Apple is still looking to hire more engineers with a robotics speciality, according to the the latest “Power On” newsletter from Mark Gurman.
He says Apple’s focus is on robots that move to where a user is, not vice versa. Gurman says Apple’s robotics group is working on at least two robotics projects: a mobile device that could intelligently follow a user around, and a tabletop “smart lamp.”
Images and pictures of the “smart lamp” were unveiled last week. The video shows the non-anthropomorphic robot interacting with a human based on their hand gestures and more. It played music and helped with various tasks in addition to serving as, well, a lamp for illumination.
Apple says its research shows that robots should move elegantly and use movement to express its internal states to humans during interaction. Apple says it conducted a user study to compare robot movements driving by expressive utilities against only functional ones in various task scenarios.
From Apple’s Machine Learning Research Page: Nonverbal behaviors such as posture, gestures, and gaze are essential for conveying internal states, both consciously and unconsciously, in human interaction. For robots to interact more naturally with humans, robot movement design should likewise integrate expressive qualities—such as intention, attention, and emotions—alongside traditional functional considerations like task fulfillment, spatial constraints, and time efficiency. In this paper, we present the design and prototyping of a lamp-like robot that explores the interplay between functional and expressive objectives in movement design. Using a research-through-design methodology, we document the hardware design process, define expressive movement primitives, and outline a set of interaction scenario storyboards. We propose a framework that incorporates both functional and expressive utilities during movement generation, and implement the robot behavior sequences in different function- and social- oriented tasks. Through a user study comparing expression-driven versus function-driven movements across six task scenarios, our findings indicate that expression-driven movements significantly enhance user engagement and perceived robot qualities. This effect is especially pronounced in social-oriented tasks.
The lamp robot prototype may hint at Apple’s long-term plans for a full line of robots. In an August 25 “Power On” newsletter, Gurman said Apple has such plans.
Apple is still in the early stages of figuring out the best way to use robotics. Gurman says the test case will be a tabletop device codenamed J595 that brings together a large, iPad-like display with cameras and a base that features a robotic actuator. He says that such a product likely will arrive around 2026 or 2027, followed by mobile robots and possibly even humanoid models in the next decade.
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