Apple is going ahead with plans to develop a tabletop robotic device that combines an iPad-like display with a robotic limb, according to Bloomberg‘s Mark Gurman.
“The company now has a team of several hundred people working on the device, which uses a thin robotic arm to move around a large screen, according to people with knowledge of the matter,” he writes. “The product, which relies on actuators to tilt the display up and down and make it spin 360 degrees, would offer a twist on home products like Amazon.com Inc.’s Echo Show 10 and Meta Platforms Inc.’s discontinued Portal.”
Gurman adds that the device is envisioned as a smart home command center, videoconferencing machine and remote-controlled home security tool. No word on when such a gadget might actually see the light of day.
Gurman’s report echos rumors going back at least three years. In 2021, he said that considering a HomePod that could have an iPad attached via a robotic that tracks and follows users around a room.
At the time, Gurman wrote: The Cupertino, California-based technology giant, is also mulling the launch of a high-end speaker with a touch screen to better compete with market leaders Google and Amazon.com Inc., the people said. Such a device would combine an iPad with a HomePod speaker and also include a camera for video chat. Apple has explored connecting the iPad to the speaker with a robotic arm that can move to follow a user around a room, similar to Amazon’s latest Echo Show gadget.
If Apple is indeed getting into robotics, it could be good timing. An August 203 report from Counterpoint Research said that the global consumer service robotics market posted 25% year-over-year shipment growth in 2021 and is estimated to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 27% over the next four years.
The research group said this growth is driven by the change in consumer preference, advances in technology and the availability of a wide variety of affordable products.
