Apple's AI smart screen devices will have to wait on Siri revamp
Two future iPad-like devices that rely on future Apple Intelligence features will come to market only after the long-promised major Siri upgrade.

Concept image of the future Siri smart-home hub
Apple is said to be working on two different "home hub" devices for release in the near future. One is expected to be a mountable iPad-like screen to control smart-home devices, while the other is envisioned as a tabletop device with a robotic arm.
A new report from Bloomberg suggests that both are currently waiting on the delayed revamp of Siri before coming to market. A revamp that incorporates on-screen awareness, which will be essential for the smart home products to function properly.
Responsibility for completing the long-awaited Siri upgrade has recently been handed to Apple Vision Pro leader Mike Rockwell's team.
The two distinct devices have been code-named J490 -- the wall-mounted iPad home hub -- and J595 for the robotic-arm mounted interactive tabletop screen.
The former is now expected to arrive either near the end of 2025 or in the first half of 2026. It is also currently undergoing internal employee testing.
The more ambitious robotic arm product, J595, is now expected to follow in the second half of 2026 or early 2027. However, it will probably be missing some of its more innovative features when it first ships.
The current focus of the teams behind the products is to get them to market as quickly as possible after last year's showcased Siri upgrade finally arrives. Apple has acknowledged that the more contextual Siri, which relies on Apple Intelligence features that depend on app intents, has been delayed.
Rumor Score: Possible
Read on AppleInsider
Comments
The concept image looks like iPad.
What is the selling point then.. Apple could try to integrate all possible features of homepod into iPad to drive iPad sales up.
What was even worse than Control 4 was having a "professional security system" installed by one of the big home security companies. Wires everywhere, holes drilled in window and door frames, holes drilled in walls to connect keypads and sensors, etc., Oh, and a bigass monthly subscription price for professional monitoring and remote access - even without any cameras. I was paying about the same amount per-month that I ended up paying for a year with a DIY Ring system with unlimited cameras and professional monitoring with police and fire dispatch. Recently Ring doubled their yearly subscription price, but it's still a fabulous deal in my mind, especially with the variety of sensors they offer, including PoE cameras. It's still a fraction of what I was paying a big security company. As an aside, whenever one of my hardwired sensors would die on my previous big company security system the company would replace it with a wireless sensor. Wake up call.
If I were to move to a new home automation system today I would probably base it all around Ubiquiti Unifi gear, including all of the security devices, cameras, local AV storage, remote access, etc. I've been using their networking gear for several years and I'm extremely happy with it. But I'm atypical and wired my house with CAT6 throughout. I don't think that casual technology users or people who can't run wires would want to head down that path. Plus, most home users probably don't want to be systems administrators on their home infrastructure. This is an area where I think Apple could make a big difference.
The more Apple gets into "Home" stuff the more I think they can build a system focused, zero admin, plug & play system that is still DIY for people who don't really want to worry about things that are typically DIY, like pretty much everything sold at Ikea or Amazon. One of the biggest hassles I'm faced with in managing my own network is that some of Apple's attempts to improve privacy throw a massive monkey wrench into my system. Apple's Private WiFi Address, Private Relay, and Limit IP Tracking features wreak havoc on networks that have static IP, IP reservations, Pi-hole DNS processing, and even my gateway's DHCP server. Apple doesn't play well with my network and doesn't respect the boundaries that I've configured in DHCP or IP reservations.
These types of conflicts tell me that if Apple really wants to work seamlessly in a connected or "smart" home environment, they really need to take over a lot more of the vital functions that are necessary to keep everything running smoothly. If Apple makes a home hub it really needs to own things like routing, DHCP, DNS, IP reservations, static IPs, privacy, security, blocking of unwanted sites, etc., in addition to serving as gateway for Matter, Thread, and possibly add-on extensions like Zigbee, Z-Wave, and Hue, for example. Does this mean that Apple needs to jump back into the networking devices business? Maybe, maybe not. There's no reason why Apple's home hub needs to provide switching and wireless access points as long as Apple's gateway/router/home=hub can adopt third party switches and access points.