The best smart displays on the market right now are dominated by Amazon and Google. But the likes of the Amazon Echo Show 8 and Google Nest Hub may soon face competition from Apple, according to a new nugget of information courtesy of Bloomberg's Mark Gurman.
Gurman states Apple is moving ahead with a project to develop a mounted display that would serve as a centralized smart home control center. Beyond just mounting an iPad atop a HomePod 2, Apple is believed to be creating a display with a full "robotic arm" that could tilt up and down, rotate 360-degrees and automatically orientate itself to face users in the room during a FaceTime call.
The bad news? Pricing for the device could sit somewhere around the $1,000 mark, which would place it considerably higher on the spend-o-meter than Amazon's Echo Show 10 ($249, Amazon) which likewise features a display, speaker and rotation.
While Apple apparently has a team of "several hundred people" working on the device, these things are never a sure bet and details could change over the course of development. Remember the Apple Car?
Still, Apple already has a competent smart speaker, a burgeoning AI-infused voice assistant and the best tablet on the market. Combining the three into a new product to dethrone Amazon and Google's grip on smart home tech seems to make a lot of sense. Even without a fancy robotic arm.
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