Apple Wants to Take Over Your Home. Is Siri Finally Ready?

Power On with Mark Gurman

Mark Gurman and Vlad Savov discuss Apple's strategic expansion into the smart home market via a new AI-powered hub. They also explore upcomi

Key takeaways

• Apple is developing an AI smart home hub, codenamed J490, featuring facial recognition and a voice-first interface for a Fall 2026 release.
• A new touchscreen MacBook Pro with OLED technology and a Dynamic Island is expected as early as October.

Main topics

• Apple Smart Home Hub (J490)
• Touchscreen MacBook Pro Redesign

Notable quotes

There's no real reason to go from a 17 Pro to an 18 Pro.

Conclusion

The episode highlights Apple's pivot toward an AI-centric home ecosyst

Transcript preview

Speaker 4 (0:02) Bloomberg Audio Studios. Speaker 1 (0:05) Podcasts. Radio. News. Speaker 4 (0:07) They know there's no real reason to go from a 17 Pro to an 18 Pro. So what do you do? You call in the influencers. Speaker 4 (0:20) Welcome to the Power On Podcast. I'm Mark Gurman, and we talk about Apple in the larger consumer tech industry. On this episode, we're going to talk about Apple's next big thing, an AI-powered smart home hub, as well as the larger Apple Home ecosystem that the company has in the cards for the year ahead. We'll also get into our first impressions of the iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max, and how Apple's rolling out the latest iPhones. And lastly... We'll get into the influencer takeover at Apple events and coverage of the company's latest products and what that means for Apple and the industry. Speaker 4 (0:56) Today I'm with Vlad Zavov, a Bloomberg Tech Editor who's dialing in from Hong Kong. Vlad, I'm curious, what was the last iPhone you used as a daily driver? I know for the most part you're kind of an Android guy. Speaker 3 (1:08) Yeah, you're right, Mark. You know, when the Google Pixel came out, I was smitten by the Android camera system and I've been with it for a long time. But I will say the iPhone 13 Pro is the last time that I had committed my entire life to the iPhone ecosystem. But what about you? I got to imagine your first iPhone was probably like a Steve Jobs prototype. Speaker 4 (1:24) Yeah, exactly. Let's just say I'm pretty familiar with the iPhone. I've had every model since the original and looking forward to picking up a Duo come October. So, been an iPhone lifer. Well, you have been Speaker 3 (1:37) covering Apple for 17 years now, and you've made guest appearances on plenty of other podcasts. And now the question that many people will be asking is, why now? Why are we doing the Power On podcast now? Speaker 4 (1:48) Yeah, it's a good question. And you say that I've been covering Apple for 17 years. I really can't believe it. Just to give you some context, when I started covering Apple, Steve Jobs was still CEO. Tim Cook had not yet become CEO because Steve Jobs had not taken that last medical leave yet. The original iPad had not yet been announced. The iPhone 4 had not yet been announced. And so my first sort of big cycle of covering Apple was the iPad, was the iPhone 4, which obviously were two pinnacle level products in Apple history. And then the transition from Steve Jobs to Tim Cook. And I've been writing about the company over the course of the entire tenure of Cook. And in terms of why is now the right time? Well, it's a new era, not only for Apple with new CEO John Ternes. but it's a new era for the consumer technology industry with artificial intelligence and how fast everything is moving these days. And there are so many different technology podcasts out there. And I've noticed that there's sort of a gap there in terms of Apple-specific coverage. There are so many people who want to get a podcast and learn and hear more about Apple. It seems like a good time. It's a new era for Apple. And so it's a new era for me too, finally doing a podcast now. And I hope you all enjoy it. And Vlad, glad to have you here too. And it's nice to have you as someone who will be a regular because you have a perspective of the larger consumer tech industry. I'm deep, deep, deep in the Apple ecosystem. Obviously, I use everything. But it's nice to have sort of a sparring partner here who uses Android on the day-to-day and is also very familiar with everything that's going on. So good to have you here, too, along with your expertise on all things AI in the Asia region. Speaker 3 (3:35) Absolutely. And I will say my mission here is going to be to get you to use an Android device at some point for some Speaker 4 (3:40) extended period of time. I've got a drawer. I've got a drawer with the new Z Fold 8. I've got... Plenty of S series Samsung phones. I've got all the recent Google Pixels, but obviously I'm an Apple guy through and through, as hopefully most of you know, listening to this show. Speaker 3 (3:58) And I will add, just to throw back to the history before we jump into the future, for myself, when I started out doing any technology coverage at all, the iPhone 3GS was one of my formative memories. I will tell you, I first was messing around with feature phones, Nokia phones. Remember, Nokia used to make smartphones. And Android was just its inception, really. Like it had Google Maps and it had a couple of nice features. And then I got a hold of the iPhone 3GS and I looked at Google Maps on the iPhone 3GS and the speed and fluidity of the entire user experience. And I said to myself, what are we doing, guys? Like this thing is so far ahead of everything else. And the really compelling thing to me, and especially sitting here in Hong Kong, being here in China and seeing the pace of Chinese innovation, is the fact that the competition is not that far behind the iPhone right now. Like I am going to be here to remind people that Vivo has amazing cameras, that Xiaomi is putting in laptop size batteries and all of that. So to add context, that's really the point. Speaker 4 (4:56) Okay, so we're going to start off every episode with some listener questions. And so if you have a question for me, shoot it over as an email to poweron at bloomberg.net, and we'll get to it on a future episode. So Vlad, what great questions do we have this time around? Well, the first one, and it's Speaker 3 (5:12) one I'm very curious about myself, is when are we going to see the redesigned MacBook Pro? Speaker 4 (5:17) Yeah, so just to give some context here, back in, I would say, January of 2023, Speaker 4 (5:26) So, almost four years ago, I can't believe it's almost 2027, I got a tip that Steve Jobs would be very unhappy because Apple is gearing up seriously this time to develop a touchscreen MacBook Pro. And I've been covering this in and out since 2023. And this is about to happen. Apple, I believe, will introduce its first touchscreen MacBook Pro this fall. as early as October. It could slip to November, but as early as October. And Apple is testing it internally using macOS 27.2, which is a beta that they've already put out to developers in recent weeks. So this thing is approaching. They've redesigned the OS to a large degree in Golden Gate, similar to the iPhone Duo redesign, in order to make it more touch-friendly, things around volume controls, buttons in Control Center, app icons, what have you. And the other part of this MacBook Pro, in addition to having the touchscreen, it's going to be the first Mac with two other things, a dynamic island, which is obviously that cool interface you have on the iPhone, and they're making big use of it on the Duo, and OLED. So for the first time, bringing OLED to the Mac. And you know what that means, Vlad? Pricey. Speaker 3 (6:39) Question number two, and this pertains to new Apple CEO John Ternes. He just had his first Apple event, but he was very much in line with the Tim Cook Apple event of recent times, which is highly produced. It's like a mini movie produced by Apple. The question is, do you anticipate John Ternes ever returning to live keynotes like Steve Jobs used to do? Speaker 4 (6:59) I don't see it. Apple has become the ultimate play it safe company. And when it's prerecorded, you can't make mistakes. You can't mess up a demo. And so for that reason alone, I don't see it ever happening. The other thing is by pre-filming these things, you can create social video pretty easily. You can chop these up pretty easily. And the ability to share these things if you're Apple and market them has gone to a whole new degree compared to where they were when they did live on stage demos. So the genie's out of the bottle here and there's no going back in my view. Speaker 4 (7:35) I want to talk to you about a product today inside Apple. It's called J490. Now, these numbers, these code names, they don't really mean anything. But internally, if you've been at Apple for the last, I would say, three to five years, you've been hearing about it a lot because this is their solution to their smart home problem. When Steve Jobs was running Apple, he said they need to own all the places that consumers are, the home. mobile, and in the car. The car they try to do, and really at this point, there's no going back to that project. Mobile, obviously they've owned with the iPod, the iPad, the iPhone, MacBooks, et cetera. Home, you have home computers, but Apple doesn't really have a smart home strategy. You've had HomeKit, you've had HomePods, but there's really been nothing effective there. J490, the company's AI smart home hub. is the solution. It's basically like an Amazon Echo Show built by Apple for the Apple universe. Features like FaceTime, facial recognition, a brand new operating system. This is Apple's next big thing, and it's just