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Rumors are still swirling that Apple is hard at work on a tabletop robot for home use. According to the latest report, the potential price of this animated robot could be somewhere around $1,000.
According to a new report in BloombergApple has hundreds of people working on the project, most of whom are led by former Apple Watch mastermind (and the man behind the ill-fated car project) Kevin Lynch. Apple has yet to comment, so much of what we think we know about the robot project is pure speculation.
It could look like this classic iMac G3 from 2001with a large, thin screen hanging from an articulated arm. The difference would be that this thin arm would be animated and the robot, probably thanks to Siri and perhaps Apple Intelligence, would respond to commands and questions.
It’s still years, if not forever, before that happens, but Bloomberg claims there is at least a concerted effort to keep the price around $1,000.
That’s the part that sticks with me the most.
A high bar for success
Now, I’m not a big believer in this project (codenamed, according to Bloomberg, Project J595). Apple, if the rumors are true, almost seems to be toying (in a very expensive way) with the idea, much like it did with Project Titan, the now-dead Apple Car Project. It’s bold, exciting, and could be an industry game changer, but it’s also one of Google’s Moonshot Projects. You know, the one that Google launches and regularly deletes.
Robotics is tough, even for companies that are all in. There may be a race to create the first viable humanoid robot for the home, but I wouldn’t say any company is ahead of the others or even close to delivering a robot to my home.
A table robot may be much less ambitious, but the effort may be no less fraught. I still remember Jiboa cute home tabletop robot with a rotating head and screen face that could respond to questions and talk a little. Although Jibo arrived years before the generative AI boon, its developers called it a social robot. Ultimately, it didn’t matter what they called it; consumers weren’t interested.
Given advances in hardware, silicon, and especially AI, Apple’s rumored efforts could do better. Still, a lot depends on Apple’s goal. Is it to bring robotics into the home, or is it to finally get Apple into the smart home market for real?
Nothing Apple has done so far has put it on par with Google and Amazon in terms of smart home integration. Could an oversized, oversized, and oversized tabletop robot tie it all together? It could be the central idea missing from Apple’s smart home strategy.
Maybe, and that brings some back to the price.
The price must be right
Apple already learned a hard lesson with Vision Pro, a spectacular piece of wearable mixed-reality technology that few people own because they simply can’t afford or justify paying nearly $3,500 for something they wear on their heads.
If Apple wants to succeed in its attempts at a home robot, the Apple Bot can’t cost $3,500, and it can’t cost $2,000. Even $1,000 might be a bit much. Now, a $499 Apple Home robot, that would be something.
It will likely be years before we know whether Apple’s engineering efforts have paid off and whether the result is a golden-rinded peach or a shiny red apple that anyone can buy and eat.
If the latter isn’t the case, I suggest Apple pulls the plug on the rumored robot project and puts it alongside the legendary Apple Car.
