It’s well known that Apple is working hard to bring innovation to augmented reality and self-driving cars (in some capacity). However, new hires recently made by the company are making a satellite project seem likely.
A new Bloomberg report details that Apple has hired two former Google satellite executives as it starts a new hardware team.
Satellite design and operation are highly expensive and the report notes that most projects in this field are focused on collecting images or for communications. An unnamed source shared that Boeing has plans to roll out a satellite broadband network and Apple has been it talks with the company about possible involvement.
However, Apple may be more interested in how this new hardware team headed by Fenwick and Trela could improve its maps services and possible integration with future AR features.
This seems a more likely focus for this new endeavor as Fenwick and Trela’s direct report Greg Duffy has mostly image and video product experience from his time at Dropcam. The unnamed source(s) close to this matter also pointed out that Apple’s SVP of hardware engineering, Dan Riccio, will oversee this team as he already does for Apple’s AR work.
