Apple's October 13 launch is all smart home, and the big HomePod sits it out
Key takeaways
- Bloomberg's Mark Gurman says Apple will introduce a smart home hub, a new HomePod mini and a new Apple TV on Tuesday 13 October
- All three were planned for 2024 and slipped while Apple finished Siri AI
- The full-size HomePod is not part of this launch, though Apple still plans to update it
Two years late. That is roughly where Apple's smart home push lands on Tuesday 13 October, when Bloomberg's Mark Gurman says the company will introduce three products originally planned for 2024, as MacRumors reports. Apple has not confirmed any of it, so treat the details below as well-sourced reporting rather than a spec sheet.
What the Apple October 13 launch reportedly includes
The headline device is a smart home hub. MacRumors describes a square display of roughly 6 to 7 inches, an A18 chip or newer for Apple Intelligence, FaceTime, and a new operating system built around clock faces and widgets. There is reportedly a tabletop version with a speaker base and a wall-mounted version.
Alongside it come a new HomePod mini and a new Apple TV. Both keep their current designs but get faster chips to run Siri AI, and the HomePod mini adds new colours including pink and green. If you were about to buy either, it makes sense to wait two weeks. The current HomePod mini and Apple TV 4K are still on Amazon, and outgoing models often drop in price once replacements land.
Why Siri AI is the whole story
All three products are set to showcase Siri AI, which apparently explains the delay. In the home, Apple's hardware has rarely been the hold-up; the assistant has. A hub on the kitchen counter only earns its place if Siri can handle requests that currently end in a list of web results. Google's recent Gemini 4 release shows the bar Apple is being measured against, and so does the always-on assistant push behind Meta's Muse agent.
What is missing from the launch
9to5Mac reports that the full-size HomePod with Siri AI will not be part of the 13 October hardware, although Apple still plans to update it later. MacRumors adds two more products in the pipeline: a privacy-focused home security camera and sensor that can tell which room someone is in without recording video, and a higher-end hub with a 9-inch display on a robotic arm that swivels 360 degrees.
The part worth watching is how Apple frames the hub. If it arrives as the centre of a wider home system, the camera and the bigger HomePod are the next pieces. If it arrives quietly, that would suggest Apple is still waiting on Siri to catch up.
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