The famous rock guitarist Eric Clapton wrote in his autobiography “Crossroads” that “I started a whole new life, one that could not accommodate any extra burdens.” Just three months into 2024, Apple has encountered another significant crossroads in its destiny. This time they made a bold decision—betting on spatial computing, painfully cutting off the car project, and shifting entirely to AI… However, the future remains a mystery.
01
Vision Pro makes its debut.
Over the past few decades, if there is one company that could be synonymous with innovation, most people would probably point to Apple. On April 1, 2024, Apple celebrated its 48th birthday, yet the events of the first three months have destined this year to be extraordinary for Apple. Please excuse the cautious wording in quotes here, as I am neither a time traveler nor a prophet, unable to speak directly about the company’s future direction. However, it is certain that when people look back at Apple’s development history five or ten years from now, 2024 and the various events of this year will be highlighted.
Let’s take a look at what Apple has experienced in the past three months. First, on February 2, 2024, after eight years and billions of dollars in development, the epoch-making product—Apple Vision Pro—was officially launched in the American market. The prices of $3499 for the 256GB version (about 25250 RMB), $3699 for the 512GB version (about 26695 RMB), and $3899 for the 1TB version (about 28138 RMB) did not deter tech enthusiasts and Apple fans. Just 10 days after its release, its sales surpassed the 200,000-unit mark. In China, buying through scalpers also requires a significant markup to enjoy the privilege of early access.
Apple’s current CEO, Tim Cook, claims that Vision Pro is the most advanced consumer electronics device ever made, signaling that “the era of spatial computing has arrived.” After last year’s WWDC, Vision Pro sparked widespread discussion, with netizens focusing on whether its high price matches its practical significance. Cook has repeatedly emphasized to the public in the past six months that “this brings tomorrow’s technology to today.” He also compared Vision Pro to Apple Mac, iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch in a memo sent to employees, stating that Vision Pro is joining the temple of Apple’s “breakthrough products” that have both “redefined Apple” and “redefined what people perceive technology to be.” However, whether it qualifies as a “breakthrough product” and “redefines” is not for Apple to decide.
For Apple’s first head-mounted spatial computing display device, the initial batch of buyers are currently the most authoritative voices on this product. They soon shared their experiences on the internet, and all reviews seemed to be a mix of joy and concern, polarized. Here are two types of feedback compiled below to give those who have not yet experienced the product some objective understanding.
02
Enthusiasts: It’s just too cool; it brings transformation!
“Vision Pro has the world’s best human-computer interaction scheme, whether it’s immersive visual enjoyment or augmented reality overlaying the real world, I think it’s just too cool.”
“Low latency, high clarity, no dizziness, whether it’s playing videos or conducting video conferences, it’s all good!”
“It doesn’t feel as cumbersome as I imagined when wearing it, and it’s acceptable. Plus, the spatial audio sounds even better than some professional speakers.”
“Can you imagine me placing an ‘F1 racing car’ on my work desk and disassembling it at will?”
“The experience after putting on Vision Pro is still very good. Most interactions can be done precisely and smoothly with just finger and eye tracking. Although this part hasn’t fundamentally evolved from previous VR, what Apple is best at is refining the details of the existing play and widening the gap with competitors.”
“Vision Pro, in my view, meets or even exceeds expectations. I was prepared for the weight, so although it’s a drawback, it’s tolerable. The key is the screen with undetectable pixels, which is worth the endurance.”
“Apple’s Vision Pro, with its high-precision eye-tracking paired with pinch gesture interaction logic, can make it a milestone product like the first-generation iPhone!”
“I’d rather endure the unbalanced front and back load, the heaviness, and the need to carry a power bank with Vision Pro than go back to those VR/AR devices that have much better wearing experience but obvious pixel granularity. Weight is a drawback, and price is an even bigger drawback. My advice is to wait for Vision (Air).”
03
Disappointed Users: Improvement, but no qualitative leap!
“With no power connection, the battery life doesn’t exceed 3 hours, and I find it hard to accept being tethered by a wire while wearing it.”
“Who says this is a productivity tool? The interaction precision is poor. Typing in the air is nowhere near as convenient as using a keyboard and mouse. After only three days, I couldn’t stand it.”
“I wore it outside, and on the first day, my friends said I looked cool. A week later, they said I looked like a fool. Because Vision Pro can’t be watched by multiple people at the same time.”
“When I look at my computer or iPhone with the Vision Pro, the image quality is far from clear. I can’t make out the content on the screen, the same goes for reading small font newspapers.”
“After experiencing the current native content, Vision Pro just becomes a spatial smartphone, lacking more engaging content.”
“In most cases, the eye control is precise, but when two buttons are close to each other, it becomes difficult to select the correct one.”
“Vision Pro currently lacks a diverse range of experiences and content to ensure people would use it for 2 hours every week.”
“It doesn’t have that qualitative leap, it’s not light, and it requires an external battery, all for the sake of visual experience and computing power. So, I’d rather call it a luxury upgrade of Quest 3 Pro Max. Most of the functions on Vision Pro can be achieved by Quest 3, and it costs only three or four thousand.”
04
Is it just a prototype or an unfinished product?
On February 16, the expiration date for the Vision Pro trial period, it was revealed by the media that the first batch of Vision Pros was being returned by users in large quantities. According to Cult of Mac, the return rate was as high as 45%. Given the price and characteristics of Vision Pro, the high return rate is understandable, as there were certainly many who bought it just for novelty. However, the growing skepticism from international media about Vision Pro is undeniably real.
Mark Gurman of Bloomberg, who has long followed Apple’s movements, bluntly stated that Apple’s Vision Pro is too bulky, has too short battery life, and lacks sufficient dedicated apps. Cook claimed before the launch that when Vision Pro was released, users could experience over a million apps, including more than 600 developed specifically for Vision Pro. Someone wasn’t telling the truth.
Gurman also revealed that even employees in Apple’s Vision Products department feel that it might take four generations for Vision Pro to reach its ideal form, similar to the development of the iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch. His conclusion might not satisfy Apple or its fans; he even sarcastically said: that Vision Pro is not a product of the future; at this stage, it’s essentially a prototype, one that you have to pay Apple to try. Market research firm TrendForce openly stated that Vision Pro’s main challenges are its insufficient battery life, lack of applications, and high price.
Is the Vision Pro, which costs approximately $1200 to $1540 to produce, considered advanced? The answer is yes. Apple has invested significant technological development into this product, applying for over 4500 patents and securing the world’s best suppliers for its hardware quality. But the question remains, what has it redefined? Probably nothing. In essence, Vision Pro’s use and interaction modes can be found in existing XR products as “inferior substitutes.” With such expensive product costs, other XR manufacturers could potentially upgrade their products to similar levels.
If we must talk about success, Apple has only raised the ceiling for XR devices based on its powerful computing chips, reliable supply chain system, and mature and stable unique ecosystem. Vision Pro, compared to other XR products, has not opened a new era with heart-shocking innovation like the iPhone’s touchscreen did compare to traditional feature phones and old button-style smartphones. At least for now, Vision Pro lacks a real killer application, and it’s not an essential item in people’s lives like mobile phones. The innovation it brings is at most similar to the MacBook Air, showing that laptops can be this thin and light, hardly reaching the height of the iPod. In my view, Vision Pro is likely just an “advertisement” by Apple to prove its innovative DNA to the world and issue an “invitation” to global developers, serving more as a broad announcement. The true arrival of the era of spatial computing might depend on the more popularized standard, SE, or Air versions of Vision rumored to be in the works.
05
The Biggest “Unfinished” Project in History
Regardless, the launch of Apple’s Vision Pro at least took a significant step forward in the XR field, and netizens have created numerous memes and jokes about it, spreading awareness of the product. For instance, a comment from a Chinese netizen reads, “For personal health, we were always advised to stay farther away from the TV, and now, when warned to put down our phones and embrace nature, Apple has gone ahead and ‘slammed’ the screen right onto users’ faces.”
While people were still engaged in professional and recreational discussions about Vision Pro, another piece of news from Apple shocked the global tech community.
On February 28, Apple’s COO Jeff Williams and Vice President Kevin Lynch announced internally that the company would abandon its car project. Some of the approximately 1,400 employees in the car team would be transferred to the AI department or other positions, while others would be laid off.
The images above are early speculative renders of the Apple car or concept designs based on related Apple patents.
Compared to Vision Pro, Apple’s car project had consumed over 10 billion dollars and had been in development for over a decade. For this project, Apple did not hesitate to offend many car manufacturers, repeatedly poaching countless automotive talents and even equipping the project with stringent secrecy measures. As a result, many Apple fans had barely heard of this project before 2023. It was only when news of the project’s cancellation broke that international media and analysts began to unravel the rough development trajectory of Apple’s car-making venture over the past decade.
06
Apple Car Project Development Timeline
Even before the iPhone was born, Steve Jobs had considered developing an Apple car, but he reportedly decided to abandon the idea in 2008.
In 2014, Apple officially launched a car-making project called “Project Titan” at a secret base near its Cupertino headquarters, turning down an acquisition proposal from Tesla, then valued at less than $30 billion and struggling with production crises.
Initially, team leader Steve Zadesky wanted to develop a car with semi-autonomous capabilities, while Apple’s then-design chief, Jony Ive, believed Apple should focus on software and completely disrupt the traditional car market by creating a fully autonomous vehicle without a steering wheel.
The early explorations of the Apple car team included silent electric doors, designs without steering wheels or pedals, augmented reality displays, improved LIDAR sensors, and less conspicuous rooftop sensors, even considering spherical wheels.
In February 2015, a mysterious van leased to Apple was spotted on the streets of California, equipped with multiple cameras. Days later, an anonymous employee leaked that they were working on an “exciting and not-to-be-missed” project at Apple, which was later exposed as “Project Titan” by The Wall Street Journal. Tesla CEO Elon Musk claimed Apple was “very aggressive” in trying to poach engineers from his company, even offering a 60% salary increase and a $250,000 bonus.
In January 2016, Steve Zadesky left the project, and Alexander Hitzinger, the developer of the Ferrari 919 hybrid sports car and the then-technical director of the Porsche LMP1 project, joined Apple. In July, Bob Mansfield, a former Apple executive who had retired, returned to lead the team, shifting the focus to the development of Level 5 autonomous driving technology instead of manufacturing cars.
Apple had a plan to collaborate with Volkswagen to install its autonomous driving software on the Volkswagen T6 Transporter, which would serve as an employee shuttle.
In January 2017, Apple’s vice president Lisa Jackson was spotted among the members of an automated vehicle advisory committee established by the U.S. Department of Transportation.
In April 2017, Apple obtained permission in California to test autonomous driving on public roads. Over the next two years, it had about 70 test vehicles, all leased 2015 Lexus RX450h SUVs.
In August 2018, an Apple autonomous vehicle was involved in its first accident.
In January 2019, Apple announced it had reassigned or laid off more than 200 members of its automotive team. In February, data from the California Department of Motor Vehicles showed Apple’s autonomous vehicles ranked second to last in disengagement frequency among 28 companies, with Apple cars running only 1.8 kilometers before human intervention, compared to Waymo’s 17,846 kilometers. By 2021, Apple still hadn’t broken into the top ten by this measure.
In June 2019, Apple acquired Drive.ai, a startup designing autonomous shuttle services.
In early 2020, Apple held acquisition or investment talks with electric vehicle company Canoo, which ultimately fell through. According to job listing sites, nearly 40% of the over 1,200 employees in Apple’s automotive team had a background at Tesla.
Between 2019 and 2020, the Apple car team experienced several significant personnel changes.
In early 2020, Apple’s CEO Tim Cook, COO Jeff Williams, and senior members of the design team conducted a special test drive in Arizona, experiencing a prototype vehicle under development. This prototype, drastically different from traditional cars, featured a full glass roof, electric sliding doors, white tires, seating for four, and was internally nicknamed “the toast.” The vehicle eliminated traditional controls like steering wheels and pedals, replacing them with a controller similar to a game console’s, and was equipped with Level 5 autonomous driving capabilities.
In 2022, Apple downsized its car project, disbanded and reorganized the team, abandoning plans for full autonomy and removing the steering wheel/pedals, aiming instead for a car that could autonomously drive on highways but require manual operation at other times. Rumors suggested Apple aimed to launch its smart car product by 2025.
In 2023, Apple’s board of directors pressured executives, including CEO Tim Cook, to submit a more concrete project advancement plan. Leaks indicated Apple had once again postponed the launch of its first smart car to 2028, delivering only an L2+ level autonomous driving product at launch, which at best would match existing Tesla models without significant breakthroughs.
On February 28, 2024, Apple announced the termination of its car project. (Note: The information above is compiled from prominent Apple news media sources like MacRumors, Bloomberg, The Wall Street Journal, and renowned Apple news leakers like Ming-Chi Kuo and Gurman.)
07
The Countdown to Termination Had Already Begun
As one of the world’s highest-valued tech companies, Apple had about $162 billion in cash reserves and over 160,000 employees, with a gathering of industry talent and exceptional ability in integrating supply chains. Its R&D strength was unquestionable. Specifically for the car project, the team once had about 2000 members (some sources say 5000), with an average annual investment of about $1 billion, and billions more spent on related technology R&D. But why did it end this way?
First, internal management issues. Since its inception, Apple’s car project lacked a clear goal. Frequent changes in leadership and key positions led to prolonged indecision about whether to build a car or develop an autonomous driving platform, with senior management lacking the decisiveness to resolve internal disagreements and settle on an effective plan.
Second, misestimation of technical development challenges. Over the past decade, Apple tried at least five different design directions and accumulated over 1.6 million kilometers of autonomous driving tests, but it had to continuously lower its technological standards from Level 5 full autonomy to Level 4, then to Level 3, and finally to Level 2.
Third, profitability and investment return issues. Apple’s hardware products have maintained profit margins between 35% and 40%, but the automotive industry has high management costs and labor expenses, cyclical purchasing trends, and intense competition (Tesla’s gross margin is only around 18.3%). Apple prefers creating new business models or integrating revolutionary technologies to disrupt traditional markets. The car business, with its significant investment, long cycles, and fierce competition, presents challenging cash flow and competitive viability assessments.
Fourth, regulatory scrutiny and public pressure on autonomous driving. With multiple countries testing autonomous vehicles, governments have tightened control over safety issues. The growing public attention to autonomous cars has subjected automakers to dual pressures of regulation and public opinion, fostering a risk-averse attitude within Apple.
Fifth, external competitive pressure, particularly from the rapid rise of new energy vehicles in China, forced Apple to reassess the viability of its car-making plans.
08
Future Shift to AI
Steve Jobs once said, “Deciding what not to do is as important as deciding what to do.” The day after the car project was terminated, Cook announced at Apple’s shareholder meeting that in 2024 they would “break new ground” in generative AI, promising to share later this year how Apple will innovate in AIGC (Artificial Intelligence Generated Content), which could be “a technology that redefines the future.”
In July 2023, rumors circulated that Apple was developing a large model named Ajax and an internal chatbot, Apple GPT. A recent paper co-authored by several Apple experts announced their latest research in multimodal large models—MM1, although its performance couldn’t yet compete with leading industry models like Google’s Gemini or OpenAI’s GPT-4, with a maximum parameter count of only 30 billion, even smaller than some domestic competitors.
At the WWDC conference in June this year, Apple will release new operating systems like iPadOS 18, iOS 18, macOS 15, and watchOS 11, hoping that the AI-integrated iOS 18 will showcase something new. Otherwise, the “innovation halo” might completely vanish from Apple, which is also facing immense pressure from the Android camp, such as in the foldable screen market.
Leaks suggest Apple may launch a foldable screen iPad this year or next, testing the waters on a larger size before releasing the first foldable iPhone in 2026. Another report indicates the only product with a definite development timeline is a 20.3-inch foldable screen MacBook set for mass production in 2027. Additionally, in the first six weeks of 2024, Apple’s smartphone sales in China fell by 24%, with its market ranking surpassed by Vivo, Huawei, and Honor.
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