Update, Oct. 25: Apple unveiled the home hub on Oct. 13 as HomeView, a $299 smart display with a 7-inch square screen, offered with a speaker base or for wall mounting. It can recognize up to six people and personalize its home screen for each, and it starts arriving Nov. 13, 9to5Mac reported.
John Ternus opened his first keynote as Apple’s chief executive by describing the ideal AI device, then told the audience Apple had already built it. At the Surprise and Shine event, he said such an “intelligent personal hub” would understand a user’s personal context, always be with them, run AI models on a powerful on-device processor, reach cloud models over the internet, and have a large display, good cameras and microphones, and long battery life, TechCrunch reported.
“In other words, you would arrive at something remarkably familiar, because there’s no product in the world better designed to be your intelligent personal hub than iPhone,” Ternus said. He took over from Tim Cook, who is now executive chairman.
Privacy as the pitch
Ternus also leaned on privacy to set Apple apart, saying “others see [users’ personal] data as something to collect and store.” He added: “Honestly, trust only goes so far when your data is no longer yours to control; that’s why Apple Intelligence runs on device whenever it can.” TechCrunch called it one of the sharper statements Apple has made about how it plans to differentiate its AI platform.
The hub that wasn’t shown
People inside Apple expected Ternus to introduce a home hub instead, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reported in his Power On newsletter, as summarized by The Next Web. That device, codenamed J490, was being tested in employees’ homes, with a roughly square screen on a stand or wall mount, software that mixes iOS, tvOS and watchOS, and iPhone-based setup. It also uses the front camera for facial recognition to personalize the screen for whoever is looking at it.
Gurman wrote that Ternus is “playing his only hand.” With OpenAI close to launching an AI-first computer and Apple lacking a revolutionary new mobile product, current iPhones are the best showcase for Siri AI. The Next Web noted that much of what Apple is building ties back to the phone, including smart glasses expected next year and camera-equipped AirPods reported for 2027.
Siri AI shipped this month with iOS 27, with a waitlist, and was rebuilt on a custom Google Gemini model reportedly costing about $1 billion a year, The Next Web said. Apple said during WWDC week that Siri AI wouldn’t launch in the European Union while talks with the European Commission over the Digital Markets Act remained unresolved.
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