Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “Apple’s Rumored AI Robots: Explained”.
Could Apple’s Next Big Thing be a robot? Now the Apple car is in the rearview mirror Bloomberg reports that a robot that follows you around the home could be in the works. Now there is, of course, a lot of overlap with AI here. Another area we know is going to be probably pretty big for Apple this year for the robots. Specifically, though the report says, the company’s AI researchers are investigating how it could navigate cluttered spaces. A rumor can already do that pretty well.
So what else could this be? Maybe it’s like the Little Star Wars, droids yeah, probably not, but it’s fun to speculate. Another project, that’s also supposedly a little further along in development is a tabletop device that uses robotics to move a display. This might mimic head movements of the person you’re FaceTiming with like nodding, or maybe shaking your head, I’m already a little creeped out by my Persona on Vision Pro. So I don’t know how I’m going to feel about this. One home robots aren’t new.
We’Ve seen tech companies, big and small, bring out lots of different versions with varying degrees of su access and availability. The Amazon Astro, with its strangely expressive screen eyes, is kind of a jack of all trades. A home security, robot, personal companion and smart display all rolled up into one, but you can’t really get your hands on it even 2 years after we first reviewed it on Amazon, it’s still listed as invite only and costs $ 1600. It’S one of what Amazon calls its day: one edition projects, basically their big picture projects and initiatives. Then there’s the Samsung baly. We first saw this cute spherical robot pop up a number of times at trade shows like CES in 2020 and in January this year.
It’S taken what we think is going to be its final form: a bigger rollable ball with a built-in projector and, of course, plenty of AI, but both these examples show that getting a home robot right is really really difficult. There’S been so many other companies along the way that have tried to be our new personal companions like the anky cosmo robot, which I remember falling in love with back in 2016, pour went out for the little guy may he live on through open source. It still feels like we’re waiting for our true Rosie from the Jetson’s moment, which, funnily enough is something Apple’s also been thinking about too.
According to Mark German’s report, one of the original ideas was a fully autonomous robot that could move around the home with video conferencing capabilities kind of like an iPad on wheels, or I guess similar to what the Astro does. But more intriguing for me is how the report also mentions a robot that does chores like washing dishes in a sink. Obviously, the engineering challenges to commercialize that sort of robot would be enormous, but I would pay top dollar for that same price as a Vision.
Pro sure, then, there’s the question of how AI fits into all of this chat. Gpt is being integrated into something like figure: a general purpose, humanoid robot, there’s Tesla’s Optimus, also in the same vein and nvidia’s project Groot, which can understand human inputs like natural language and movement. Meta is also working on what it calls socially intelligent AI agents that could take a number of different forms from AI glasses to a robot using a simulation platform called Habitat to train and collaborate with humans in a home environment. They’Re all trying to bring AI robots to life, so why does Apple need a robot? Well, we know Hardware is traditionally Apple’s bread and butter. The iPhone is still the single biggest Revenue generator for the company, and there is a big emphasis on what on Earth is going to come next to either take its place or boost the bottom line.
Building a robot is hard and we’ve got plenty of shuted robot companies and projects to show for it. Apple reportedly also knows this because a they know it’s going to be expensive and that might limit the audience. It appeals to and B engineering challenges like weight distribution on a small stand. Adding in Locomotion is no easy feet.
What I really want to know is what on Earth would an apple robot even look like? Is it something like pepper the robot with a face and a screen? Is it more humanoid style, or is it more like an iPad on Wheels, maybe a homepod on Wheels with roller skape, okay, that last one’s totally off Bas, but it is fun to think about. Let me know what your thoughts are on: the Apple robot speculate on what it could look like and what it could do down in the comments and we’ll see if this ever sees the light of day, see you .