Apple continues to face setbacks in its AI ambitions, particularly with the long-awaited overhaul of Siri. According to a new Bloomberg News report, the company has once again postponed the launch of its much-rumored smart home display (internally code-named J490), a screen-equipped device designed as a key hub for home control and featuring the upgraded Siri as its primary interface.
Originally targeted for spring 2025 and later eyed for earlier this year, the product that’s often described as a HomePod-style hub with a display, is now expected to arrive later in 2026, likely around September, to align with the completion of the revamped, more intelligent LLM Siri.
Mark Gurman for Bloomberg News:
The predicament underscores the need for Apple to catch up in artificial intelligence. Siri lies at the heart of its AI strategy — with many future products depending on the technology. But Apple has pushed back long-promised features, including some that were unveiled to consumers nearly two years ago.
That’s created discord between the tech giant’s software and hardware plans. The smart display itself has been finished for several months. But the company is now looking to release it around September, when Apple anticipates that the new Siri will finally be complete.
The display, which looks like a square iPad that can be either affixed to a half-domed-shaped speaker base or a wall attachment, is designed to be a central AI hub for the home. The user interface includes a list of circular app icons in a similar arrangement to an Apple Watch’s home screen.
The highlight is a facial recognition-based system that can recognize people when they walk up to the device. With that information, the product can then display personalized data, such as the user’s calendar appointments, reminders, notes, music and news preferences.
MacDailyNews Take: At this point, don’t ship LLM Siri until it works well and, even then, tag it with a CYA “beta” label to preemptively smooth over any launch hiccups.
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