Apple Said to Develop Robotic-Arm HomeView for 2027-2028

Gurman disclosed the project in his Power On newsletter, the report said. The robotic-arm HomeView is positioned above the $299 HomeView Apple introduced last week among more than ten smart-home products. In Apple's promotional video for the current HomeView, family members take turns using the screen but must reach out to adjust its tilt by hand, a detail Gurman cited as evidence that a fixed screen remains awkward even when the device recognizes who is in front of it.

The current HomeView uses a hemispherical base and a stainless-steel connecting arm, a design that nods to the 2002 iMac G4, but its screen angle is still set manually. The reported J595 model would add a brushless motor in the base for 360-degree horizontal rotation and servos in the linkage for vertical tilt, according to the report. A microphone array and voiceprint recognition would detect a speaker and drive the motor to face that person.

The report ties the device to Apple's broader work on sensing people and space. Face ID on the iPhone X in 2017 established recognition as an unlock method; HomePod added voice-based identification in the home; ultra-wideband helped AirTag and iPhone judge direction and distance; and Center Stage on iPad automatically framed people during video calls. HomeView brings some of that into the living room: its front camera can recognize up to six family members and switch to their homepages, while privacy protections require a paired iPhone to be nearby and unlocked.

Apple's interest in a moving home screen is also an attempt to give Siri personal and household context, the report said. On personal devices, Apple can draw on calendars, reminders and health data across iPhone, Mac and Apple Watch. In the living room, HomePod and Apple TV have offered only limited personalization because they cannot reliably tell who is present, the report said.

Apple would not be the first to sell a screen that moves. Amazon released the Echo Show 10 in 2020 with a 10.1-inch display that rotates 350 degrees horizontally. That device did not use facial recognition, reacting instead to sound and human-shaped motion. Users often disabled auto-rotation after the screen turned toward television dialogue, pets or other false triggers, and some complained about motor noise, according to the report.

The report also cited Apple's ELEGNT human-robot interaction paper, which used a desk-mounted robotic arm to compare a functional movement that turned along the shortest path at a constant speed with a more expressive motion that added acceleration changes, a slight tilt and a pause before facing the speaker. The second approach was intended to feel less like a security camera locking onto a target and more like a person turning to listen.

In a real home, the harder problem is judgment. A device may need to choose among several speakers, decide whether to follow someone moving from a stove to a refrigerator, and avoid unnecessary motion that feels intrusive. If it turns too often or toward the wrong person, users may simply switch off the feature, as some Echo Show 10 owners did. Apple has not announced the J595 device, and the reported launch window could change.