The Apple Car and the Vision Pro headset were two highly ambitious projects from Apple, but only one eventually made it to market. Here’s why that happened.
Everywhere you look, the failure of Apple’s secret self-driving car is dominating the news. Yet, it comes shortly after another moonshot project — the Vision Pro — launched to higher-than-expected initial sales. Why did one crash and burn while the other was successfully brought to market?
Well, Bloomberg reporter Mark Gurman has attempted to answer that question in his latest Power On newsletter, which claims that the Apple Car (known internally as Project Titan) was “doomed nearly from the start.” In the end, there are many reasons for its failure that the Vision Pro was able to navigate its way around.
For one thing, Gurman cites “someone involved in the [Apple Car] decision-making” as likening Apple’s process for its vehicle as trying to skip ahead to the iPhone X instead of aiming for something more modest in its initial versions. This presented huge challenges to Apple that even it couldn’t overcome.
But couldn’t you say the same thing for the Vision Pro? This is a hugely high-end product that easily outdoes rival virtual reality (VR) headsets, and Apple has done it on the first attempt. The desire to be the best (rather than the first) is in Apple’s blood and is reflected in almost all its other products, in fact. That tells me there are other factors at work, and other reasons why the Vision Pro got out of the gates while the Apple Car stalled out.Jumbled and unfocused
Take a look back at Apple Car leaks and rumors over the years and one thing becomes immediately obvious: Apple kept changing its mind. Every year or so ,we’d read a new report that claimed Apple had switched tracks and decided to adjust the project’s focus.
