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NYT: Apple teams up with VW for self-driving shuttle vans
Apple's Project Titan efforts to develop self-driving car technology apparently have found a partner in Volkswagen, according to a report by the New York Times. While the paper said the tech company has pursued deals with BMW and Mercedes, it will apparently turn VW T6 Transporter vans into self-driving shuttles for employees moving between its Silicon Valley offices. We've seen some test SUVs out and about before, but Apple has had bigger plans for the project and a reported 2019 target date, so getting more vehicles on the road will be important. Now the Times says the project is behind schedule, and there's no mention of angles like electric propulsion or spherical tires. As for the competition, Waymo has continued to expand with new partners and plans to roll out an autonomous service in the near future, while Uber has suspended its efforts in Arizona after a fatal crash and Elon Musk is busy arguing with reporters over what is or isn't news. And now it's time to find out what Apple can do.
Apple details neighbors on Campus 2 plans, extends rare request for feedback
Cupertino residents may have received an unsolicited package from their most prominent neighbor this week. No, it's not a new iPad, or an early look at the iPhone 5 -- instead, people close to Apple (from a physical perspective) opened the glossy mailing to reveal a detailed look at Apple Campus 2, which will consist of 176 acres currently occupied by "aging buildings" and trees. As we already know, the campus will feature one main circular four-story building with 2.8 million square feet of office and common space, along with an additional 300,000 square feet set aside for dedicated (secure) research buildings. There will be a restaurant, fitness center and other facilities aimed to "reduce automobile trips" as part of the company's plan to protect the environment. Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer appeals to neighbors in a single-page letter, offering additional information upon receipt of a pre-stamped response card, which also prompts neighbors to add their name to a list of supporters, attend a public meeting or write a letter to show their support for the new Apple complex. You'll find Oppenheimer's letter in full after the break, along with additional photos at the source link.
Roundup of Kickstarter Apple-related projects for 6/22
For many tech startups, Kickstarter is a great way to raise funding and get off the ground. Each week, TUAW takes a close look at recent Apple-related Kickstarter projects for those of you interested in supporting some entrepreneurs who are eager to build the next big thing. Send us information about your Kickstarter project by using the tips and feedback link at the top of this page, and include the word "Kickstarter" in the subject line. Infinite Loop Tablet and Smartphone Stand Of the many Kickstarter projects that I saw over the last few weeks, none was as elegant as the Infinite Loop Tablet and Smartphone Stand. Not only is the project a play on the location of Apple Headquarters (for now at least) at 1 Infinite Loop in Cupertino, CA, but it's a beautiful idea. The Infinite Loop comes in both MiniLoop (for smartphones) and InfiniteLoop (for tablets and Kindles) sizes, uses suction cups or clips to firmly embrace your device, and can be used in a variety of ways and with many different devices. Want to prop up your iPad on an airplane seat tray? Attach it to a car headrest? The Infinite Loop can accommodate you and then wrap up into a small space. Tim Gushue's project has about a month to go, and is about 13% of the way towards funding. Pledge US$19 or more and you'll get a $29.95 MiniLoop, and for $35 or more you are pre-ordering the $44.95 InfiniteLoop. iBamboo Electricity-free Bamboo Speaker for iPhone 4 Apparently there are many Gilligan's Island fans with iPhones, since the iBamboo speaker for iPhone 4 follows the castaway mystique of bamboo construction. Fortunately, it already has sufficient backers to receive funding on July 9, 2011. If you pledge $25 or more to the project, you can receive one of these lovely and unique au naturel battery-and-plug-free speakers wrapped in a canvas bag. iBamboo is a project that really brings a smile to my face, and I'm tempted to back the project just to have something different and natural on my tech-filled desk. MyPadLife Another Kickstarter project that has received funding is MyPadLife. Billed as the most functional iPad case ever, Saad Alam's design was created out of the need to use an iPad and exercise at the same time. He apparently had the same idea as our very own Erica Sadun with her DIY iPad car kit, but he has turned MyPadLife into a full-fledged, well-designed product. It's made out of a neoprene material with three different straps that are used to attach your iPad to everything from a treadmill to a kitchen cabinet. Pledge $25 to get one of the first MyPadLife cases from Saad, and enjoy the freedom of watching or using your iPad without holding it. Air Guitar Move for iPhone Now here's an amazing idea: a motion-sensing guitar pick that works with two included iPhone apps to help you rock out. Air Guitar Move is from a team of designer/developers who created Thumbies (a game controller for iPhone) and the V-Beat music toys. Air Guitar Move needs a bit of backer love right now. With 17 days to go on Kickstarter (as of this writing), the project is only about 35% of the way towards reaching its funding goal. TUAW readers who are into Guitar Hero, Tap Tap Revenge, and similar air guitar games can get one of the first Air Guitar Move "ultimate picks" by pledging $39. Red Cup Does the world need another social networking app? The guys behind Red Cup think so. The idea of the app is to be a location-based app for introducing yourself to others who are at the same venue. Red Cup is a project not only in search of backers, but in search of developers. The four guys on the Red Cup team consist of three law students and one PhD candidate, none of whom are developers. The team's project video is well done, but vague. When they talk about about wanting their backers to "have a say in how the app works," this tells me that these guys have an interesting idea, but little knowledge of how the app development process works. Guys: come up with an idea (you've done that), develop requirements, produce many mockups, refine, refine, refine, and then approach the Kickstarter table for money. Obviously the Kickstarter community agrees with me on this one; Red Cup currently has $760 pledged out of $15,000 required with 12 days to go. Oh, and guys? It's going to take a lot more than $15,000 just for infrastructure to run this social network. Impactband for iPod touch 4G While this isn't really a Kickstarter project, it's the brainchild of Matt Geyster of BaseoneLabs, whose Rustic Case (funded and in production) and Artistree Stylus (still seeking funding) projects have both been featured in previous roundups. Matt realized that while there are a lot of cases for iPhones and iPod touches, there was nothing similar to Apple's own iPhone 4 bumpers for the iPod touch, so he thought up the Impactband for the 4th generation iPod touch. If you've seen the videos on the BaseoneLabs site, you know that these bands do a wonderful job of protecting iPhones. Matt asked me to throw his iPod touch around just to give it a try -- I finally did despite fears that I was going to be sending back a cracked and scratched device. Even after flat drops onto concrete and stone and light tosses into the air, the iPod touch worked like a champ and had nary a scratch. What you see above is a pre-production version of the Impactband. I like the feel of the material -- kind of "grippy" -- and there's just enough of a lip around the front and back of the device to keep them from damage in the case of a flat drop. The Impactband for iPod touch 4G sells for $29.99 and is expected to ship in a few weeks. SnapStylus We have a winner! One of my biggest gripes with any iPad stylus -- other than the fact that I think it's unnecessary -- is that they're easy to lose. Jack Malone came up with the idea of the SnapStylus, a prefabricated stylus outfitted with magnets so that it sticks to iPads. An iPad 2 isn't required; the SnapStylus works with the original iPad and will also snap onto your official Apple Smart Cover. With 17 days to go, the SnapStylus is ready for launch with almost double the required backing. If TUAW readers back the project with $10, they'll get a SnapStylus when it ships in the near future. The Finger Sometimes a Kickstarter product looks unappealing from the start, and that's the nicest description I can give to The Finger. Comments in the TUAW newsroom ranged from "uuuughhg" to "it looks like the T-1000's spearfinger" or "Voldemort's wand." It's supposed to be a dual-ended iPad stylus. The original color (above) was kind of a brownish-black, but (as one commenter noted to inventors Kyle Scheele and Shawn Matthews) "You might want to consider other colors so it looks more fun and less like a hard turd whittled to a point." They've now thrown bile green, blood red, and a sickly purple-blue into the mix. Kyle and Shawn note on Kickstarter that The Finger "started as a joke," and it looks like it will end as one, since they have only raised $914 out of $50,000 needed with just 15 days to go. Creepy. That one's going to give me nightmares for a week. Of course, this digital representation of TUAW's Mike Rose (courtesy of MakerBot) was enough to give me the willies: Let's end on a more pleasant note, shall we? Swoop the Owl - Mobile Plush for iPhone and iPod touch Swoop the Owl is a clever idea that combines a personalized plush owl with an iPhone or iPod touch. Why would you want to do that? If you like to sleep while listening to music on your iPod touch, or if you have kids who are constantly misplacing the overpriced toy, just stuff it (or an iPhone) into the clear plastic "belly" of Swoop, and your problem is solved. Unfortunately for kids of every age, Swoop doesn't look like he'll make it out of fledgling mode without the help of a lot of backers. With 17 days to go, Jim McGaw's project has only $1,415 pledged out of a total of $7,500 required to start production. I think we need to start a "Save Swoop the Owl" campaign!
Apple buys former HP campus in Cupertino
In the latest sign of a trend that has been ongoing in the tech industry for more than a decade, Apple has gobbled up another big chunk of land in Cupertino, CA that is being vacated by Hewlett-Packard. Apple recently closed on a deal to buy HP's 98 acre Cupertino campus for an undisclosed price. The former HP property is north of a 50 acre site that Apple bought in 2006 and east of the main Infinite Loop campus that has been home to Apple since the early 1990s. Apple has been on a steady growth path, with a stream of new products, since the return of Steve Jobs in the late 1990s; HP has been heading in the opposite direction, having shed numerous traditional businesses in that same time. Apple had $65 billion in sales in its last fiscal year and added 12,300 employees, bringing its total headcount to 46,600. The 57 buildings currently occupied by Apple are reportedly "bursting at the seams," but the company has not yet provided a timetable or plan for revamping its new campus. Several thousand HP employees that currently work in Cupertino will be consolidated in Palo Alto over the next two years. This latest move brings the Apple-HP relationship full circle. When Apple was founded in 1976, Steve Wozniak was an engineer working in HP's calculator division. As with most large companies, HP had a policy that anything invented by employees belonged to the company, even if it was created on personal time. Wozniak offered the Apple I and Apple II designs to HP, but the company didn't want to get into the personal computer business at the time, which paved the way for Woz to eventually leave and join his partner Jobs at their startup on a full-time basis. If HP had made different choices in the late 1970s, the many innovative products created by Apple over the years might never have been built, and today's technology landscape would probably be a very different place. [via Mac.Blorge]
$100,000 prototype laptop stolen from Apple's campus in 2009?
Zirana, a startup company with the goal to make Zirana.com "a one stop shop for all local information" for "residents of small and medium sized towns all across the world," including Cupertino, is reporting that a prototype laptop was stolen from Apple's campus sometime in 2009: Trade Secret Theft/Possession of Stolen Property - Infinite Loop Between 1/1 and 12/18, unknown suspect(s) took a prototype laptop worth about $100,000 from Apple Computers on Infinite Loop using an unknown method. The suspect(s) sold it to another suspect. Deputies recovered the laptop from the second suspect and he was released pending further investigation. Given that the laptop was a prototype, it's no surprise that it could be worth $100,000. And if Apple is having internal theft problems, it's no wonder they acted so swiftly and decisively to stop Gawker's (coincidentally) $100,000 bounty on Apple's tablet. As Zirana states, the prototype laptop has since been recovered. It should be noted, however, that Zirana's information on the theft is user generated and does not originate from an official police report or an Apple spokesperson. Then again, maybe that 3GS commercial took its inspiration from real life events?
TUAW readers: Help us tell Apple what you want in the next iPhone!
Apple's campus is a surreal place to be. You're surrounded by a loop of buildings where some of the most advanced technological innovation is going on behind closed doors. That excitement aside, another great thing about being on campus was being able to dine at Café Mac. Café Mac is Apple's cafeteria/restaurant for employees. It's some of the best food you'll ever eat and the café rivals whatever Google has. But I loved Café Mac for more than the food. It is a place where you can meet and mingle with people from all different departments, be that legal, marketing, IS&T, software, or hardware. Now before I go any further, let me state right now that every single Apple employee I've ever met takes their NDAs very seriously and no employee has ever revealed insider knowledge or let any secrets slip (to me anyway). I've remained iChat friends with a bunch of Apple employees I've met from some very cool departments on various trips to campus. I can tell you, though Apple would never admit to being influenced by sites like Engadget or TUAW, individuals at Apple do read those sites and do take into consideration what they read on them. Now, here's where you come in: I know there's been a ton of excitement about the impending Apple iSlate, but let's not forget that, if past years are any indication, the iPhone OS 4.0 will be previewed sometime this Spring with a probable Summer release. I'm sure you all have your hopes and dreams what you want the next iPhone and iPhone OS to include, so here's your chance to get your voices heard – hopefully by many of the people on Apple's campus too. I'm writing a series of features about what people want in the next iPhone and I need you to send me emails detailing what you would like to see in it. I'll have one iPhone article a week for the next month. Each article will deal with a specific wished-for area of the iPhone: next week's article will deal with the iPhone OS as a whole (settings, home screen, search, general behavior, etc.). Week two's article will cover iPhone hardware, while week three and four will cover the iPhone's built-in apps like Mail, Maps, Calendar, etc. Until Friday, January 8, I'll be collecting your wishes and ideas for the next "general" iPhone OS. You have until then to email me your feedback, wants, mock-ups, and concept drawings. Don't be afraid to link to concepts you've seen at other places on the web either. And don't be afraid to borrow features from the Palm Os or Android, too. If they have something you like there's no reason Apple can't learn from them, so by all means include it if you think it would make the iPhone better. I'll present everything you guys tell me in an article and hopefully the boys in Cupertino will take notice. Only feedback sent to tuawiphone [at] me dot com will be considered, but please feel free to lash out your thoughts in the comments too. Also, please only send me your "general OS" wish-lists now, or things could get lost in my mail box if you send your hardware wishes for articles down the line, etc. And, judging from the amount of email I'll get, it would be a great help if you could put your ideas in list form with a description for each if necessary.
Take a virtual tour of Infinite Loop
Join TUAW as we go on a weekend road trip to Apple's campus at 1 Infinite Loop. No, not really, but we can always take a virtual visit to Apple HQ thanks to Google Maps Street View, now that Google has finally completed their street level photography of Infinite Loop. This allows you to see the buildings in their full grandeur. Unfortunately, you cannot visit the legendary Apple Company Store. To start your virtual road trip, click here.
Rogue Amoeba's Paul Kafasis at Infinite Loop
According to Paul Kafasis of Rogue Amoeba, about the same time as he sat down with our very own David Chartier for TUAW Podcast #18, he also gave an interesting interview to the good folks over at Ars Tehnica's Infinite Loop. They talk about Rogue Amoeba's focus on audio, the controversy our own Laurie Duncan helped to start over what Paul dubbed The Delicious Generation, and more. So if you haven't already, first go listen to the podcast then check out the interview and you'll have more than met your recommended daily allowance of cool Mac audio developer news.
TUAW Video: A Mac Moment with Jacqui Cheng
I sat down with Infinite Loop's Jacqui Cheng, one of our most hated rivals (I kid, I kid). Jacqui tells us about her encounter with Woz, her thoughts about the iPhone, and Apple TV. See? We Apple bloggers are one big happy family (though TUAW is totally better than Infinite Loop).
