12 May 2016, USA :
Apple has been significantly increasing its spending on research and development in recent years, and we can safely assume that all that money wasn’t just going to the Apple Watch.
Neil Cybart, one of the best Apple observers around, documents big increases in Apple’s R&D expenditures and suggests that the company is planning its “largest pivot yet.”
Apple is not spending $10 billion on R&D just to come up with new Watch bands, larger iPads, or a video streaming service. Instead, Apple is planning on something much bigger: a pivot into the automobile industry.
The word “pivot” has become a buzzword lately, often misused to simply mean change. In reality, pivoting is actually a sign of strength as a company takes what it learns from one business model in one market and applies it a new one with a different business model. Apple would be taking lessons learned from its long-standing view on the world based on the Mac, iPod, and broader iOS lineup to begin selling an electric car.
“Apple is now on track to spend more than $10 billion on R&D in 2016, up nearly 30% from 2015 and ahead of even my aggressive estimate,” he writes. “This is a remarkable feat considering that Apple was spending a little over $3 billion per year on R&D just four years ago.”
Meanwhile, Tim Cook has remained very tight-lipped about Apple’s future, which gives the impression that Apple isn’t working on ground-breaking ideas or products that can move the company beyond the iPhone.
All of this raises a very obvious question: What is Apple working on? Because the company is so intensely secretive and doesn’t ever reveal its long-term plans publicly, we can only speculate. Cybart offers some smart speculation in this regard and believes it’s related to Apple’s Project Titan.
Only Time will tell I guess!
