Mark Gurman & Gerrit De Vynck:

The car operating system is the software core of a future Apple car platform, in the same way iOS powers the iPhone. A separate Apple team is developing software that would guide future self-driving cars and run on the operating system, one of the people said.

The autonomous software was only one of many features once planned to run on the car operating system. For example, Apple engineers envisioned a heads-up display showing apps such as maps that could be manipulated by the company’s voice-based digital assistant Siri, according to a person familiar with the matter.

The fate of these features depends on Project Titan’s overall strategic direction. Bob Mansfield, who took over the project in April, has given engineers a deadline of next fall to prove the self-driving technology before deciding on next steps, people familiar with the matter have said.

Other Project Titan teams include a self-driving platform simulation group, according to one of the people familiar with the situation. Apple has developed simulators that use virtual reality to test the self-driving software without taking the system onto public roads. That team now includes VR expert Doug Bowman, another person said. He joined Apple in January, according to the Financial Times.