Apple's Tim Cook tells the car industry to expect 'massive change'

Apple's chief executive has given the latest sign that the iPhone maker is planning an assault on the car industry, saying there is a "massive change" in the market.

Tim Cook did not comment on numerous rumours and reports that Apple is preparing to build its own car, but suggested that it could make further strides into the market beyond its current, limited, efforts.

"It would seem like there will be massive change in that industry, massive change," Cook said at the Wall Street Journal's WSJDLive conference in California. "You may not agree with that. That’s what I think.

"When I look at the automobile, what I see is that software becomes an increasingly important part of the car of the future. You see that autonomous driving becomes much more important."

His comments come after widespread reports that Apple is preparing to follow fellow tech giant Google in developing a self-driving or electric car. It is reportedly preparing to put one on sale as early as 2019, but safety and testing regulations mean it would have to make such plans public well before then.

Apple already has car software called CarPlay

Apple already has an onboard computer system, CarPlay, which allows cars to display calls, play music and talk to Siri, which is slowly being adopted by some manufacturers. Cook said that Apple was currently working on bringing this "iPhone experience" into cars, but opened up the possibility of doing more.

"We’ll see what we do in the future," he said.

Apple has hired several high-profile car experts including Megan McClain, a former Volkswagen engineer with expertise in automated driving, and Vinay Palakkode, a graduate researcher at Carnegie Mellon University, a hub of automated driving research