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"&amp;quot;We have all this money, we have all these people, why aren\u2019t we doing more stuff? You may say that Apple only does a very, very small number of things, and that\u2019s working pretty well for them. But I find that unsatisfying. I feel like there are all these opportunities in the world to use technology to make people\u2019s lives better. At Google we\u2019re attacking maybe 0.1 percent of that space. And all the tech companies combined are only at like 1 percent. That means there\u2019s 99 percent virgin territory.&amp;quot;\r\n\r\n\u2013 Google CEO, Larry Page\u00A0talking to Wired, January 2013\r\nAn interesting point was made in the comments of our story about Google\u2019s acquisition of robotics firm Boston Dynamics yesterday; what would happen if Apple invested some of its enormous cash pile into potentially world-changing \u2018moonshots\u2019, the same way that Google does?\r\n\r\nIt\u2019s a good question. Why isn\u2019t Apple \u2013 with a cash reserve of $147 billion as of October this year \u2013 not looking to tackle problems that could make the world a better place 50-to-100 years from now, rather than just investing in lighter, more powerful computers and iDevices, and small-fry innovations like smartwatches that will make them a heap more money in the short term?\r\n\r\nThe answer has to be, how do we know it\u2019s not? Apple is famously secretive about what it\u2019s going to announce in the next few months, let alone the next few decades. The company could easily hide its spending on ambitious R&amp;amp;amp;D projects in its published financial results and we\u2019d never know any better.\r\n\r\nOther signals, like unusual hires and company acquisitions to fuel moonshots, wouldn\u2019t necessarily show up on the public\u2019s radar. We wouldn\u2019t know much at all about Google\u2019s moonshots if the company didn\u2019t choose to discuss projects like self-driving cars, robotics research and Internet-conducting balloons with the media. No journalists picked up on any of its eight robotics company acquisitions until it chose to announce them. We know for a fact that Apple makes more acquisitions than are revealed to the public; what if some of those are in fields beyond consumer electronics and software?\r\nA very Apple moonshot\r\nSo, if Apple could be working on moonshots, what might they be? Looking at Apple's approach to business, it seems hard to believe that they\u2019d be in quite the same vein as Google. It just doesn\u2019t feel to be in the company\u2019s DNA. You can\u2019t imagine Apple hiring someone like futurist Ray Kurzweil, for example. Kurzweil\u2019s focus on the singularity, where artificial intelligence surpasses human capabilities, feels far more Google-y than it does Apple-y.\r\n\r\nYet Apple does have interests and passions beyond selling you more stuff. Beyond the company's product- and business-focused ideals like ease of use, the importance of design and improving\u00A0working conditions in China, CEO Tim Cook cares about things like\u00A0equality and fighting AIDS. Could Apple be working on moonshots in these fields? Perhaps, but it feels like whatever ambitious R&amp;amp;amp;D projects it might work on would be focused on making the world a better place in a very human way, as opposed to advancing towards the singularity.\r\n\r\nWhatever an Apple moonshot might be (if indeed one exists), we probably won\u2019t know any time soon. Apple \u2013 and the people who run it \u2013 are far too secretive for us to make any solid guesses. Still, it\u2019s nice to think that wealthy, successful tech companies beyond Google might be working on projects that will advance the human race in a way beyond just giving us all more gadgets to buy.\r\n\r\nImage credit: Shutterstock"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://thenextweb.com/apple/2013/12/15/apple-moonshot-look-like/>