 Google Nest Doorbell. Photographer: Joan Cros/NurPhoto After suffering some setbacks in 2024, including a canceled car project and the muted response to its Vision Pro headset, Apple Inc. is heading into the new year with three growth opportunities in mind: artificial intelligence, robotics and the smart home. Each of these areas has its own challenges. Though the company already kicked off its AI push this year with Apple Intelligence, it’s still playing catch-up with tech peers. The robotics effort, meanwhile, will take years to bear fruit. That leaves the smart home as the space where Apple could have the most impact in 2025. After years of Amazon.com Inc. and Alphabet Inc.’s Google dominating the market, Apple looks to make a splash with an AI-infused smart home hub. The device will have a roughly 6-inch display and a new operating system built to control the home, run FaceTime and play video. Also next year, Apple will roll out upgrades to existing home devices: its TV set-top box and HomePod mini smart speaker. That will add an advanced wireless chip dubbed Proxima and better support the new Thread standard for wirelessly linking products in the home. But that’s just the beginning. Apple is developing several related products, including an in-home security camera that’s designed to work with its hub. As I’ve reported, it would compete with devices from Google and Logitech International SA, as well as Amazon’s Ring and Blink. This device is deep into development, but I expect it arrive after the home hub debuts. Apple believes it has an edge in this area because of its long-stated commitment to privacy. The thinking is that consumers will trust it more than rivals with in-home security footage. The service also could help Apple sell subscriptions to iCloud, where customers would store the video. (Apple has long been able to do this through a feature called HomeKit Security Video.) People also tend to buy several cameras when they’re securing their house, so this is an easy way to add new revenue to the company’s Wearables, Home and Accessories division. There’s also another home device in the works that hasn’t been reported before: a smart doorbell with advanced facial recognition that wirelessly connects to a deadbolt lock. The idea is that the doorbell could automatically unlock the door for a home’s residents by scanning their face — just like Face ID lets them into their iPhone. It’s likely that the doorbell system will work with the many third-party locks already on the market that support Apple’s HomeKit protocol. It’s also possible that the company teams up with a specific lock maker to offer a complete system on day one. In typical Apple style, the company would be entering a space that’s well established but still ripe for reinvention. A Face ID-enabled doorbell and lock system would probably give Amazon Ring and Google Nest some genuine competition. Work on the doorbell is still in the early stages, though. I’m told not to expect anything to come to market before the end of next year at the soonest. If it ultimately debuts, I expect it to make good use of the company’s upcoming Proxima wireless chip and its secure enclave feature, which helps protects customers’ data. While the device sounds appealing, there is some risk here. Apple is very protective of its brand, and expanding into home security could attach its name to some dicey situations. When the company was developing a vehicle, top executives dreaded the idea of being connected to car accidents. Now they’re facing the risk of a home security breach. Though Apple’s Face ID system has less than a 1-in-1 million chance of being unlocked by the wrong person, there’s always a chance the system could misfire and allow an intruder into a home. However unlikely, this scenario is something Apple may need to grapple with ahead of a launch. There’s also the danger of a home invasion taking place because an intruder is able to breach the third-party HomeKit lock. In that case, Apple would have to deal with a customer potentially blaming it for a lock developed by another entity. In my view, these are just the risks of innovation in this space. The pros of a security- and privacy-focused company like Apple entering this arena probably outweigh the cons. If Apple ultimately decides not to ship its own product, there is another potential option: selling the technology through a third-party brand like Logitech or Belkin. Apple already has a close relationship with those companies and gets involved in the engineering of accessories, such as Belkin’s robotic iPhone camera attachment for DockKit. In any case, Apple is poised to make an aggressive push into the smart home market after years of ceding the spotlight to rivals. There will be a solid device at the center (the home hub), plus new AI-based services (the upcoming App Intents revamp that will enhance Siri’s ability to control apps) and underlying hardware technologies (the wireless chip), along with standards like Thread and Matter that let products communicate. Add to that some strong accessories (the security camera and possible doorbell) and an array of third-party peripherals that use the HomeKit technology, and you have a compelling lineup. That all means Apple could overcome its late arrival and still make it big in the smart home market.  AirPods on display at an Apple retail store. Photographer: Victor J. Blue/Bloomberg Apple ramps up work on turning AirPods into a health device. When hearing-related features debuted for the AirPods this year, it marked the beginning of a new era for the device. Just as the Apple Watch gradually gained health capabilities during the past decade, AirPods will see the same thing happen over the coming years. The company currently has teams experimenting with a variety of enhancements, including temperature sensing, heart-rate monitoring and technology that tracks a slew of physiological measures. The main work right now is getting the AirPods to reliably measure a user’s heart rate. Though the Apple Watch already does this, the feature could be a selling point for people who don’t like wearing watches or just want a backup fitness tracker. The capability could be ready for the next-generation AirPods Pro, which are in early development. In Apple’s testing, heart-rate data is more accurate on the watch than AirPods, but the earbuds aren’t terribly far off. Speaking of AirPods, Apple also is figuring out a way to cram cameras into the earbuds to help with AI services. The work started off as an experiment a few years ago before getting shuttered. But with the company rallying around AI and its Apple Intelligence platform, the project was brought back to life. In fact, it’s now seen as a priority for the teams within Apple’s AI and AirPods hardware development groups. That said, I wouldn’t expect the technology to hit the market for a couple more years — assuming it doesn’t get canceled again.  Apple iPhone 16 smartphones. Photographer: Dhiraj Singh/Bloomberg Apple’s long-in-the-works iPhone hardware subscription service bites the dust. Two years ago, I reported on an exciting new project underway at Apple’s Pay and Wallet group: an iPhone hardware subscription service. The idea was to let users pay a monthly fee for their iPhone indefinitely — rather than buying one outright or using a two-year installment plan — and get a new model each year. The subscription fee would probably be a bit lower than the cost of an installment plan, and Apple would get the benefit of more recurring revenue. Wall Street loves the reliable sales generated by subscription plans and was immediately excited about the idea. But 2023 — and now 2024 — came and went with no subscription product in sight. Here’s what happened: The project suffered delay after delay related to software and the underlying financial infrastructure. At some point in the last several months, top Apple executives told the team working on the effort to go back to the drawing board and start over. But then the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau enacted new regulations around “buy now, pay later”-style services, and that was the nail in the coffin. So, after killing its Pay Later offering earlier this year, Apple shut down the iPhone subscription service, which would have worked in a similar way. The company disbanded the team but didn’t lay anyone off. Another possible factor in the project’s demise: Apple relies heavily on carrier partners to sell iPhones, and going after their installment-plan business probably wouldn’t make them happy.  MacBook Pros on display at an Apple retail store. Photographer: Samsul Said/Bloomberg Apple brings Genmoji to the Mac with beta version of macOS 15.3. With iOS 18.2 out the door, Apple has turned more of its attention to the next software updates for its main devices. These iterations — iOS 18.3 and macOS 15.3 — will probably be available to customers sometime at the end of January or in February. The beta versions don’t include a lot of new capabilities, but there are some interesting additions. For one, Apple is now supporting robot vacuums in HomeKit. This was announced at its Worldwide Developers Conference but got delayed multiple times, and there’s still no word on which vacuums will be supported. The bigger change is in macOS, which gets Genmoji after missing out on the feature in version 15.2. The Genmoji capability uses AI to let you create custom emoji — a fun enough feature, though not the game changer that some at Apple hoped it might be. It definitely doesn’t make up for a lack of other compelling technology in Apple Intelligence. In my use on an iPhone, it often takes too long to create a Genmoji, and the process seems to heat up my device fairly quickly. That’s because Apple is using local processing for this rather than pushing the task to the cloud. The other result of this decision: The AI-based emojis aren’t terribly impressive. Here’s hoping Apple finds a way to make this feature more compelling given its potential. Q: What’s coming in iOS 18.4 next year?
A: First, let’s review recent releases. Version 18.1 was notable because it included the first Apple Intelligence features. Then you had iOS 18.2, which was massive given its inclusion of ChatGPT integration, visual intelligence features and generative AI for images. Apple’s iOS 18.3 — now available in a public beta test — is nothing to write home about. That brings us to 18.4, which is known internally as the company’s “E” release. It should be significant, especially when it comes to Siri. Now, Apple’s marketing implies that the company already revamped its voice assistant, but it’s really only made cosmetic changes so far. That should change by April, when 18.4 arrives. The release will include the revamped App Intents technology that allows Siri to more precisely control apps. Siri will also be able to see what’s on a user’s display and tap other data to better respond to requests. As for a real conversational, AI-based upgrade to Siri, don’t expect that until iOS 19.4 in 2026. (Of course, the company could still announce it well ahead of its release date, just as it did with other Apple Intelligence features.)
Q: What’s the Mac road map for next year?
A: I expect the end of 2025 to follow the pattern of recent years and include an update to the MacBook Pro — probably with the current design — that has next-generation M5 chips. The iMac is a bit of a wild card, given it got the M3 and M4 chips but skipped the M2. The Mac mini, which had the same design for 15 years until October, is anyone’s guess. But the real meat of the Mac lineup will get refreshed in the first three quarters of 2025. Things will kick off pretty early next year with M4 versions of the 13-inch and 15-inch MacBook Air (these models are already deep into the manufacturing phase). As the year progresses, there will be a new Mac Studio with a high-end M4 chip. The M4 transition will get completed later in the year with a version of the Mac Pro. This will mark the first time since Apple began using in-house chips that its entire computer portfolio moved to a new M-series generation.
Q: Do you believe Apple is working on its own wireless router now that it has an in-house Wi-Fi chip?
A: After I reported that Apple is preparing its first major in-house Wi-Fi and Bluetooth component, there was immediate speculation that the company would resurrect its work on home Wi-Fi routers. While I personally believe that would be great, let me be clear: Apple is not working on a new AirPort wireless router. There is an important caveat, though. The Proxima chip is so sophisticated that it could theoretically turn a home device like an Apple TV box or HomePod into a wireless access point. Google has released products like this before, including a mixed Wi-Fi router and smart speaker. If Apple goes down this road, my belief is the wireless features wouldn’t be the main selling point of the devices. | 
