Rumors persist that Apple is hard at work on a tabletop robot for the home, and the latest report estimates the potential price of this animated robot to be around $1,000.
According to a new report from Bloomberg, Apple has hundreds of people working on the project, most of them led by former Apple Watch genius (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 the classic iMac G3 from 2001, with a large, thin screen hanging from an articulated structure. 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 queries.
It's still years, if not forever, away, but Bloomberg says there's at least a concerted effort to keep the price in the $1,000 range.
That's the part that catches my attention.
A very high bar for success
Now, I’m not a huge believer in this project (codenamed Project J595, according to Bloomberg). If the rumors are true, it sounds like Apple is almost toying (and very expensively) with the idea, much like it did with Project Titan, the now-defunct Apple Car project. It’s bold, exciting, and potentially a game-changer for the industry, but it’s also like one of Google’s high-risk projects. You know, the ones that Google launches and scraps on a regular basis.
Robotics is a tricky field even for companies that are dedicated to it full-time. There may be a race to build the first viable domestic humanoid robot, but I'm not going to say that any company is ahead of another or is anywhere close to delivering one to my home.
A tabletop robot may be much less ambitious, but the effort may be no less complicated. I still remember Jibo, an adorable tabletop home robot with a rotating head and a screen that could answer questions and carry on small talk. Although Jibo arrived years before the advent of generative AI, developers called it a social robot. In the end, it didn’t matter what they called it; consumers didn’t care.
Considering the advances in hardware, silicon, and especially AI, the rumors about Apple's efforts could pay off. However, 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 space for real?
So far, nothing Apple has done has put it on par with Google and Amazon when it comes to smart home integration. Could one big, friendly tabletop robot do it all? It may be the central idea missing from Apple's smart home strategy.
Maybe, and that brings us back to the issue of price.
The price must be fair
Apple already learned a hard lesson with the Vision Pro, a spectacular piece of mixed-reality wearable technology that very few people own because they simply can't afford it or can't justify paying nearly $3,500 for something they wear on their heads.
If Apple wants to succeed in its efforts to make home robots, the Apple Bot can't cost $3,500 or $2,000. Even $1,000 might be too much. But a $499 Apple Home robot would be something.
It will likely be years before we know whether Apple's development efforts have paid off and whether the fruit of its efforts is a gold-covered peach or a shiny red apple that anyone can buy and consume.
If the latter cannot be the case, I suggest Apple abandons its rumored robot project now and shelves it alongside the legendary Apple Car.
