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Earlier this week, a report gave a detailed look at Apple's ongoing work to develop non-invasive blood glucose monitoring technology for the Apple Watch. This work is taking place in Apple's secretive Exploratory Design Group. A new report from Bloomberg sheds more light on the internal workings of the XDG team.
In the latest edition of his newsletter “Power On” explained Bloomberg's Mark Gurman says XDG "operates like a startup at Apple." The team consists of "a few hundred people," mostly "engineers and academics." The team operates in a building called Tantau 9, located just outside the ring at Apple Park. Organizationally, XDG belongs to Apple's Hardware Technologies Group, led by Johny Srouji. Day-to-day operations are managed by a handful of engineers and scientists. Previously, it was led by longtime "Engineering Fellow" Bill Athas, who passed away unexpectedly in late 2022. Not surprisingly, XDG is incredibly secretive and insular:
Although the team operates like a startup, it is divided like any other department at Apple: people working on a project within XDG are not allowed to talk about their work with other XDG members assigned to other projects.
Apple's Exploratory Design Group has enormous financial resources
However, team members are organized by skills rather than individual projects. This means that an engineer can work on multiple initiatives that match their skills rather than a specific product. According to Bloomberg, XDG is "primarily" focused on Apple's non-invasive blood glucose monitoring technology, but there are "several other ongoing projects." Today's report states that XDG is working on the next generation of display technology, as well as AR and VR features for Apple's headsets that are intended to "help people with eye diseases." The XDG team is also working on "power-saving processor technologies and next-generation batteries for smartphones," which was one of the original reasons for the team's creation.
Many of the chip and battery technologies developed by XDG have been used in iPhones, iPads and Macs for years.
Apple's XDG group has "enormous financial resources and scope to explore countless ideas." What the team plans to do next remains to be seen. (Photo by Unsplash / Carles Rabada)
