Anytime there are murmurings of an entirely new Apple product, our ears perk up. Apple’s not immune to its own flops, but most of the news these days tend to center on versions of long-running product families, such as the Mac, iPhone, and Watch. It’s comparatively rare to hear news of a version one of Apple anything.
That’s why we’ve been sniffing around ever since we heard rumors from a historically credible source that Apple is bringing a new device early next year to its smart home family. Apple’s HomePod family hasn’t much impressed us to date, but if this new device can successfully integrate everything it promises to, Apple’s smart home just might finally get some respect.
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“homepod” smart display
Without a name yet by which to call it, us tech journalists have been simply referring to it as the “HomePod” smart display in the meantime, since it’s expected to occupy a space in Apple’s existing HomePod ecosystem. As a smart-home-unifying “AI wall tablet” that promises to link cameras and doorbells and run Apple apps, it’s an entirely new product. So new, it doesn’t even yet have a name, at least outside of Apple’s (semi) whisper-proof walls.
Reporter Mark Gurman is noted for the accuracy of his insight into Apple rumors, and over at Bloomberg he details Apple’s efforts at introducing a new device in its smart home space. With the device about the size of two iPhones side by side, he reports, its six-inch touchscreen will reportedly allow it to run a variety of Apple apps such as Safari, Apple Music, and Notes, but without access to the official App Store you ostensibly won’t be able to swap out the stock Apple apps for your favorite third-party apps. So no Google Keep for you.
look and listen, but don’t touch. ok, you can touch.
Despite the touchscreen, Gurman reports that the new device will be primarily controlled by voice through Apple Intelligence’s App Intents framework, proof of just how committed Apple is to using Apple Intelligence as a pan-device-and-service tool to integrate Apple’s full lineup more tightly than poor, jealous Siri ever could on its (her?) own. Siri is coming along for the ride, though, and will be integrated into the device.
After splintering iPadOS from mobile’s iOS, which from the beginning has been distinct from the computer’s macOS (after it used to be OS X), and developing from iOS the watchOS, we thought Apple was done creating new operating systems. Wrong, wrong, wrong. The new operating system for this device, per Gurman, is a blend of watchOS and iOS StandBy mode.
It shifts between them based on how far the user is from the device. There are devices, from smartphones to screen-possessing smart home hub displays, that shift what they display (and how large they display it) based on whether their users are looking at the screen or not, but switching operating systems entirely based on distance is rather interesting and unique. We can’t wait to see more of how that’ll work.
a base to build on if you don’t want to hang around
There’ll be a speaker base so that the device can be placed on surfaces, as well as a wall mount. There will almost certainly be speakers in the device itself, and you won’t need a speaker base to get audio from it. If it truly wants to integrate functions like the rumored Apple smart doorbell, and to reportedly integrate with other devices to work as an in-home video and audio intercom, it’ll surely have to have built-in speakers regardless of a separate base.
Of course, that means it’ll have a built-in camera for FaceTiming. And supposedly there’s a battery, too. Whether it’s meant to be used regularly without having to plug a power adapter into the wall or if it’s just meant to be a battery backup in the event of a power outage is unknown yet. I’m banking heavily on the latter.
So how long do we have to wait for this supposed unifying device? Until March, per Gurman, although there are some reports that software issues could delay that further. We’ll continue to follow this story with a surfeit of interest, especially once we have a name for it.
