Apple car: Good riddance 🚗

Why it's a positive thing that Apple killed Project Titan.

Most of us at Cult of Mac are bummed about Apple killing its long-running secret car project.

As managing editor Lewis Wallace said in an opinion piece yesterday, the news is sad and depressing.

Just imagine what Cupertino might have come up with! Given Apple’s stellar record at reimagining products — and even entire industries — it’s tempting to think the results would have been spectacular: a fully electric, self-driving robot car that would have completely changed how everyone travels (and maybe rewired roads, cities and everything else).

The news is even more depressing given that Apple is diverting staff from an exciting blue-sky project into generative AI — which, on the face of it, sounds like a bandwagon move.

Apple’s been criticized for seemingly dragging its feet on generative AI, which at first glance looks impressive but on closer inspection is found to be unreliable, unusable, sometimes racist and wildly overhyped.

Today, another of our writers, D. Griffin Jones, argues good riddance to the Apple car project.

It never made much sense for Apple, he says, and it’s a good thing that the company is turning its full attention to AI, because it’ll show the rest of the industry how AI should be done. It’s an interesting piece.

Also in today’s newsletter:

— Leander Kahney, EIC.

A message from the Cult of Mac Deals team

A message from the Cult of Mac Deals team

Tweetz o’ the day

One more thing ...

The Macintosh experience taught me that A players like to work only with other A players, which means you can’t indulge B players.

— Steve Jobs, 2011.

Today’s poll

Is focusing on generative AI a smart move for Apple?

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Results from yesterday’s poll: Were you looking forward to an Apple car?

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