Apple’s home robot It is another major project of the Cupertino firm and is being developed by the Special Projects Group, which until recently worked on the electric car, according to Bloomberg, citing internal sources.

Last February, we learned about the suspension of the Apple Car, the electric and autonomous car project that Apple would have invested decades of work and billions of dollars into. The boys from Cupertino are not used to these setbacks and would already be exploring new sources of growth with “her next big thing” coming from home robotics. According to Bloomberg, the star of the products being developed under this program is a mobile home robot that would help users in their home in various ways.

Obviously, robotics is completely intertwined with AI technologies, which is why Apple would choose John Giannandrea, Apple’s senior vice president of machine learning and artificial intelligence strategy, who previously led the AI ​​teams, as the director of this project. , research and Google search. Other senior executives, Matt Costello and Brian Lynch, are said to be in charge of the robots’ hardware development, the report said.

Apple’s home robot he wouldn’t be the first while penetrating the market. Amazon launched its friendly robot ‘Astro’ in 2021 and Samsung will launch its assistant ‘Ballie’ this year. The industry has seen several active developments in other sectors, such as the Miso AI “Flippy” used in a fast food restaurant to flip burgers and place them on buns; “Wingman” of the Re-Up chain responsible for handling French fries and chicken wings at gas stations; or the typical ones used in restaurants that bring food to your table. Not to mention the thousands of robots that Amazon uses in its warehouses.

Will Apple’s home robot run around your house?

These types of projects are long-term and difficult to predict. Only giants like Apple can afford it because It is not certain that it will eventually reach the market. No successful helper has been found in the home environment, and really the only notable thing for mass use is small cleaning robots.

Bloomberg says that Apple engineers initially approached the robotics project as a device that would move on its own and serve more like a video conferencing device on wheels. “The idea was for the screen to mimic the head movements, such as nodding, of a person in a FaceTime session.”. After the electric car fiasco, it seems so Apple has raised its targets and committed resources to this personal robotics project.

And so, we will have to wait many years until he has an assistant at home like the one in the sci-fi movie “I Robot”. And not all users will want to bring it into their home. Amazon’s ‘Astro’, essentially a smart display on wheels that can respond to Alexa commands, has been seen as highly invasive on privacy issues. That’s no small problem to solve, on top of everything else that goes into a project like this.

We’ll see if Apple sheds some light on its robotics ambitions at WWDC 2024. AI technologies and their application to Apple products will be the focus of this year’s annual developer event.

* AI generated cover image.