A well-respected trade analyst has predicted that Apple will launch a HomePod with a display within the first half of subsequent yr.
Briefly discussing Apple’s smart-home plans on Medium, Ming-Chi Kuo writes that the corporate “will unveil a redesigned HomePod that includes a 7-inch panel in 1H24,” and that this machine “may allow tighter integration with Apple’s different {hardware} merchandise.”
The shortage of visible details about the monitor, artist, album and so forth has been a long-running grievance concerning the HomePod, significantly when taking part in music by way of voice controls reasonably than an iPhone. A display would additionally allow the HomePod to be much better at delivering “good” options, for the reason that present mannequin usually has to direct the consumer to look outcomes on a paired machine. It’s a logical transfer for the product, though that doesn’t essentially imply it’s going to occur.
Nonetheless, whereas Kuo isn’t at all times proper, he has an honest monitor document, together with a sequence of correct predictions concerning the third-gen iPhone SE made the yr earlier than it launched. It’s price stressing that his work focuses on supply-chain producers reasonably than customers: his newest report is extra within the firm that may provide the show panels for the brand new HomePod than on the shoppers who will purchase it. However his predictions are extensively learn and revered, and are proper most of the time.
And the concept that Apple is engaged on a HomePod with a display isn’t a brand new or outlier opinion. Mark Gurman was predicting this again in 2021, and it was a shock to some when this yr’s second-gen HomePod intently adopted the design of its predecessor reasonably than incorporating a display. Certainly, the concept is introduced up so ceaselessly that Macworld has an article concerning the Apple HomePod with display the place we collect associated rumors.