According to Mark Gurman from Bloomberg, Apple has opened up an internal testing program for the upcoming smart home product, which some refer to as HomePad. It was scheduled to debut in March, but has unfortunately become delayed while the company figures out how to build its promised new Siri capabilities.
Home hub delays
Even before all of the new Siri setbacks, the home hub was likely to miss its rumored March timeframe anyways. That’s because the product relies on the new App Intent features with Siri, which Apple originally planned to launch in April, alongside iOS 18.4.
Now, Apple has officially confirmed that many of its new Siri upgrades will take longer than initially anticipated, in a statement to Daring Fireball:
We’ve also been working on a more personalized Siri, giving it more awareness of your personal context, as well as the ability to take action for you within and across your apps. It’s going to take us longer than we thought to deliver on these features and we anticipate rolling them out in the coming year.
Rumors had already pointed to new Siri features launching in iOS 18.5 or later, but given Apple’s ‘in the coming year’ wording, it sounds like things may be more dire than we had hoped. Gurman later reported that Apple may need to start over when it comes to its approach to Siri and Apple Intelligence.
Either way, with Siri being so behind, Gurman now reports that the Apple home hub is postponed:
At one point, the company had hoped to announce this product in March. But because the device, to an extent, relies on the delayed Siri capabilities, it has been postponed as well.
This is unfortunate, but makes perfect sense.
Internal testing program
Despite the delays to release the new smart home hub publicly, Apple has spun up an internal testing program, according to Gurman. With this program, select employees can take the product home and provide feedback to Apple, allowing the company to work out flaws and improve the product before it hits prime time.
As a refresher, here are some of the rumored specs for the new home hub product:
- 7-inch square display with thick bezel
- Camera at the top
- Rechargeable built in battery
- A new Apple operating system: homeOS
- Heavy focus on video applications like FaceTime
- Support for many Apple apps
- StandBy-inspired dashboard
- Easy ability to control your smart home
- Apple Intelligence support
Are you looking forward to Apple’s new smart home hub? Let us know in the comments.
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