- Apple is working on a smart home hub powered by Siri
- Now, the hub could be delayed for the foreseeable future
- That’s because it relies on Siri features that Apple recently postponed
Apple was reportedly looking to expand further into the smart home space in 2025 with a home hub device that would combine a speaker with a display, potentially making it one of the best smart speakers around. Unfortunately, there’s been some bad news for those looking forward to it, as Apple has reportedly delayed the device for the foreseeable future.
The news comes via Bloomberg reporter Mark Gurman’s Power On newsletter. There, Gurman explains that Apple “had hoped to announce this product in March.” Yet with more than a third of the month already gone, that’s now looking highly unlikely – and it seems to delays could drag on due to Apple’s problems with rolling out its AI-infused Siri.
Apple’s home hub will apparently rely heavily on some of the upgraded Siri capabilities that Apple teased last June at its WWDC 2024 conference. Those features include understanding your personal context and performing in-app tasks.
Yet news emerged last week that Apple would be postponing those features. In a statement to Apple blog Daring Fireball, Apple explained that “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.”
According to Gurman, Apple feels that the smart home hub is unviable without those missing features. That means we’ll have to wait for the upgraded Siri experience later in the year before the hub makes an appearance.
Apple vs Amazon
And it could get worse. In a report released last week, Gurman stated that some senior Apple execs are so concerned about the state of Siri’s promised features that the entire system might have to be scrapped and rebuilt from the ground up. If that happens, the features might not arrive until 2026.
That could potentially mean Apple losing significant ground against rivals like Amazon. The company recently announced the Alexa+ smart home assistant, which infuses Amazon’s home devices with artificial intelligence (AI) powers. That’s exactly the area Apple’s smart home hub is targeting, and Apple won’t want to lose too much of the initiative here.
That said, it sounds like the hardware of Apple’s home hub is closer to a finished state than its software. Gurman reported in his Power On newsletter that select Apple employees have been taking the hubs home for in-situ testing and evaluation. That suggests that the device itself isn’t too far from being ready, even if its Siri software is a long way off.
As for when we’ll see this product hit store shelves, that’s anyone’s guess. If Apple can perform a miracle and fix up Siri in the coming months, we might not have to wait too long. But judging by Gurman’s reporting, we may have a lengthy delay on our hands.
You might also like
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/GV4g9rVeeMbxgUgjSM58uN-1200-80.jpg
Source link
alexblake.techradar@gmail.com (Alex Blake)
