Apple is finally preparing to compete for the smart home market after falling behind Amazon and Google. For years, Apple Inc. has sold the go-to devices for our pockets, wrists, backpacks and desks. But it has struggled to achieve that kind of success in other key areas: the car, the face, and the home, Bloomberg reported.
Apple blew billions on a car project that it shut down earlier this year, and the company’s Vision Pro hasn’t yet provided that a face-worn technology can be a hit. Its home products, meanwhile, have had mixed results. While the HomePod smart speaker and Apple TV set-top box have their fans, both devices trail competitors’ products.
But now the company is setting out to conquer the smart home with an aggressive new strategy: putting Apple screens and software throughout the house in a way that creates an end-to-end experience.
The renewed effort follows years of mediocre performance in this category, with Amazon.com Inc.’s Google taking the lead. One reason Apple has struggled is its focus on making premium products that work in a closed ecosystem. That hasn’t been an effective strategy in the smart home, where consumers want equipment that can work with a wide range of other products.
For Apple’s next slate of home hardware to be successful, it has to support as many accessories as possible — and the company is preparing to do just that. It helped develop a smart home protocol called Matter that allows Amazon, Google, and Apple devices to all play nicely together.
The Wall Street Journal reported Vision Pro is struggling to attract major software-makers to develop apps for the device, a challenge that threatens to slow the progress of the company’s biggest new product in a decade.
New apps released on the Vision Pro every month have slowed since its launch in January. Some of the most successful virtual-reality software developers have so far opted not to build apps for the headset.
Without enough killer apps, certain users have found the device less useful and are opting to sell it.
“It’s a chicken-or-egg problem,” said Bertrand Nepveu, who previously worked on the Vision Pro at Apple and is now an investor in this area at Triptyq Capitol.
Nepevu and app developers think Apple should fund app makers to give them an incentive to port over their existing apps from other headsets or to develop fresh content. This practice has become common in the industry, with headset leader Meta Platforms funding many developers and even buying several app makers.
Many developers are already looking forward to a cheaper version of Apple’s headset, which is expected as soon as next year.
Mashable reported Apple’s Vision Pro headset is incredibly powerful, but also very expensive and quite bulky. The company is reportedly planning to launch a much lighter wearable device — though don’t expect it to arrive very soon.
Apple is also reportedly working on a version of AirPods with cameras. As Mashable previously reported, the idea for the earbuds is to enable new spacial audio experiences, perhaps when combined with the Vision Pro. Both the smart glasses and the AirPods might arrive as early as 2027.
In my opinion, Apple has a wide variety of products that it hopes people will purchase. I don’t think every Apple user is going to buy all of them.