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Apple is gearing up to release what could be its most unexpected product in quite some time. According to a recent report from Bloomberg, the Cupertino tech giant is cooking up a device that’s part smart home hub, part tablet, and part AI gadget. The report comes as Apple looks for its next big success after over a decade of very little shakeup. For some time now, the iPhone has driven sales for Apple, with Mac and iPad at a distant second. While that has carried the company to become one of the most successful in the world, it has recently been leapfrogged by Nvidia. That shift is a sign of the times, and Tim Cook’s Apple is seemingly looking to reinvigorate itself. With its most recent big bet on the Vision Pro spatial computing headset — one that’s still searching for a purpose — having failed to catch wind, it’s clear the company is barking up a different tree with this supposed smart home tablet.
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Codename J490, the gadget described in the new report, would be a square, wall-mounted display roughly the size of two iPhones placed alongside one another. It reportedly has a camera, speakers, and a built-in battery. However, it will not run iOS or even iPadOS according to the report, instead sporting a new interface, codenamed Pebble, that’s being compared to a mix of watchOS and the iPhone’s StandBy mode. It will reportedly be centered around Siri and Apple Intelligence, able to smartly control your home using AI capabilities, in addition to other features like FaceTime video calling. Apple reportedly expects this to function mostly as an ambient computer, with users issuing voice commands similar to the way users interact with Google Assistant or Alexa devices from its competitors.
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Apple’s new wall-mounted smart home tablet could launch surprisingly soon
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Perhaps the most shocking detail about Apple’s new smart home tablet is how soon it’s predicted to launch, with Bloomberg’s report suggesting it could arrive as soon as March 2025. But while the tablet form factor is a surprise, Apple has been trying to make headway with its Apple Home smart home ecosystem (formerly known as HomeKit) for quite some time now. The ecosystem has its fans, but the Apple Home user base is dwarfed in size by that of Amazon Echo and Google Home, which boasted 71% and 23% of the market this year, respectively. Those companies’ smart home solutions play nice with Apple products, making them enticing options for its users compared to the far more expensive HomePod speaker made by Apple itself.
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The supposedly forthcoming smart home tablet will likely be angled against products such as the Amazon Echo Show, Echo Hub, and Google Nest Hub, which similarly provide a mixture of smart home controls, smart assistants, and video conferencing capabilities. However, Apple’s device sounds closer in approach to the Google Pixel Tablet we reviewed last year, which can be similarly undocked from its charging station to function as a standalone tablet. Apple is even planning to try and come close to the relatively cheap pricing of those competitor products, the report claims, though Bloomberg also notes that in characteristic fashion, there may be an up to $1,000 version with a robotic limb to move the screen around for video conferencing. Accessories to mount the tablet in various locations around the home will also be made available. Other smart home devices are reportedly in the pipeline.
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