At Apple’s latest Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), the undisputed protagonist was Apple Intelligence. The Cupertino company dedicated almost half of his presentation to explaining the philosophy behind its version of Artificial Intelligence, the features it would make possible, and the promising future thanks to AI capabilities.
However, although Apple Intelligence focused on three key products, such as the iPhone, iPad and Mac, many are wondering: What about the HomePod?
The future of the HomePod with Apple Intelligence
The Vision Pro and Apple Watch were omitted from the Apple Intelligence presentation, which is no cause for concern as Apple likely has AI stories in development for these devices. But, What about the HomePod? Will it be compatible with the new AI-powered Siri? Could there be a new model in development?
Apple currently sells two different HomePod models: the second generation HomePod and the HomePod mini. Both contain chips that seem unlikely to be able to support Apple Intelligence, meaning there won’t be a new and improved Siri or ChatGPT integration on these devices.
This will be the new HomePod
Although Apple is not expected to incorporate an M4 chip in the next generation of HomePod, it is not unreasonable to expect something like an M1 or A17 Pro. With a more powerful chip, the new HomePod hardware could fully support Siri’s capabilities in the iPhone, iPad and Mac, enabling features like:
- Richer language understandingallowing you to speak more naturally without following a specific script when making requests.
- Context awarenessallowing you to refer to specific messages, emails, etc., and for Siri to perform actions fully aware of the content of those communications.
- Complex requests multi-step, allowing multiple actions to be performed with a single command.
- ChatGPT support for requests that could be better answered by the OpenAI service.
All these Apple Intelligence features could be perfectly combined with the rumor of the new touch screen integrated into the HomePod, according to the information.
When will AI in the HomePod be announced?
At the moment, Apple has nothing to announce about the future of Apple Intelligence on the HomePod. But this fall, if the new and improved Siri proves to be a hit on the iPhone, iPad and Mac, the HomePod will consequently be seen as a useless product.
For Apple’s new AI features to work, an A17 Pro chip or later is required for iPhones, or an M1 chip or later for Macs and iPads. The current HomePods have S7 and S5 chips, which are Apple Watch class, and are not powerful enough to support Apple Intelligence. It’s uncertain whether Apple could enable some AI features on these less powerful chips, but it’s more likely that they are developing new, more powerful HomePods.
For now, the silence about the HomePod is understandable. But it won’t be long before the absence of Artificial Intelligence reaches the rest of the products of the bitten apple.
