Apple Watch lead Kevin Lynch reportedly transferred to 'Apple Car' team

AppleInsider

Apple Watch and health executive Kevin Lynch is reportedly being moved to the "Apple Car" team after years overseeing health initiatives.

Kevin Lynch moving to 'Apple Car' project

Kevin Lynch has been one of the more visible Apple executives, having appeared at multiple product events and WWDC. He is Apple's VP of technology and is best known for his work with Apple Watch and health initiatives within Apple.

According to Business Insider, the Apple executive is changing roles within the company to work on Project Titan, Apple's secret car project. It is presently unclear how this will affect his responsibility with the Apple Watch and health teams.

The report says Lynch will be "stepping back" from the health team, with Evan Doll set to replace him. Doll is currently a director of health software engineering and will report to Lynch during his absence.

Oversight for the "Apple Car" project is currently provided by John Giannandrea, Apple's SVP of machine learning and artificial intelligence. Kevin Lynch doesn't appear to be taking over as project lead but rather moving in as one of the engineers.

"Apple Car" is perhaps one of Apple's worst-kept secrets. While Apple's plans are unclear, and it may never release a vehicle directly to consumers, the company is certainly working on technology used in autonomous vehicles and hiring personnel with expertise in the area.

Keep up with everything Apple in the weekly AppleInsider Podcast -- and get a fast news update from AppleInsider Daily. Just say, "Hey, Siri," to your HomePod mini and ask for these podcasts, and our latest HomeKit Insider episode too.If you want an ad-free main AppleInsider Podcast experience, you can support the AppleInsider podcast by subscribing for $5 per month through Apple's Podcasts app, or via Patreon if you prefer any other podcast player.

Read on AppleInsider

crowley

I guess if you can move from Adobe Flash to Apple Watch then there's no reason you can't then move to Apple Car. 

red oak

This is big news.  Apple Car getting more real 

mknelson

crowley said:

I guess if you can move from Adobe Flash to Apple Watch then there's no reason you can't then move to Apple Car. 

True! 

Most of his early work seems to be in UI. That's a pretty useful and portable skillset.

13485

I've been bullish on an Apple Car from the beginning. But I'm beginning to think that this is now just another sign of an overall lack of vision and continuous lack of leadership overseeing whatever vision there was to begin with. It seems that children have been conceived, born, raised, and graduated from college in the time that Apple has been working on the Car, all without any evidence of an actual ship year--or even decade.

Meanwhile...Lucid has rolling stock and production schedules in about half the time. Get a professional to run the "division", stop the endless invention and re-invention and concept tinkering and set up a schedule. This isn't Jonny Ive-ville anymore. Real companies ship.

ktr

He is goooood

mknelson

13485 said:

I've been bullish on an Apple Car from the beginning. But I'm beginning to think that this is now just another sign of an overall lack of vision and continuous lack of leadership overseeing whatever vision there was to begin with. It seems that children have been conceived, born, raised, and graduated from college in the time that Apple has been working on the Car, all without any evidence of an actual ship year--or even decade.

Meanwhile...Lucid has rolling stock and production schedules in about half the time. Get a professional to run the "division", stop the endless invention and re-invention and concept tinkering and set up a schedule. This isn't Jonny Ive-ville anymore. Real companies ship.

Depends what their end product plan is.

Most of the discussion has been on fully autonomous driving.

Is Tesla a real company? They have semi-functional betas shipping that occasionally steer you into barriers, trees, posts (and yes, that's the V9 beta as reported on sites that usually boost Tesla) so you MUST have your hands on the wheel and be prepared to take over.

beats

13485 said:

I've been bullish on an Apple Car from the beginning. But I'm beginning to think that this is now just another sign of an overall lack of vision and continuous lack of leadership overseeing whatever vision there was to begin with. It seems that children have been conceived, born, raised, and graduated from college in the time that Apple has been working on the Car, all without any evidence of an actual ship year--or even decade.

Meanwhile...Lucid has rolling stock and production schedules in about half the time. Get a professional to run the "division", stop the endless invention and re-invention and concept tinkering and set up a schedule. This isn't Jonny Ive-ville anymore. Real companies ship.

Apple isn’t a real company because they don’t ship anything…

/s

jwsc

13485 said:

I've been bullish on an Apple Car from the beginning. But I'm beginning to think that this is now just another sign of an overall lack of vision and continuous lack of leadership overseeing whatever vision there was to begin with. It seems that children have been conceived, born, raised, and graduated from college in the time that Apple has been working on the Car, all without any evidence of an actual ship year--or even decade.

Meanwhile...Lucid has rolling stock and production schedules in about half the time. Get a professional to run the "division", stop the endless invention and re-invention and concept tinkering and set up a schedule. This isn't Jonny Ive-ville anymore. Real companies ship.

Really, I don't get the Jony Ive hate.  Been reading a lot of it over the last few years and it's clueless banter IMO.  Jony was kick-ass and he did help ship product - when it was ready and not before.

Does anyone know if this effort even goes by project Titan anymore?  My guess would be it has changed code names several already.

I do agree with your point about Lucid (not to mention Tesla) pushing development and transitioning to production quickly.  Those companies have a vision and focus.  Clearly, the Apple Car project has suffered significant setbacks and changes in direction over the years.  I almost understand why given that it's not an unreasonable question to ask what Apple can bring to the automotive table that others cannot.  It is true that traditional automakers have failed miserably when it comes to technology integration.  They do not understand software and how core it is to the modern automotive experience.  It's not like they can't hire the right people.  They do.  But their old school product managers and chief engineers do not have the mindset that would drive then to fundamentally reassess what a car should be.  They are risk averse, which is ironic because if they don't starting thinking outside their traditional box, Tesla and the other EV upstarts will eat their lunch.  Witness Tesla Plaid in action.

Apple, which does understand software and the user experience, can offer up this part of the equation.  But I think an AppleCar needs to offer a lot more than that if they are to stand any chance of disrupting the auto market.  Tesla has amazing electric motors and battery technology.  We haven't seen a whole lot of Apple activity in those areas.  Maybe they've become really good at keeping secrets and will surprise us all in the next couple of years.  I truly hope they will.  But I remain doubtful with what we have seen publicly thus far.

edited July 2021

larryjw

If it wasn't the case that Project Titan is known to exist at some level, nobody would know how long a product takes to ship. 

I've now lived long enough to realize some things take 20-30 years to come to fruition. 

lkrupp

13485 said:

I've been bullish on an Apple Car from the beginning. But I'm beginning to think that this is now just another sign of an overall lack of vision and continuous lack of leadership overseeing whatever vision there was to begin with. It seems that children have been conceived, born, raised, and graduated from college in the time that Apple has been working on the Car, all without any evidence of an actual ship year--or even decade.

Meanwhile...Lucid has rolling stock and production schedules in about half the time. Get a professional to run the "division", stop the endless invention and re-invention and concept tinkering and set up a schedule. This isn't Jonny Ive-ville anymore. Real companies ship.

Apple is such a failure, isn’t it. How it stays in business is a mystery, especially with Tim Apple at the helm.

bombdoe

It's obvious... Apple Car is going to be an ambulance.  

appleuseryeah

He's the Lynchpin of the Apple Car operation now, clearly. I hope his work on Apple Watch isn't yet done, however. He left his Adobe abode, watched out for Apple Watch, and now he'll be driving us all into the future. Sweet!

archstanton

13485 said:

I've been bullish on an Apple Car from the beginning. But I'm beginning to think that this is now just another sign of an overall lack of vision and continuous lack of leadership overseeing whatever vision there was to begin with. It seems that children have been conceived, born, raised, and graduated from college in the time that Apple has been working on the Car, all without any evidence of an actual ship year--or even decade.

Meanwhile...Lucid has rolling stock and production schedules in about half the time. Get a professional to run the "division", stop the endless invention and re-invention and concept tinkering and set up a schedule. This isn't Jonny Ive-ville anymore. Real companies ship.

The Apple Car is currently nothing other than a media reported advancing project. Whether it happens is still TBD. 

Comparing Apple to Lucid is odd. One’s a mega electronics software service Corp with a huge top line while the other is an investment house(CCI) owned EV producer trying (very) hard to only produce Ecars that meet lofty specs in sufficient number to justify a VERY lofty (and concerning) evaluation — in what is a very crowded and competitive EV space. Most consider their per year production goal to be concerningly difficult to be met. And That goal isn’t going to make them wildly profitable — not even close — just able to make another step in a long process to profitable viability. 

A company the size, depth and name brand excellence of Apple (Apple’s wearables revenue sector per year is more than Lucid’s entire uber lofty evaluation, not revenue, it’s big evaluation) would be foolish to hurry! get it to market! it’s about getting units shipped! That’s nonsense. The EV space is yet to see anything of a profitable standalone except Tesla (and that’s not by much). Vast majority of cars bought are still petroleum based, the EV market space is still young, wide open for eventual growth and not even a tiny micro bit dominated.  If, a big if, Apple is to bring an EV project to market, it needs to be specs that can be feasibly technologically met, production to sales schedule that is also feasible to a extreme Apple standard, and a final product that is worthy of carrying the Apple name.  I don’t know if Apple can do it. If anyone can it is probably Apple but that’s no guarantee whatsoever. But if Apple Car comes to market in 2 or 3 years it will almost certainly make Lucid and many of the other EV standalones nervous.  Apple’s ability to ramp production will be tough for most of the EV standalones to match. 

If it happens I’ll then be bullish on it too (I’ll also have bought as much Apple shares as I can). 

dk49

crowley said:

I guess if you can move from Adobe Flash to Apple Watch then there's no reason you can't then move to Apple Car. 

Adobe wasn't just about Flash. He was the CTO of Adobe before joining Apple. I believe he might have joined Apple Car team to lead the software efforts (and not just as an engineer, as stated in this post). 

ktr

lkrupp said:

13485 said:

I've been bullish on an Apple Car from the beginning. But I'm beginning to think that this is now just another sign of an overall lack of vision and continuous lack of leadership overseeing whatever vision there was to begin with. It seems that children have been conceived, born, raised, and graduated from college in the time that Apple has been working on the Car, all without any evidence of an actual ship year--or even decade.

Meanwhile...Lucid has rolling stock and production schedules in about half the time. Get a professional to run the "division", stop the endless invention and re-invention and concept tinkering and set up a schedule. This isn't Jonny Ive-ville anymore. Real companies ship.

Apple is such a failure, isn’t it. How it stays in business is a mystery, especially with Tim Apple at the helm.

Why would you consider Apple a failure ?

byronl

13485 said:

I've been bullish on an Apple Car from the beginning. But I'm beginning to think that this is now just another sign of an overall lack of vision and continuous lack of leadership overseeing whatever vision there was to begin with. It seems that children have been conceived, born, raised, and graduated from college in the time that Apple has been working on the Car, all without any evidence of an actual ship year--or even decade.

Meanwhile...Lucid has rolling stock and production schedules in about half the time. Get a professional to run the "division", stop the endless invention and re-invention and concept tinkering and set up a schedule. This isn't Jonny Ive-ville anymore. Real companies ship.

half the time? lucid was founded in 2007/2008 and has been working on the air since 2013/14. 

georgebmac

Steve looked for products that could change the world -- make it a better place.

Of the two:  Apple Watch vs Apple Car, I think the Apple Watch best fits that description.

It is transforming both finance with Apple Pay quicker & easier than any other method and healthcare -- where it promotes health rather medical management of conditions and their symptoms.

byronl

KTR said:

lkrupp said:

13485 said:

I've been bullish on an Apple Car from the beginning. But I'm beginning to think that this is now just another sign of an overall lack of vision and continuous lack of leadership overseeing whatever vision there was to begin with. It seems that children have been conceived, born, raised, and graduated from college in the time that Apple has been working on the Car, all without any evidence of an actual ship year--or even decade.

Meanwhile...Lucid has rolling stock and production schedules in about half the time. Get a professional to run the "division", stop the endless invention and re-invention and concept tinkering and set up a schedule. This isn't Jonny Ive-ville anymore. Real companies ship.

Apple is such a failure, isn’t it. How it stays in business is a mystery, especially with Tim Apple at the helm.

Why would you consider Apple a failure ?

i think they’re being sarcastic

iqatedo

JWSC said:

Really, I don't get the Jony Ive hate.  Been reading a lot of it over the last few years and it's clueless banter IMO.  Jony was kick-ass and he did help ship product - when it was ready and not before.

Indeed - Apple must not ship until the car (or whatever the project brings to light) is very, very mature. Apple is not a startup such as Tesla or Lucid but currently the world's most valuable company whose reputation likely could be much more easily damaged by a new product in a new product category, than enhanced by it. If Apple gets it right though...

I know very little about Kevin Lynch but I have this feeling, I'll just say it, that I can see him someday running Apple. 

rayz2016

13485 said:

I've been bullish on an Apple Car from the beginning. But I'm beginning to think that this is now just another sign of an overall lack of vision and continuous lack of leadership overseeing whatever vision there was to begin with. It seems that children have been conceived, born, raised, and graduated from college in the time that Apple has been working on the Car, all without any evidence of an actual ship year--or even decade.

Meanwhile...Lucid has rolling stock and production schedules in about half the time. Get a professional to run the "division", stop the endless invention and re-invention and concept tinkering and set up a schedule. This isn't Jonny Ive-ville anymore. Real companies ship.

More expert management tips from the armchair. 🙄