While Apple CEO Tim Cook’s comments during yesterday’s earnings call didn’t contain any major revelations, he did reiterate that he expects the cutting edge augmented reality and autonomous systems technology that the company is working on to fundamentally improve the way people live. Earlier this year Apple shifted its focus away from building an electric car and toward constructing an autonomous driving system, but Cook said cars are just one of many applications for autonomous technology, “the mother of all AI projects.” “Autonomous systems can be used in a variety of ways. A vehicle is only one, but there are many different areas of it. And I don’t want to go any further with that,” he said, although he did add that the company does “have a large project going, and we’re making a big investment in this from our point of view.”
Cook also spent a little time talking about AR and Apple’s ARKit, saying he expects to see a wide range of applications not long after iOS 11 debuts this fall. With possible uses in everything from gaming and entertainment to home measurements and business applications, Cook called the move into AR “big and profound.” “This is one of those huge things that we’ll look back at and marvel at the start of it,” Cook said. “I think customers are going to see it in a variety of ways and it feels great to get it going at a level that can get all of the developers behind it.” As attached as we already are to our devices, Cook told CNBC he thinks the iPhone will become “even more essential than it currently is. I know it’s hard to believe, but I think that’s the case.”