Apple’s smart home hub is rumored to be an iPad-like device designed to interact with all of your gadgets in a similar way to a Google Nest speaker or Amazon Echo. The smart home gadget has been rumored for a while, and Apple was reportedly aiming for a March 2025 release.
According to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, in his Power On newsletter, he now believes the smart home hub won’t be launching until 2026, matching when the new AI-powered Siri is expected to land.
Back in May, sources suggested Apple may be able to hit a late 2025 launch date, but that no longer appears to be the case. Gurman’s report says, “I have little to no expectation that the product will arrive this year. Instead, I’d expect it in 2026 — around the same time the new Siri finally launches.”
Apple delayed its Siri upgrade back in March, and at the time Gurman reported that the upcoming smart home hub was reliant on many of those new features to work properly. It may be if Apple launched the smart home hub without an AI infused Siri, the functionality of the product may have fallen flat.
Apple’s AI-powered Siri was originally planned for iOS 18.4. In June, Apple confirmed it wouldn’t be launching its new Siri features until some point in 2026.
Gurman now adds some further context saying, “Those capabilities (now delayed) would let the voice assistant tap into personal data to fulfill queries and take advantage of the information on a user’s screen.” His sources also say there’s an additional reason for the delay, but it remains tied to Siri.
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The report says Apple is also planning a refresh of its App Intents framework. This is a developer feature to help services integrate with system experiences, so it’s how apps connect to features like Siri, Focus, or Spotlight. Gurman says this upgrade would “allow Siri to more precisely control applications and functions.”
Elsewhere in the newsletter, Gurman predicts we may see the new iPhone 17 series on Sept. 9. The company is likely to host its next launch event on the week of Sept. 8 and the brand is prone to using Tuesdays to launch its new iPhones, meaning Sept. 8 is looking most likely.
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About James Peckham
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