An Apple project that could’ve rivaled Elon Musk was scrapped as the company turned their attention to a more lucrative venture instead.
The technology giant is best known for its iPhones and iMacs and has done its best to dominate the smartphone market for years.
While they might have just agreed to settle a Siri lawsuit for $95 million after claims of the voice assistant listening in on private conversations, their products are still incredibly popular.
However, Apple – founded by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak in 1976 – has spent the last decade attempting to diversify into a new market, spending $10 billion in the process.
Despite their efforts, the product never got off the ground and was actually scrapped early last year.
The project in question, of course, was their electric car venture named Titan.
While it isn’t exactly clear why the company decided to ditch the product, they did internally tell the 2,000 employees that were working on it that it was being discontinued.
The project was initially intended to rival Elon Musk’s electric car company Tesla before shifting towards becoming a self-driving car.
The self-driving element was abandoned and instead went back to being ‘just’ an electric car – still in an attempt to still rival the richest man in the world’s automotive company.
So in 2024, when the Titan project was cancelled, Apple redirected its resources toward another venture which could see a $7 billion ‘revenue bump.’
This change in direction did mean, however, some 600 employees involved in the Titan project were left without a job.
The venture, though, is the company’s own artificial intelligence system, Apple Intelligence.
A beta version of the project was launched on selected iPhones, iPads and mac software last fall, with a full launch planned for later this year.
Already, there are a number of interesting ways Apple Intelligence has enhanced user experience, with features including AI-generated summaries of long emails, the ability to create custom emojis and a new clean-up tool for photos.
iPhone users can also access ChatGPT through Siri, turn rough note sketches into polished images with ImageWand and help manage their schedule better with Apple Intelligence.
Analysts from Morgan Stanley reckoned that the company could get a boost from customers willing to pay for access to AI capabilities.
Forecasts suggested a revenue bump of $7 billion to $14 billion, or 5% to 11%, for the fiscal year 2027.
