Apple does not give up, that's who it could produce the first electric car with

Apple does not give up

For several months now, there have been rumors of the intention by the Cupertino giant to produce an electric car in collaboration with a manufacturer already included in the EV segment. In recent weeks, Apple has held talks with several car manufacturers but failed to conclude any negotiations positively. The tech giant would like to replicate the strategy and success achieved with its highly technological products and to do so it necessarily needs a partner more than an affirmation in the electric car sector.

To get to produce the first car, Apple can go three ways: starting a collaboration with an existing company, building the entire infrastructure necessary to develop the car from scratch or outsourcing production. In the latter scenario, Apple could develop the infotainment and road safety systems internally, leaving the physical production of the car to some external company.

In this context, the external manufacturer would therefore have no say in the matter and it could not affix its own brand. However, Apple's desire to enter the electric car market does not seem to be among the plans of the manufacturers with which it has had relations up to now; for example, both Nissan and Hyundai have declined the proposal. Furthermore, even the possible collaboration with Kia has not led to any results, if not to collapse the stock on the stock market. Some rumors have also suggested a hypothetical contact between Apple and Ferrari, but it seems that there will be no collaboration.

In the light of what has been said, the Cupertino company could choose the strategy it has been adopting for some time for some of its products and therefore rely on some partners. Among the top names is Foxconn, the largest manufacturer of electrical and electronic components for equipment manufacturers in the world. Last October Foxconn unveiled its first chassis for electric vehicles and recently announced its collaboration with EV carmaker Fisker. In addition to the chassis, Foxconn is working on several fronts such as solid state batteries and the open software “MIH Open Platform”.

Like Sony, with its Vision-S, Apple also seems more than determined to enter the electric mobility sector and in a few years we could see the first products on the road. No indiscretion on the type of car that we will see even if, with a good chance, it is easy that it could be a sedan. We just have to wait to discover the strategies of the Cupertino giant.

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Apple iPhone 13: New Patent Suggests Beloved Feature Could Make A Comeback

Apple iPhone 12 Pro and iPhone 12 Pro Max. Will the 2021 iPhone see the return of 3D Touch?

Apple

When Apple withdrew 3D Touch from the iPhone 11, we managed without it, thanks to the arrival of Haptic Touch. This was good, but just not a match for the superb 3D Touch. Well, a patent has just been published and it hints that the feature could be making a comeback.

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In case you never used it, 3D Touch was an Apple innovation which arrived on the iPhone 6s and lasted until the launch of the iPhone 11, that is, from 2015 to 2019. A version of this, called Force Touch, had appeared on Apple Watch displays the year before.

It provided an extra level of interaction by adding pressure-sensitivity to the iPhone screen. Press harder than you otherwise would on a link and  you saw a preview of the site: press harder and the page would open. This mechanism was called Peek and Pop. I loved it.

True, Haptic Touch does something similar, working from a long-press on the display which is no longer able to recognize different pressure levels. The patent, spotted by Patently Apple, gave an insight into why Apple might have removed the feature. “Components for detecting the amount of force exerted on an interface surface of a touch sensitive component can utilize complex and expensive sensor arrays to extend this desired functionality to the entire surface. These expensive arrays can also occupy a large spatial volume inside the electronic device, thereby potentially increasing the size of the device or reducing the space available for components that may provide additional desired functionalities.”

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Well, that’s clear. But Apple also talks about a new way to achieve this, using something called a pressure decay sensor. It sounds a bit creepy, I know. Still, here’s what Apple says:

“In some examples, detecting the amount of force applied to an interface surface can be achieved with a pressure decay sensor disposed in the internal volume. This pressure decay sensor can be relatively small and inexpensive, and can be disposed at almost any desired location in the internal volume. This allows for smaller devices or devices that include increased room for additional or larger components, as compared to a device that includes an array of force detecting components. The pressure decay sensor can detect an increase in the pressure of the internal volume that can be attributed to the deflection or deformation of the interface surface when a force is applied thereto, and can further detect the rate of decay of the pressure. The amount of force can be at least partially based on the detected rate of decay.”

The first iPhone with 3D Touch was the iPhone 6s - will the feature come back?

NurPhoto via Getty Images

In another part of the patent, it explains the workings more simply: “The force sensor assembly can include a pressure decay sensor and a gap distance sensor disposed opposite a surface of the interface component.”

But wait, you say, the existence of the patent doesn’t mean 3D Touch will ever appear, does it? Quite right, but the timing is interesting. It was published just a few days ago, on March 11, 2021, and was first filed two years back, December 9, 2019. That, you may notice, is around three months after the iPhone 11 series of phones appeared, the first to ditch 3D Touch.

A patent that was filed significantly after the feature was first canned must give us hope that there’s a chance it could return, surely? If so, it could be resurrected as soon as this Fall’s new crop of iPhones.

As a footnote, there’s no news yet on what the next iPhone will be called. So far, all the rumors make me think it’ll be named iPhone 12s rather than iPhone 13, but we’ll see.

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