Apple decided to stop building cars and smartwatch displays in-house so it laid off 600 employees, according to a report from Bloomberg Thursday. The layoffs, which occurred in Feb. and March, affected 87 employees working at a secret Apple facility working on smartwatch screens, and hundreds working on the Apple Car. Apple began to wind down its secret car project two months ago, throwing away roughly a decade’s worth of research and billions of dollars in investments.
Former employees working on the Apple Car were even convicted for stealing secrets about the project. As for the smartwatch display, this was a smaller team that was part of Apple’s efforts to design more of its technology in-house. Apple customizes the displays in its products, but they’re based on designs from LG and Samsung. This team aimed to make new watch displays that were supposed to be thinner, more colorful, and brighter. However, this effort was scrapped as well.