Forget the Apple Car: Apple’s next big thing could be in the world of home robots.
According to a Bloomberg According to the report, Apple is working on a robot that will follow users around their homes and help them with small tasks. It sounds a bit like the Amazon Astro, which we’ve seen displayed at a few different events over the past few years.
If Apple is indeed working on such a product, it could be an arms race to see which company can get to market with its robot first. Amazon clearly has a considerable advantage, as it has already started showing its product, while Apple’s offering is still in its early stages. In fact, it’s so early that it might not suffer a similar fate to the company’s electric car and never see the light of day.
And it’s not just Apple and Amazon, as a startup called Figure is working to give ChatGPT a body that can even give you a glass of water. It’s clear that robotics will be the next big thing, but whether it will be Apple’s next big thing remains to be seen.
Of course, the first is not everything. It will also depend on who can do it best, as an expensive product like a personal assistant robot will need to be done well.
Apple is also reportedly working on an advanced tabletop device that uses robotics to move a screen, pushing the company further into the robotics and smart home space.
According to the report, Apple’s robotics development occurs within Apple’s hardware engineering pision and its artificial intelligence and machine learning group. Matt Costello and Brian Lynch, executives currently working on Apple’s home products, are said to be working on the project.
Apple declined to comment on the project, which is not entirely surprising, since the company would want to make a splash by announcing its jump into home robotics with a major event, as it usually does.
According to the Bloomberg report, “the original concept of the robot was a device that could navigate on its own without human intervention – like the car – and serve as a video conferencing tool.” Apple is also apparently exploring the ability of robots to perform tasks like washing dishes, but that could be a decade away.
This all comes on the heels of Apple showing off the Vision Pro mixed reality headset. It’s clear that the company isn’t content with releasing iPhones, iPads, and Macs for the foreseeable future, so a jump into home robotics makes a lot of sense for the company.
The company has been looking for the “next big thing” since Steve Jobs was in charge of the company, and home robotics could be just that. Or it could be something that people consider too strange to have at home. Only time will tell.
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