Apple registers a series of car-related domains

Apple registered three car-related domains in December, according to a recent report, potentially signaling the developing of the much-rumored “Apple Car.”

The three domains, according to Whois (via MacRumors), are indeed Apple.car, Apple.cars, and Apple.auto; records updated Jan. 8 to show Apple’s registration of all three domains one month earlier, in December, though none of the domains are active. Before now, a lot has been said about the possibility of a Cupertino-developed Apple Car: the electric vehicle could hit the road as early as 2019, and other manufacturers have welcomed the possibility of such a product. Yet, at the same time, these domain registrations might not point to the development of an actual car.

Image credit: MacRumors.

Instead, Apple has also been rumored to be creating its own heads-up display (HUD) for cars. In addition, Cupertino of course develops CarPlay: its own software that brings iOS to in-car displays. As such, the domain registrations could related to these developments. Mind you, this doesn’t exactly explain why Apple has been poaching engineers from Tesla.

For now, an Apple Car, if it is indeed being developed, is most likely a long, long way off; we also know that Cupertino tests and scraps countless product ideas — it could therefore be that the Apple Car never sees the light of day.

Those domain registrations, however, are nevertheless interesting, and at the most general level point to Apple’s continued work in the automobile industry. Of course, we’ll keep you posted with further information concerning Apple’s car-related plans as we receive it.

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