What’s happened? Apple’s journey into the AI world has been a bumpy one. The company faced criticism for its failure to deliver on an improved version of Siri after numerous setbacks and delays, but a report late Wednesday afternoon from Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman suggests Apple is preparing to make a comeback.
- Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO, said “The product pipeline — which I can’t talk about — it’s amazing, guys. It’s amazing.”
- The long-rumored smark speaker with a display is set to arrive next year.
- One of the rumored devices is a tabletop robot that can turn and swivel to face whoever is speaking to it.
Why this is important: If successful, this plan would mark a new level of innovation in Apple’s products and help restore customer trust after the issues that have plagued the company throughout the past year.
- According to insiders, this hardware pipeline is a key element of turning around Apple’s AI presence.
- Take the information with a grain of salt; as these products still haven’t been officially announced, the expected design and function could change or be scrapped before release.
Why should I care? The new products could improve Apple’s HomeKit lineup. A souped-up Siri would strengthen functionality across all of Apple’s devices, while the tabletop robot opens the door to group FaceTime calls and much more.
- According to Gurman, “the hallmark of the device is an entirely new version of the Siri voice assistant that can inject itself into conversations between multiple people.”
- The device will “act like a person in the room” and provide contextual information, such as suggesting restaurants in a conversation about where to go for dinner. The hope is that Siri will act similarly to OpenAI’s voice mode for back-and-forth conversation.
- Siri might be getting a new personality through a project dubbed “Bubbles” that would give the assistant a visual representation on display, similar to the notorious Clippy of Microsoft Office fame.
- Apple HomeKit has never matched the power of Amazon Alexa or Google Home, but this upgrade has the potential to make it a much stronger contender.
