Recently, it was reported that Apple had hit “major milestones” on a new tech for Apple Watch, glucose monitoring in a non-invasive way. Now, Bloomberg claims that the team behind the new technology is internally called Exploratory Design Group, aka “XDG”, which also works on other secretive projects and contributed to existing products.
Apple’s secret XDG team works as a startup within the company
The report details that the XDG team operates as a startup within the company consisting of a few hundred members, and is situated at the Tantau 9 building outside of Apple Park. It was established years ago and was led by Bill Athas, a top engineering fellow at Apple until he passed away in late 2022.
Led by Senior Vice President Johny Srouji, the team is now part of the company’s Hardware Technologies group and Athas lieutenants run the team on a day-to-day basis like Dave Simon, Jeff Koller, Bryan Raines, Heather Sullens, and Jared Zerbe.
This team of Apple’s top engineers and scientists is currently working on non-prick glucose monitoring teach and has developed breakthroughs for products like chips and battery technologies used in iPhone, iPad, and Mac.
“Koller, Simon and Raines are involved in the glucose project, while Sullens and Zerbe manage other groups within the larger team.
Beyond the glucose work, XDG is working on next- generation display technology, artificial intelligence and features for AR/VR headsets that help people with eye diseases. The team originally came together under Athas to work on low-power processor technologies and next- generation batteries for smartphones, efforts that continue.”
XDG staff has “vast” financial resources and headroom to work on countless ideas to determine their feasibility but under strict secretive protocols, the staff members are not to discuss their projects with other colleagues.
While the team operates as a startup, it is still compartmentalized like any other Apple division: People working on one project within XDG aren’t allowed to communicate about their work with other members of XDG that are assigned to different projects.
But the team’s members are organized by skill sets rather than individual projects. That means that one engineer could be working on several initiatives that fit their skills, rather than on one specific product.
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