I disagree. Apple is the fourth largest company in the US and ninth largest in the world. Anything they work seriously on is a large project and sometimes they decide to shelf it. They have manufactured computers, computer accessories, tablets, watches, iPods, Siri, other software, AirTags, networking HW, and other stuff I probably missed.
Their operating systems are restricted to Apple hardware by copyright law and the included license. That’s how they can sell Apple products for such high prices. It is the only way to be able to legally use Apple software. They’ve patented the idea of putting a camera in the middle of a screen, but they never put it in to a product. They do stuff like that. If they can’t make a car that has features specific to Apple, like Tesla did with autopliot, then that could be why they lost interest.
They recently applied for a patent for tamper proof indicators for cameras (https://www.patentlyapple.com/2022/03/apple-invents-tamper-resistant-indicators-for-mac-cameras-so-that-hackers-cant-film-you-in-secret.html). I already invented this or though of this. There is nothing being invented, it’s just a design requirement using existing technology. It’s not something that should ever become a patent. Most likely it will never make it in to a real product and anyone who tries to implement this feature will get sued by Apple if they do get the patent.
It’s been done.
MacOS is certified as a single Unix specification. So the main core is really just a Unix OS. IOS is a version of the MaxOS.
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Apple is not the only company to have produced this feature, and therefore it is neither novel nor exclusive to Apple. Other manufacturers have produced firmware-level or hardware-level interlocks to prevent the webcam from being enabled without the “in use” light coming on.
Why are they trying to patent something that already exists then?
Here is a relevant article: