Could we see Apple’s rumored smart display release as early as 2025?

Apple has long been rumored to be working on its own smart display product, in an effort to compete with the likes of the Amazon Echo Show, Google Nest Hub, and more. An all-new report from Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman suggests that we might not need to wait much longer for Apple’s entrance into the product sector.

According to Gurman, Apple is prototyping two distinct smart home products: a lower-end smart display for basic use cases, as well as a more expensive edition “that combines a robotic lumb with a large, iPad-like display. The former may launch as early as next year, while the latter could arrive at a later date at a cost of a whopping $1,000 or more.

The report of a robotic arm and possible quadruple-figure price tag aren’t entirely new — a previous Gurman report brought these details to light, alongside a rumor of there being over 100 Apple employees actively working on the smart device.

Both models, according to Gurman, would be imbued with Apple Intelligence, which is the company’s suite of newfound AI technologies. How AI will be incorporated into the smart display experience, exactly, is currently undetermined. What is for certain, however, is that in order to run AI models on-device, these new Apple smart displays will necessarily need to ship with silicon capable of the task.

Gurman goes on to describe that these two new smart home products would launch alongside a brand-new operating system, which is rumored to be called homeOS.

“This move follows Apple’s playbook: Each of its major hardware categories has its own operating system — a variation of macOS or iOS. Apple TV already has software called tvOS, and this will be the basis for homeOS. I expect both of the operating systems to ultimately get combined and run on every Apple home device,” says Gurman.

Will Apple find success in the consumer smart display market?

The company arguably has an uphill battle to fight

The smart display market is saturated with options, with industry titans Amazon and Google currently taking up much of the consumer market share. Most smart home devices are priced affordably, with the goal of getting them into as many homes as possible.

If Apple were to launch a ‘premium’ smart display with a robotic arm and iPad-like display, the company would be carving out a market niche that currently isn’t well served. Still, at a rumored $1,000 price tag or potentially higher, an Apple-branded smart display might prove a hard sell.

There’s also precedent to consider with Apple in relation to broader smart home space — the original HomePod, Apple’s first smart speaker from 2018, was critically acclaimed, but was difficult to recommend due to its high price tag. The company later pivoted towards the more affordable HomePod mini, which targeted the goal of broader consumer adoption, followed by a revamped high-end second-generation HomePod.

It’s possible that on-device Apple Intelligence features could differentiate an Apple smart display from industry competitors, but the company’s AI endeavors are currently unproven in the market. In any case, it’ll be fascinating to see the tech giant finally enter this growing product category, and it’ll be equally fascinating to see how Amazon, Google, and others react to such a development.