It’s been rumored for a while that Apple is engaged on a HomePod with a display screen, as a part of its wider push into the smart-home area. And that launch simply bought a bit nearer, with the invention of a reference to an unreleased product in new beta software program.
The Apple information web site 9to5Mac made the invention Tuesday. A tool given the codename “Z314” is referred to within the third beta of tvOS 17.4 beta 3 as being able to operating the working system. For sure, no such machine has been launched prior to now. Amongst present Apple merchandise, tvOS is run by Apple TV and HomePod, though the latter makes use of an tailored model with no visible interface.
Except for merely revealing that the product exists, the code means that it has reached “a sophisticated stage of growth,” as 9to5Mac places it. Inner and manufacturing variations of the machine have been constructed and examined, the positioning explains. For comparability, the HomePod and HomePod mini had pre-release codenames of B238 and B520 respectively, whereas the iPads have had codenames starting with J, Okay, or P; there haven’t been any Z-family codenames earlier than, hinting that this may very well be a totally new class of machine.
9to5Mac additional reveals that the Z314 machine options an A15 Bionic chip, which matches the Sixth-gen iPad mini and has additionally appeared in quite a few iPhones. It’s extra highly effective than a chip that might be anticipated to look in a regular (i.e. screen-free) HomePod; the 2023 HomePod makes use of an S7 Apple Watch processor.
Final 12 months the broadly revered analyst Ming-Chi Kuo predicted {that a} HomePod with a show would launch within the first half of 2024. For all the newest information on this challenge, keep watch over our usually up to date rumor roundup.
