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Beyond iPhone: Apple’s foray into cheap, intelligent devices

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Beyond iPhone: Apple’s foray into cheap, intelligent devices

Apple has recently been feeling adventurous and has been dipping its toes into new territory. We got the Apple Vision Pro earlier this year and now there’s talk of the company working on smart home devices. And Bloomberg’s insider Mark Gurman thinks this new device will slightly resemble a beloved old Apple product.Apple is reportedly working on various interpretations of smart home devices, one of which is a relatively inexpensive smart home screen. This new device will probably run on homeOS, the new operating system Apple is working on for its upcoming devices.

The other, more expensive option, will apparently be an iPad robot as the company eyes the robotics industry. Apple’s end goal according to Gurman is to make humanoid robots for household use. Let’s just hope these ambitions don’t go the way of the Apple car.

What caught my attention was when Gurman mentioned the inexpensive option being reminiscent of the iMac G3. That is an Apple product from the era when the company had some truly outstanding designs. Colorful and rotund, early Apple devices showcased that 90s optimism for the future before everything was replaced with drab slabs of glass and steel.Now, this smart home screen isn’t going to look exactly like that. Apple would throw us all for quite a loop if it suddenly went back to its retro-futuristic aesthetic. However, the device will be positioned like the old G3: a screen angled upwards on a small base. A stationary object awaiting your next command, but this time smart enough to also be controlling all the other devices in your home.

The biggest selling point is that this will allegedly be a cheap product, something Apple would want all of its users to place in their homes. This, coupled with the reported low-end iPad model coming alongside the revamped modern iPhone SE next year opens up a breadth of options for users on a budget.

But is it going to be worth it? It seems this is something that will only really benefit you if you’ve jumped headfirst into Apple’s walled garden. It will have FaceTime, Notes and a Calendar amongst other apps but that’s nothing your iPhone can’t do.

As Gurman has said before, Apple is big enough to take risks like the Vision Pro and the Apple car but it can’t keep throwing money at things that don’t stick. And I’m not sure if the iPad with a robot arm is going to stick either.

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