Apple’s smart home strategy aims to sell iPads in new forms

Apple’s smart home strategy will expand by 2025. Yesterday BGR covered Bloomberg‘s new reportwhich stated that Apple plans to introduce a wall-mounted display that can control apps, make video conference calls and use AI to perform tasks independently as early as March 2025.

According to the report, the device will have a 6-inch screen and “look like a square iPad.” If you stack two iPhones side by side, you can get a general idea of ​​the size of the rumored device. There is a camera above the screen and the display also comes with a rechargeable battery and internal speakers. When it launches, you could order the smart display in black and silver.

The interface is expected to combine elements of watchOS and the StandBy mode that Apple has rolled out iOS 17 last year. That said, Apple is confident users will rely on voice commands to control the device as it will include Siri and Apple Intelligence.

Although Mark Gurman, BGR and many other media outlets try to describe Apple’s smart home strategy as a whole new range, all I can read is “iPad, smaller iPad, iPad with HomePod, HomePod with iPad”, and so on. After all, Apple’s version of Amazon’s Echo Show and Google’s smart home devices are already here.

Image source: José Adorno for BGR

The iPad can be a home hub. Theoretically, the HomePod could be Apple’s best Apple Intelligence device, and the iPhone already works as the perfect Eco Show device when used in StandBy mode. Yet Apple is trying a completely new solution by combining products that everyone already has.

My opinion: we really need it HomePod devices that can run Apple Intelligence – once this AI platform works as intended.

Despite this, there’s only one smart home device that can be truly useful, even if it does what every other Apple device does: The display with a robot armcomparable to an iMac G4, could be the ultimate home hub. However, don’t we all have an iPhone, iPad or Mac with a Center Stage, a big enough screen and great speakers? Well, we do.

Ultimately, Apple plans to release this its own smart cameras and is ramping up its smart home strategy. Only time will tell if the company will be successful in this market. At this point, it just seems like Apple is trying to sell the same products in a different package, without improving what’s already there.

Fortunately, 2025 is just around the corner.