According to Mark Gurman from Bloomberg, Apple has opened up an internal testing program for the upcoming smart home product, which some refer to as HomePad. It was scheduled to debut in March, but has unfortunately become delayed while the company figures out how to build its promised new Siri capabilities.
Home hub delays
Even before all of the new Siri setbacks, the home hub was likely to miss its rumored March timeframe anyways. That’s because the product relies on the new App Intent features with Siri, which Apple originally planned to launch in April, alongside iOS 18.4.
Now, Apple has officially confirmed that many of its new Siri upgrades will take longer than initially anticipated, in a statement to Daring Fireball:
We’ve also been working on a more personalized Siri, giving it more awareness of your personal context, as well as the ability to take action for you within and across your apps. It’s going to take us longer than we thought to deliver on these features and we anticipate rolling them out in the coming year.
Source: Gurman: Apple smart home hub ’postponed’, employees participating in at-home testing – 9to5Mac