Arriving in the second half of this year
Based on an estimate that ranks with an “over 50 percent chance” of cropping up, Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo at KGI Securities said that the company will launch at least one smart home product in the second half of this year. The Siri-based device will be priced higher than the Amazon Echo at $179 and will feature similar voice assistant capabilities based on Siri.
In terms of hardware specifications, Kuo predicts that the device will support AirPlay wireless syncing with iOS devices, Apple earbuds, Apple TVs, Mac OS X machines and iTunes-equipped PCs, and will feature a single woofer and seven tweeters with “excellent acoustics performance.” The device’s computing power is expected to be comparable to an iPhone 6 or iPhone 6S (dual-core Apple A8/A9, 1 to 2GB RAM).
Device may run modified iOS with Beats technology
On Friday, Australian leaker Sonny Dickson shared a few hints about Apple’s upcoming Siri-based speaker device, indicating that the company was in the stages of “finalizing designs for [its] Alexa competitor”. In terms of operating system features, he mentioned that the device may run a variant of IOS with a form of Beats by Dre technology.
Source: Twitter
Apple bought Beats Music in May 2014 for $3 billion to raise its competitive outlook in the music streaming business – though it proceeded to lay off about 200 former employees who it didn’t think it needed.
Prototype testing indicates built-in cameras with facial recognition
The company’s plans for a smart hub device surfaced in a report by The Information back in May 2016, indicating that it would include a speaker and microphone used for listening to music, getting news headlines, controlling smart home appliances, receiving recipe information and more. When Apple introduced IOS 10 last summer, it gave third-party developers the option to enable Siri for performing non-Apple functions using voice commands – a precursor to the device it now plans to market against the Amazon Echo/Dot/Tap, Google Home, Lenovo Smart Assistant, and others.
In September, Bloomberg then confirmed that Apple had entered prototype testing for the device, indicating that it had prepared both a larger and a smaller model similar to Amazon’s most popular two models. The prototypes reportedly featured integrated cameras with facial recognition to aid in identifying users and adding an extra layer of authentication for making requests and purchases.
