Apple has a short window for anything aimed at the home before the iPhone Duo takes over: Duo pre-orders open October 16. Bloomberg reports Apple will use October 13 for three home products, and MacRumors treats the first, a smart home hub, as the bigger story, since it's a new product category and the Duo is still an iPhone. A second-generation HomePod mini and a new Apple TV 4K would come with it.
The hub, per the video, puts a square display of roughly 6 to 7 inches on a base that holds the speakers and microphones, a design Bloomberg says borrows from the iMac G4. The video lists tabletop and wall-mounted versions and an A18 or newer chip for Siri AI, running a new operating system built around clock faces and widgets.
Neither of the other two gets a new design, by MacRumors' account. It expects the Apple TV 4K to move to an A17 Pro or newer with 8GB of RAM and Apple's N1 chip for Wi-Fi 7, though earlier Apple TV code pointed higher, to an A19 or A19 Pro. The HomePod mini, untouched since 2020, gets a newer chip and a second-generation Ultra Wideband chip in the video, and may come in new colors.
MacRumors frames all three around Siri AI, which puts the whole event on Siri's shoulders. Siri, again. Its sleeper pick is an Apple video doorbell or security camera whose feed would show up on the hub; that one has no date attached, and Apple hasn't confirmed October 13 either.
