Gurman: Apple Intelligence Coming to Vision Pro, but Not HomePod

[MacRumors]

Apple has no plans to bring Apple Intelligence to the HomePod, but it should arrive on the Vision Pro headset in the future, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman reports.

In the latest edition of his "Power On" newsletter, Gurman said that Apple is preparing to bring Apple Intelligence to its Vision Pro headset, but not this year. The device has sufficient memory to run on-device Apple Intelligence features such as notification summaries, writing tools, and an updated version of Siri. Apple's user interface design team apparently needs to ensure that Apple Intelligence looks appropriate in a mixed-reality environment. The company also needs to guarantee that it has sufficient cloud-computing capacity to support more devices.

Gurman does not expect the HomePod to offer Apple Intelligence, instead focusing on "an entirely new robotic device with a display that includes Apple Intelligence at its core." Apple Intelligence requires a minimum of eight gigabytes of memory, but the HomePod and HomePod mini only feature a single gigabyte of memory. The current HomePod is said to be "too low-volume a product to waste the engineering time" bringing Apple Intelligence to the device.

Going forward, Gurman believes that Apple Intelligence will become increasingly critical to Apple devices and form a pillar of its business. Apple Intelligence should get updated more frequently than services like iCloud, at least as often as the company's hardware and software offerings.

Article Link: Gurman: Apple Intelligence Coming to Vision Pro, but Not HomePod

 

[Frosties]

The HomePod = the forever not so smart speaker. 💩

 

[Grimps]

The company also needs to guarantee that it has sufficient cloud-computing capacity to support more devices.

Won't the VisionPro units be a drop in the bucket compared to iOS/iPadOS devices?

 

[RogerDoger2801]

Odds the HomePod is able to offload the Apple intelligence work to a neighboring iPhone and then report out? This article seems to indicate there won’t be on device AI, but what about an early Apple Watch style back and forth?

Seems a little crazy to ignore the HomePod, where Siri is truly the main character.

 

[dandy1117]

The HomePod does not store your messages, contacts, and mail or any other personal data. Presumably, it cannot run the local models of the personalized index that is at the heart of Apple Intelligence, right?

 

[maczaddy]

I get some of Apple Intelligence doesn’t need to be on a HomePod but does this mean Siri on the HomePod will continue to not be so smart or siri on HomePod will never be able to handle conversational input? If so do they truly want to keep a smart speaker around who can handle basic instructions like turn lights on what’s the weather, skip this song etc… I have had the issue recently if I command it to make a call it does make the call however it stays ringing and in the back ground I see my phone which is on a Magsafe stand showing the call is going to voicemail but the speaker stays ringing. Also had a situation where the speaker was ringing and the person did pick up but that was happening on the iPhone. I am truly disappointed with HomePod but they do make for a good simple speaker.

 

[Realityck]

Going forward, Gurman believes that Apple Intelligence will become increasingly critical to Apple devices and form a pillar of its business. Apple Intelligence should get updated more frequently than services like iCloud, at least as often as the company's hardware and software offerings.

As he discussed in his article Apple trying to use Apple Intelligence as a carrot to get consumers to buy new iPhones will be an interesting predicament. Given that Siri for 14 years didn't really advance, and most hang onto their iPhones longer. Whats to stop consumers from buying or using iPads or Macs instead of updating recent iPhones just for Apple Intelligence features/functionality? A new M2 iPad Air with 256GB storage is $649 EDU USD is an example.

Selected paragraphs from article.

The end result: Getting average consumers to regularly upgrade to a new model is harder than it used to be. Shoppers also are contending with inflation and worsening trade-in deals — or simply holding on to their cash in an uncertain economy.

But the broader trend has left Apple with a less reliable growth engine — something that’s evident in its finances lately. Sales have declined in five of the past six quarters, and it’s critical that the company finds new sources of revenue.

The good news: Though Apple’s hardware is doing less to inspire upgrades, it has a growing opportunity to entice customers with software and artificial intelligence.

That should be evident this fall. The upcoming iPhone 16 lineup won’t have a ton of hardware changes, but customers will need a recent model if they want to use the new Apple Intelligence features.

The Apple Intelligence capabilities, including an upgraded version of Siri, will be the biggest test of whether software can drive a hardware sales surge. The features are likely to be a centerpiece of Apple’s marketing for the iPhone 16, just as ads for the original Siri helped drive sales of the iPhone 4S in 2011.

The slowing pace of hardware upgrades also will force Apple to rely more on services fees and subscriptions to fuel sales. If you’re wondering why Apple is fighting so hard to keep every penny it can from the App Store — despite scrutiny from regulators — it’s because this category is so important to future revenue.

There’s an opportunity to turn AI features and other software into paid services, but it will take time. Though Apple Intelligence will be free to start, the long-term plan is to make money off the capabilities. The company could eventually launch something like “Apple Intelligence+” — with extra features that users pay monthly fees for, just like iCloud. On top of that, Apple will get a cut of the subscription revenue from every AI partner that it brings onboard.

 

[No5tromo]

It won't even come to the whole of the EU, I guess HomePod is a small hit

 

[dannyyankou]

Makes sense. The latest HomePod is run by a 3 year old Apple Watch chip.

 

[WitchDrAsh2]

I still wonder if when they release a HomePod Ultra (or whatever it’s called) that will handle all Apple Intelligence requests for an entire household.

It would be cheaper than requiring an update to every HomePod and an inevitable price increase, when entry to the ecosystem is extremely price sensitive

 

[cardfan]

Not a concern to me til I see anything Apple intelligence that is worthwhile. Didn’t see anything at wwdc. Any speculation is just that or what it could do. Show me first.

I see the same issues with copilot pc’s. It’s the chip that’s more impressive. The so called ai looks worthless.

 

[wanha]

The HomePod does not store your messages, contacts, and mail or any other personal data. Presumably, it cannot run the local models of the personalized index that is at the heart of Apple Intelligence, right?

I don't know the answer to your question, but presumably it's a matter of how Apple wants to set it up going forward rather than an insurmountable technical obstacle.

 

[wanha]

That settles it... I was going to get a HomePod, but will now hold out for a HomePod that supports a full-brained Siri - with or without a display, I don't care

 

[jz0309]

Not a concern to me til I see anything Apple intelligence that is worthwhile. Didn’t see anything at wwdc. Any speculation is just that or what it could do. Show me first.

I see the same issues with copilot pc’s. It’s the chip that’s more impressive. The so called ai looks worthless.

THIS! 100%, and furthermore, give me that toggle to turn it off

 

[spaxxedout]

They could easily enable HomePod through server side processing, but I agree that it doesn’t make that much sense with the product. Still like mine though.

 

[sublunar]

Sounds like AppleTV gets A18 then, might be a reason for the delay in refresh

 

[turbineseaplane]

Lost in all this AI nonsense is how the horrendous Siri experience is apparently just going to continue on for all the devices (the vast majority) that don't support the "future" that Apple is pivoting to

 

[AMB12686]

The current HomePod is said to be "too low-volume a product to waste the engineering time" bringing Apple Intelligence to the device.

This becomes self fulfilling. If they made the effort to make the HomePod good at what an in-home assistant needs to do then the volumes would increase.

Gurman does not expect the HomePod to offer Apple Intelligence, instead focusing on "an entirely new robotic device with a display that includes Apple Intelligence at its core."

I still wonder if when they release a HomePod Ultra (or whatever it’s called) that will handle all Apple Intelligence requests for an entire household.

These two ideas together (credit to WitchDr) may be a way to get something to work? Maybe?

 

[currentinterest]

I believe we may see something like this: “Siri, who was the 23rd vice president of the United States” “I can show web results on your iPhone, or pass your request to ChapGPT for the answer.”

 

[Chungry]

I’m not sure I understood the appeal of HomePod. Sure the audio is good but the control interface is/was a known (bad) quantity. People had hopes, and still do, that it will somehow improve with time but the old adage of buy it for what it does now and not the possibility of future enhancements has yet to be proven wrong. Here’s more proof it’s a dud. And it’s foolish thinking a watch chip will ever be able to even do off device processing. It’s just not gonna happen. At this point I honestly don’t know what to say if someone is still all in on HomePods or even considers buying whatever comes next in that product line. But some folks have to touch the stove multiple times to learn it’s gonna burn them.

 

[iBreatheApple]

The HomePod does not store your messages, contacts, and mail or any other personal data. Presumably, it cannot run the local models of the personalized index that is at the heart of Apple Intelligence, right?

On a device that just launched within a year 😠

 

[sublunar]

I still wonder if when they release a HomePod Ultra (or whatever it’s called) that will handle all Apple Intelligence requests for an entire household.

It would be cheaper than requiring an update to every HomePod and an inevitable price increase, when entry to the ecosystem is extremely price sensitive

Why not get Apple TV with A18 to do the processing?

 

[california_kid]

In other words, $999 Apple HomePods coming soon.

 

[Frosties]

Why not get Apple TV with A18 to do the processing?

Why not make the Homepod useful, is twice the cost of an appleTV.

 

[Christopher Pelham]

I recently switched to two HomePods and an AppleTV 4K when we got a new LG 4k TV, and the audio part works extremely smoothly. Our A/V receiver could not do 4k so we ditched our whole stereo Now the TV knows whether I am playing from the AppleTV or the Blu-ray player and plays both automatically through the AppleTV/HomePods. The AppleTV remote wakes up the TV and controls all the video (other than the Blu-ray) since we are streaming only so 99.9% of the time we only need to use the AppleTV remote or Siri commands. Siri is still...Siri but it still beats having to turn on multiple devices with multiple remotes and juggle back and forth. and the sound quality is very good for a single room, better than most sound bars or consumer stereos under $1000 or so I think. Still, I would love for Siri to become smarter.