Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman today reported that the Apple home hub – set to be announced on October 13 as part of Apple’s ‘Welcome home’ event experience — will be called the HomeView. The brand would obviously sit alongside the company’s existing HomePod brand for smart speakers.
Gurman also reported on a few other new tidbits for the device, including the news that while it will be announced on Tuesday, it probably won’t be released until the middle of November …
The home hub will feature a design akin to the iMac G4, a floating display sitting atop a speaker base. Gurman says it will be powered by an A18 chip. There will also be a wall-mountable version with a square base.
The HomeView with speaker base will reportedly come in four color options: space gray, silver, starlight and pink. The wall-mountable model will only be offered in monochrome silver or space gray.
The device will primarily use voice as the input method, with Siri AI as the centerpiece of the user experience, with users ‘viewing’ content from across the room. It will run Apple apps, and not have an App Store — although users might be able to project third-party app widgets from a nearby iPhone.
Alongside the HomeView unveiling, Apple is also preparing hardware refreshes for the Apple TV set-top box and the HomePod mini. It has also partnered with appliance makers like LG to prepare a range of smart home accessories all meant to work well together, including smart thermostats, door locks and doorbells.
Apple is set to officially announce its new smart home initiative on Tuesday. Stay tuned for full coverage of all the announcements.
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