now and manage to have its own fleet during Google’s projected timeframe.
It could be done, but chances are Apple would have to acquire a company that is already well ahead.