Incoming Apple CEO John Ternus could kick off his tenure with an ambitious push into smart home hardware.
All signs point to a robust lineup of new Apple Home devices arriving as early as this fall, finally positioning the company as a serious contender in a category where it has lagged for years with painfully slow product updates.
With a true hardware engineer now at the helm, the odds of Apple making a full, sustained commitment to the smart home feel significantly higher than they did under his predecessor.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy for The Verge:
Apple has ceded ground to competitors in smart home hardware for years. Amazon and Google have launched more than 40 smart speakers and smart displays over the last decade, compared to Apple’s three. However, in that time, Apple has built out a privacy-focused, locally controlled platform for third-party devices. Take-up was initially slow from manufacturers, but Apple’s investment in Matter has spurred significant growth over the last few years. Yet there’s still been a dearth of Apple Home hardware. If the rumors are true, that’s all about to change.
First up, there’s the “HomePad,” rumored to be a roughly 7-inch-square touchscreen smart display featuring facial recognition, FaceTime, presence sensing, and control of smart home devices like lights, locks, and cameras. There are reported to be two form factors, a wall-mounted version that can snap to a MagSafe mount and one with a HomePod Mini-style speaker base. A device like this could help unlock one of the struggles in the smart home — shared control. Everyone in the home can control it, and the home can similarly react to each individual in it, rather than being controlled by one person and their phone.
Then there are rumors of dedicated Apple Home smart home devices, including home security cameras, a video doorbell, and a standalone sensor. Featuring facial recognition and presence sensors, the cameras could feed into Apple Home and a smarter Siri to provide it with context as to who is at home, when, and where. This would be a crucial element in unlocking the benefits of AI in the smart home, aiming to create a more ambient experience than today’s command-and-control interface…
Then there’s the long-rumored home robot, a tabletop device with a display mounted on a robotic arm. While a home device, this product also fits into the broader AI story.
MacDailyNews Take: Of course, Siri is the obvious bottleneck for all of this, but our little birdies keep chirping to us that LLM Siri is “going to be very much worth the wait.”
MacDailyNews Take: Beloved, cherished interns: please undertake your most-sacred duty and Tap That Keg™! Prost, everyone! 🍻🍻🍻🍻🍻
Please help support MacDailyNews — and enjoy subscriber-only articles, comments, chat, and more — by subscribing to our Substack: macdailynews.substack.com. Thank you!
Support MacDailyNews at no extra cost to you by using this link to shop at Amazon.
no need
Please; no more “help aids” that prevent humans from getting their fat axes off the couch. They are dumb conveniences that are NOT needed…I can lower my shades/turn down my lights—thank you.
Instead…devices/software that encourages /enables productivity and creativity. The way this puck is going means AI integration and even “SmArTer Siri” doesn’t induce confidence.