Apple Is Working on a ‘Personality’ for a Future Home Robot
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With the demise of the Apple Car, it appears Apple has decided to refocus much of its talent on personal robotics, with an aim to someday create a series of household robots that could culminate in a humanoid assistant that goes far beyond what Siri can do on your iPhone.
Of course, we all know Siri has some serious shortcomings, and while Apple Intelligence promises to improve that, it’s still a far cry from something you’d want walking or rolling around your home on its own. Thankfully, it looks like Apple plans to start from scratch on this one, according to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman.
Gurman, who has recently shared several reports on Apple’s robotics ambitions, revealed in this week’s Power On newsletter that the company is already at work on developing “another humanlike interface based on generative AI” that could power all of Apple’s robotic devices.
One vital piece of the robotic work is the creation of a personality. While Siri is the digital assistant on Apple’s current devices, the company is working on another humanlike interface based on generative AI. It could run on the tabletop product and other future Apple robotics devices, I’m told.Mark Gurman
One advantage of the robotics approach is that, unlike the Apple Car, it’s much more feasible for Apple to start small. An autonomous vehicle has to do a great many things very well right out of the gate, whereas a home robot can begin its life in a much simpler form, allowing Apple to iterate and expand from there.
As Gurman has already said, Apple’s first attempt at home robotics will likely be little more than a HomePod with an iPad attached — the “tabletop product” he refers to in this week’s newsletter. This will serve as a “test case,” featuring a robotic actuator that can move a “large, iPad-like display” around to face the person speaking to it or follow someone around the room during a video call.
Attaching a robotic limb to the iPad, for instance, will potentially make the device more useful for videoconferencing or browsing the web for recipes. If you’re busy in the kitchen, it can swivel the screen around to face you.Mark Gurman
However, that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Gurman says Apple is considering robots that could do household chores like loading laundry machines or scrubbing dishes, but those are little more than “sketches on a whiteboard” right now.
Much of this seems to be driven by a desire to do something with all of the resources, research, and development that went into the ill-fated Apple Car. As Gurman notes, Apple’s vehicle was “essentially a giant rolling robot,” which means the same concepts and technology can be applied to other areas. That idea undoubtedly has some appeal to Apple executives and the company’s Board of Directors as a way of ensuring the billions of dollars invested in the autonomous vehicle project doesn’t end up being a complete loss.
According to Gurman’s sources, Apple hopes to use robotics to solve a series of “first-world problems” that many folks frequently encounter around the home, mainly related to devices that are out of reach when needed. However, it’s also about helping Apple “break into the smart home” — an area where it’s failed to gain the same momentum as Amazon and Google. Despite its head start with HomeKit, Apple’s presence in the living room remains limited to families that have already invested deeply in the Apple ecosystem. However, it still lacks the reach and compatibility of its rivals.
A simple home hub may not be enough to displace a Google Nest or Echo Show, but a tabletop robotic device could help it stand out from the rest of the pack, especially if it can develop a compelling generative AI personality to go with it.
Nevertheless, many believe this is another moonshot project. While the tabletop device may be easier to achieve, creating a robot that can roam around your home is significantly more complex. While those involved tell Gurman that there’s a lot of promise here, others say it’s “an exaggeration to describe robotics as some major new frontier that the company will be able to conquer.” Like the Apple Car, this is likely one of those initiatives we’ll spend years hearing rumors about before something tangible appears — if anything shows up at all. Still, it’s fun to think about what a future home filled with Apple Robots might look like.
[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.]
