In a piece on car company Magna International, Bloomberg has shared a tidbit about Apple's car development plans, suggesting there are approximately a dozen engineers from Magna working with Apple's car team in Sunnyvale.
Magna employees are said to be helping develop Apple's electric vehicle, reigniting rumors that Apple is working with a third-party to manufacture its vehicle rather than taking on vehicle development costs itself.
A completely new vehicle can cost several billion dollars, so leaning on the expertise of an industry veteran is a way of minimizing those costs. Apple has been quick to understand that: about a dozen Magna engineers have been working with the iPhone-maker's team in Sunnyvale to develop a vehicle, according to a person familiar with the arrangement.
This isn't the first time we've heard rumors of some kind of partnership between Apple and Magna. In April, a German news site suggested Apple had a secret car lab in Germany and was planning to have subsidiary Magna Steyr manufacture its cars, and Apple executives also visited Magna Steyr in Austria in February of 2015. Apple also reportedly held talks with Daimler and BMW, but no deal was able to be established due to questions over who would lead the project and who would have ownership over data.
Magna executives and Apple both declined to comment on rumors of a partnership, but in a separate interview on plans to build a new car plant, Magna CEO Donald Walker spoke on partnerships like the one the company has established with BMW. Magna will be producing BMW's 5-Series and is said to be "positioning itself for the prospect that technology companies will eventually join its roster of customers."
"You could easily have enough business outsourced from the existing carmakers to fill up other contract assembly plants, or you could have new entrants that come in and say 'I really want to have something but do I really want to manufacture vehicles?,"' Magna Chief Executive Officer Donald Walker said in an interview at the company's headquarters in Aurora, Ontario.
While Apple has hundreds of employees working on its car project, the company's plans seem to be in flux. Following Bob Mansfield's takeover of the car initiative earlier this year, Apple is said to have laid off dozens of employees as part of a "reboot" that will see focus shifting towards the development of an autonomous vehicle system. Based on these recent rumors, it is no longer clear if a physical Apple-branded car will actually materialize or if the project will result in something more software oriented.
Tuesday November 19, 2024 12:12 pm PST by Joe Rossignol
Barclays analyst Tom O'Malley and his colleagues recently traveled to Asia to meet with various electronics manufacturers and suppliers. In a research note this week, outlining key takeaways from the trip, the analysts said they have "confirmed" that a fourth-generation iPhone SE with an Apple-designed 5G modem is slated to launch towards the end of the first quarter next year. In line with previo...
Sunday November 17, 2024 5:18 am PST by Joe Rossignol
Apple released the AirTag in April 2021, so it is now three over and a half years old. While the AirTag has not received any hardware updates since then, a new version of the item tracking accessory is rumored to be in development.
Below, we recap rumors about a second-generation AirTag.
Timing
Apple is aiming to release a new AirTag in mid-2025, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman....
Sunday November 17, 2024 3:03 pm PST by Joe Rossignol
While the Logitech MX Master 3 is a terrific mouse for the Mac, reports claiming that Apple CEO Tim Cook prefers that mouse over the Magic Mouse are false.
The Wall Street Journal last month published an interview with Cook, in which he said he uses every Apple product every day. Soon after, The Verge's Wes Davis attempted to replicate using every Apple product in a single day. During that...
Tuesday November 19, 2024 10:10 am PST by Juli Clover
Apple today released iOS 18.1.1 and iPadOS 18.1.1, minor updates to the iOS 18 and iPadOS 18 operating systems that debuted earlier in September. iOS 18.1.1 and iPadOS 18.1.1 come three weeks after the launch of iOS 18.1.
The new software can be downloaded on eligible iPhones and iPads over-the-air by going to Settings > General > Software Update. Apple has also released iOS 17.7.2 for...
Wednesday November 20, 2024 3:42 am PST by Tim Hardwick
AT&T has begun displaying "Turbo" in the iPhone carrier label for customers subscribed to its premium network prioritization service, according to reports on Reddit. The new indicator seems to have started appearing after users updated to iOS 18.1.1, but that could be just coincidence.
Image credit: Reddit user No_Highlight7476
The Turbo feature provides enhanced network performance through ...
Monday November 18, 2024 1:07 pm PST by Joe Rossignol
In a research note with Hong Kong-based investment bank Haitong today, obtained by MacRumors, Apple analyst Jeff Pu said he agrees with a recent rumor claiming that the so-called "iPhone 17 Air" will be around 6mm thick.
"We agreed with the recent chatter of an 6mm thickness ultra-slim design of the iPhone 17 Slim model," he wrote.
If that measurement proves to be accurate, there would be ...
Tuesday November 19, 2024 10:52 am PST by Juli Clover
The iOS 18.1.1, iPadOS 18.1.1, and macOS Sequoia 15.1.1 updates that Apple released today address JavaScriptCore and WebKit vulnerabilities that Apple says have been actively exploited on some devices.
With the JavaScriptCore vulnerability, processing maliciously crafted web content could lead to arbitrary code execution. The WebKit vulnerability had the same issue with maliciously crafted...
I wish they spent 25% of that money on Macs instead of a low-profit, high-risk car business they have no reason to get into... Is it 4 years since last Mac Pro update?
We have been talking abou this car for a long time. I wonder if we will ever see it?
It's going to be Christmas eve for a long time, according to Tim Cook. I think I might have taken delivery of two Model 3's before Apple even shows their car for the first time.