Apple’s Smart Home Delays May Be About More Than Just Siri
Credit: Philip Goolkasian / Behance
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Although a spate of late 2024 reports suggested that Apple was poised to release a new home hub this spring, recent rumors suggest it’s been delayed until at least later this year, and may not launch until after iOS 19 ships.
Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, who first predicted Apple was planning an iPad-like smart home hub for a March 2025 release, revised that prediction in mid-February following reports that Apple was struggling with its more advanced and personalized Siri.
Gurman has long maintained that Apple Intelligence and the more advanced Siri that it promises will be at the heart of Apple’s new home products ecosystem. With Siri’s improvements officially pushed off into the iOS 19 cycle, the home hub would be similarly delayed until its internal software smarts were ready for prime time.
Still, there could be more to this than just Apple Intelligence. In a post on X, well-known Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo reiterates his December prediction that mass production of Apple’s “display-equipped HomePod” would slip into the third quarter of 2025 — after Apple’s June Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) — due to software development issues. However, Kuo believes it’s not only Siri that’s holding Apple’s new home devices back, but also ensuring the design aligns with iOS 19.
It’s not entirely clear what Kuo is referring to here, but we’ve already heard reports that iOS 19 is expected to get a massive design overhaul. While Apple’s home devices are expected to run a different ‘homeOS’ operating system, it’s not hard to imagine that Apple wants to ensure its aesthetic matches what it plans to do for the rest of its devices.
To put it another way, there’s little point in Apple polishing up homeOS with a contemporary design at a stage when it’s about to rip out and replace that design everywhere else. It makes far more sense to start fresh with the new user interface style right out of the gate.
Kuo’s references to a “display-equipped HomePod” imply he may not be talking about the same home hub as Gurman. However, even if these are two entirely different devices, it’s likely they’re being impacted by the same software development issues, from UI design to Siri.
There’s been no shortage of speculation on Apple’s plans for the living room. Apple’s sudden discontinuation of the full-sized HomePod in early 2021 sparked off a round of rumors that Apple was planning to replace it with something else. At the time, Apple said it wanted to focus on the HomePod mini, but even its diminutive smart speaker hasn’t seen a hardware upgrade in over four years (unless you count new colors).
The disappearance of the full-sized HomePod was an unusual move on Apple’s part, and it’s easy to under how a lot of folks were expecting a replacement to be right around the corner. After all, Apple had introduced Home Theatre Audio features specifically for the full-sized HomePod in tvOS 14.2 only a few months earlier. Only a few weeks after the HomePod was discontinued, a new Apple TV 4K arrived with more HomePod-specific features — and even a picture of the HomePod on the box.
In retrospect, the inscrutable nature of Apple’s decisions here may have had a much simpler explanation than we all thought at the time: Apple’s internal teams probably weren’t communicating that well. The group working on the Apple TV 4K and tvOS likely wasn’t told the HomePod was about to be discontinued. Either that or Apple’s top brass really did make the decision so suddenly that nobody had time to pivot.
After two years of reports that Apple was working on everything from an Apple TV with a FaceTime camera to an iPad and HomePod speaker combo or a giant iPad for the home, what we got instead was a second-generation HomePod in early 2023 that was virtually identical to the original. Apple swapped out the A8 chip for a newer S7 chip, added the temperature and humidity sensors and Matter support from the 2020 HomePod mini, and switched to a removable power cord. It was a nice refresh, but hardly revolutionary.
Nevertheless, rumors began to gain some substance last year, leading us to believe that the second-generation HomePod was really just intended to tide us over while Apple preparing something better. Multiple reports suggested Apple was working on four different devices, although it’s unclear if all of them would eventually make it to release.
- A traditional HomePod with a display on top. This would look nearly identical to the second-generation HomePod, with the top panel swapped out for a glass LCD touchscreen. Several sources confirmed that this was in an “advanced-stage prototype” phase in late 2023 with a codename of B720 and was being “actively worked on by Apple.”
- A ‘HomePod Pro’ with a seven-inch screen. Reportedly code-named Z314, it’s a bit harder to envision what this would look like. Multiple reports confirm a seven-inch touchscreen initially tested with a variation of tvOS and possibly powered by an A15 chip, but attached in some way to a full HomePod speaker. This is likely the device Kuo is referring to.
- A Smart Home Hub. This was the device reported by Gurman last fall that he initially expected to arrive in March. It was said to be an iPad-like panel measuring seven inches square designed to be mounted on a wall or propped up on a table in a central location for controlling home devices and interacting with other Apple apps and services. It’s expected to have a camera for FaceTime and a mic and speakers for interacting with Siri and playing audio, although it likely won’t produce the same sound quality as a HomePod.
- A second-generation HomePod mini. This may be the least exciting entry in the home lineup, as it’s reportedly slated for only a minor refresh to update to the latest S9 chip (which TSMC has reportedly begun producing for Apple in Arizona). The design will likely remain identical, although it may get new colors, and it’s rumored to have a new Apple-designed Wi-Fi chip that could give it router or Wi-Fi extender capabilities, but that won’t be its main selling point.
Again, while there’s ample evidence that Apple has explored all four of these products over the past two years, there’s no guarantee that all of them will see the light of day, or even what Apple’s timing might be. There’s also a chance that Gurman and Kuo are now talking about the same product. Kuo doesn’t typically know anything about codenames as his sources come from inside Apple’s supply chain.
We haven’t heard too much lately about the more traditional HomePod designs, but that might simply be that there’s not much to say about them. It’s unlikely either will be major updates; even the full-sized HomePod with a display on top will likely be more about showing basic status information than supporting a full app experience.
[The information provided in this article has NOT been confirmed by Apple and may be speculation. Provided details may not be factual. Take all rumors, tech or otherwise, with a grain of salt.]
