Sources: Apple has several engineers in Canada building a car OS, of which about two dozen came from Blackberry's QNX, is testing self-driving software with VR
Context & Ripple Effects
This report lands three months after sources said Apple's car effort had pivoted toward an autonomous driving software system rather than a full vehicle — and it explains how: by staffing up in Canada, home of BlackBerry's QNX, whose real-time OS already runs in cars. Roughly two dozen of the new hires came straight from QNX, on top of the auto executives Apple pulled in starting with the Mercedes-Benz R&D chief hire in early 2015.
The move puts Apple in direct competition with its own talent pool's former employer. BlackBerry's answer came within two months: a $75M Ottawa autonomous-vehicle testing hub doubling down on QNX — and a decade later QNX is still in the game, repositioning its automotive software as an OS for robots.
First-order effects
- Apple acquires embedded automotive-OS expertise it could not build internally, while BlackBerry loses about two dozen QNX engineers to what may become a rival car-software platform.
Second-order effects
- BlackBerry responds defensively with a $75M investment in an Ottawa autonomous-vehicle testing hub, betting on QNX's incumbent automaker relationships to counter Apple's talent raid.
- VR-based self-driving simulation lets Apple iterate on driving software without fielding a physical test fleet, lowering the cost of staying in the software race after the 2016 pivot away from building its own car.
Third-order effects
- The talent flow cuts both ways over time: within a year, 17 automotive engineers left Apple for startup Zoox once ambitions were pared back, showing how volatile staffing becomes when a giant's car program changes direction.
- If the software/hardware split holds, the industry stratifies into vehicle makers and an operating-system layer above them — the layer QNX occupies and where BlackBerry's long-term positioning as a robot OS supplier points.
The trend: Car development is splitting between those who build vehicles and those who own the operating-system layer, with embedded-OS specialists like QNX becoming contested strategic assets.