Tim Cook Confirms Apple Focusing On Autonomous Car Systems

The move to autonomous driving cars is something that has been much talked about and amidst all this has been tech giant Apple Inc that has been mum about its plans, despite several speculations. However, in one of the early signs of the company acknowledging its work in autonomous technology, Apple Chief Executive, Tim Cook said for the first time that the iPhone maker is concentrating on technology for self driving cars, Bloomberg reports.

"The company is focusing on autonomous systems," Cook told Bloomberg Television at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference on 5th June, 2017. "We're not really saying from a product point of view, what we will do ... it's a core technology that we view as very important," Cook said in the interview.

Albeit late to the self-driving car technology, Apple secured the permit to test autonomous vehicles in California, US, in April this year. There have also been rumours of the tech giant recruiting experts from the auto industry for its own self-driving program.

Earlier, Apple had had been seeking to build its own car, before recalibrating those ambitions last year to prioritize the underlying technology for autonomous driving, Bloomberg News reported. If the reports are to be believed, the iPhone maker had hired more than 1,000 engineers to work on Project Titan, the car team is known by internally, after it started work in 2014.

Apple has been granted permission to test three self-driving SUVs from the California Department of Motor Vehicles. While there have been about six vehicles tested in and around California, Apple is yet to confirm how long the company plans to continue the road tests.

Source: Bloomberg Television and Reuters