This seems like a weird market for Apple to be pursuing because they’re such a consumer oriented company, but it seems likely that the future of transportation will be less oriented around individual car ownership.
Additionally there’s a good argument to be made that we hit “peak car” several years ago, so consumer oriented automobiles may not be a real growth industry.
I’d seriously question any business plan that assumes that the transportation mode share of cars, especially individually owned cars, will be greater than it is now.
Maybe I’m thinking too long term here.
Tesla tried to snag Ive.. Apple retained him...
I have to believe (car guy) Ive gets what he wants at Apple?
edit: Which would hurt the stock (ie Cook's #1 goal) more in the short term? Announcing a car in 2019 or announcing Ive leaving in 2015? I'm thinking was part of an earlier deal to keep Ive.
Recently I was going out with some friends to the Boston Harbor Islands. I wanted to take a small Parrot AR drone out there, to fly around 25 feet in the air, to capture some group photos and check out some neat angles of military ruins. Yet, I find things like this (https://www.faa.gov/news/fact_sheets/news_story.cfm?newsId=1...) on the FAA site that indicates I can't fly anything Class B airspace.
There's stuff about applying for a Certificate of Waiver or Authorization, which seems needlessly heavy. I find things that say things like, "Community-based guidelines require recreational operators to give notice for flights within 5 statute miles of an airport."
I attempt to contact Logan's tower, and get bounced around between literally 10 different people... all equally confused. It feels really odd to call an airport about this, and I have a sinking feeling that this is a good way to get on some watch list, so I'm quite careful with my words.
Eventually, I get in touch with the Assistant Director Airport Operations Airside who responds that 'Massport does not have jurisdiction of that area and cannot give approval for the use of the drone. That approval must come from the FAA local ATC since the area you are looking to operate the drone in falls within their Airspace.'. I spoke with him on the phone as well, and he was super nice and indicated that he was hoping they'd figure all of this out soon as well, because he owns a drone too.
Sites like this (http://fromwhereidrone.com/can-you-fly-your-drone-within-5-m...) make it sound super easy and casual to get permission... but I found the opposite.
Class B airspace covers basically every major city in the US. Additionally, I couldn't fly because all national parks have had a ban since mid-2014... so even if the FAA allowed it, the Boston Harbor Islands (which are technically a national park, through a joint venture with Massachusetts) I couldn't have legally flown.
I am 100% about safety for these things. I think there should be height limitations, but also reasonable allowances. I wouldn't mind if the GPS lock on the drone kept it below 50 feet (treetop level) in places like this.
Anyway, I had to spend a few hours realizing not only that I couldn't fly on the islands, but legally I couldn't fly almost anywhere around here... including my own back yard which is 4.5 miles from Logan.
Aside from extending the runway center lines on a map to predict approach and departure paths, you may have seen the heli route on skyvector https://skyvector.com/?ll=42.2662102318687,-70.9130790877564... regarding the harbor islands.