Seeking new sources of revenue, Apple is moving forward with development of a pricey tabletop home device that combines an iPad-like display with a robotic limb.
The company now has a team of several hundred people working on the device, which uses a thin robotic arm to move around a large screen, according to people with knowledge of the matter. The product, which relies on actuators to tilt the display up and down and make it spin 360 degrees, would offer a twist on home products like Amazon’s Echo Show 10 and Meta Platforms’s discontinued Portal.
The device is envisioned as a smart home-command center, videoconferencing machine and remote-controlled home security tool, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the work isn’t public. The project — codenamed J595 — was approved by Apple’s executive team in 2022 but has started to formally ramp up in recent months, they said.