The world’s biggest technology companies are heading to Las Vegas for the annual CES trade show next week, with even Apple Inc. making a rare official appearance… Amazon.com Inc. and Google will promote existing digital-assistant technology through their own internet-connected gadgets and similar products made by other firms…
Apple’s HomeKit, a system for controlling devices in the home, will also be on display. Some companies will show off new gadgets for the home that work with Siri, Apple’s digital assistant… Amazon, Apple and Alphabet Inc.’s Google recently joined Samsung in the Zigbee Alliance, a foundation that promotes standards for smart-home devices and the broader Internet of Things. And Apple has been hiring for a team that’s working on new smart-home software and devices…
Still, major new devices from the biggest companies will, once again, not be on display in Las Vegas… This year, the iPhone maker will be present in an official capacity for the first time in decades. Rather than pitching new hardware, though, Apple executive Jane Horvath is scheduled to speak on a consumer privacy panel Jan. 7.
MacDailyNews Take: It seems like Apple took stock of their portfolio of products and services, found HomeKit and Siri obviously lacking, and have decided to put some work into making the first widespread personal digital assistant into a first class assistant along with pushing the home automation market to a new level with HomeKit as the basis for a new standard to assure privacy and security. It’s 2020! We should be further along in home automation and Siri should be much further along in capabilities than we are today.
Looked though the CES 2020 exhibitor directory and Apple is not there. What, are they just putting up a little side table at the Zigbee booth?
RTFA:
“This year, the iPhone maker will be present in an official capacity for the first time in decades. Rather than pitching new hardware, though, Apple executive Jane Horvath is scheduled to speak on a consumer privacy panel Jan. 7.”
(Yeah, saw that after I posted. Still, sending a sub-VP-level exec to sit on a panel is hardly a newsworthy CES presence.)