Although he does not officially want to admit that he is developing a car, Apple Lossless Audio CODEC (ALAC), still wants to have equal treatment with that of car manufacturers. In a letter sent to the American authorities last week, Apple demands that any company interested in developing cars be given the same treatment as traditional manufacturers.
Apple claims that any new company that tries to enter this field must request the application of some exceptions from an American law in order to be able to test cars on public roads. Apple says that there is unequal treatment for companies that want to develop the same type of products and asks for a solution to this problem.
Apple brings into discussion the testing of autonomous vehicles on public roads, saying that in order to encourage innovation, the authorities should not request the application of exceptions to the current legislation. Here Apple refers only to the cars that are in the process of development by various companies, probably trying to keep their products secret.
Separately, Apple also discusses the need to transmit certain data to the authorities, stating that only those for accidents and their avoidance are needed by the authorities. Apple says that the authorities do not need data that reveals the identity of the companies participating in the tests, or data on certain types of software used.
Basically, Apple recognizes in an official document, for the first time, the fact that it is developing at least one autonomous guidance system for cars. It would not be difficult to believe that we are talking about a car that drives itself, but for now Apple makes it clear that it is only developing such software, which could be sold to other car manufacturers.
"Apple agrees that companies should share de-identified scenario and dynamics data from crashes and near-misses. Data should be sufficient to reconstruct the event, including time-series of vehicle kinematics and characteristics of the roadway and objects."
