Gurman: Apple Still Working on Combined HomePod and Apple TV With FaceTime Camera
Apple is still working on a new HomePod product that combines a speaker, Apple TV functions, and a FaceTime camera, according to reliable Bloomberg journalist Mark Gurman.
In the Q&A section of his latest Power On newsletter, Gurman said he "absolutely" thinks that a new HomePod is coming that will likely be "at the center of Apple's approach" to the home.
Q: Do you think a new HomePod or home device is still coming?
A: I absolutely do think a new HomePod is coming — specifically, a device that combines a HomePod, Apple TV and FaceTime camera. I don't think a big stand-alone HomePod is still in development, but perhaps a new HomePod mini is coming. In any case, the combination product will probably be at the center of Apple's approach, with HomePod minis surrounding that throughout the home.
Gurman first suggested last year that Apple was working on a combined Apple TV with HomePod speaker that has a camera for video calls through a connected television set. In April 2021, Gurman said the device's other capabilities would include standard Apple TV box functions like watching video and gaming plus smart speaker uses such as playing music and using Apple's Siri digital assistant.
At the time of the original report, the product was said to be in the early stages, and that Apple could choose not to launch the product or change key features. However, based on Gurman's latest reading of the situation, Apple's original plans are still firmly in place.
Apple discontinued its original high-end HomePod in March 2021, which left many wondering if the company was working on a successor. The HomePod mini, a smaller version of the HomePod which launched in 2020, has been much more popular thanks to its lower price, so it wouldn't be surprising if Apple eventually launched another version of the HomePod mini down the line with new features, as Gurman suggests. But what a device would look like that combines a HomePod, Apple TV, and FaceTime camera still remains unclear.
Popular Stories
Apple has announced it will be holding a special event on Tuesday, May 7 at 7 a.m. Pacific Time (10 a.m. Eastern Time), with a live stream to be available on Apple.com and on YouTube as usual. The event invitation has a tagline of "Let Loose" and shows an artistic render of an Apple Pencil, suggesting that iPads will be a focus of the event. Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more ...
Apple has dropped the number of Vision Pro units that it plans to ship in 2024, going from an expected 700 to 800k units to just 400k to 450k units, according to Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo. Orders have been scaled back before the Vision Pro has launched in markets outside of the United States, which Kuo says is a sign that demand in the U.S. has "fallen sharply beyond expectations." As a...
Apple is finally planning a Calculator app for the iPad, over 14 years after launching the device, according to a source familiar with the matter. iPadOS 18 will include a built-in Calculator app for all iPad models that are compatible with the software update, which is expected to be unveiled during the opening keynote of Apple's annual developers conference WWDC on June 10. AppleInsider...
The upcoming iOS 17.5 update for the iPhone includes only a few new user-facing features, but hidden code changes reveal some additional possibilities. Below, we have recapped everything new in the iOS 17.5 and iPadOS 17.5 beta so far. Web Distribution Starting with the second beta of iOS 17.5, eligible developers are able to distribute their iOS apps to iPhone users located in the EU...
Apple today released several open source large language models (LLMs) that are designed to run on-device rather than through cloud servers. Called OpenELM (Open-source Efficient Language Models), the LLMs are available on the Hugging Face Hub, a community for sharing AI code. As outlined in a white paper [PDF], there are eight total OpenELM models, four of which were pre-trained using the...
Top Rated Comments
Rest easy, HomePod. You were one of the good ones. Sorry you have to see… whatever this thing is replace you.
I want two as my TV speakers, but I'm afraid of support =/