Hey Siri, fold my laundry

TL;DR: Could 2027 be the year that robot helpers enter our homes? Apple’s reportedly been working on one with a moving arm that it’s aiming to sell next year—while Meta apparently just built a humanoid prototype for doing chores. But there’s still a big question mark around how useful the earliest versions of these household bots will be.

What happened: It appears that Apple’s breathless blitz of new product releases is far from over. Next year, it hopes to launch its very first robot—one that looks something like the famous Pixar lamp, per The Information.

Picture this: a gadget with a 9-inch screen attached to an arm that might be able to track your movements throughout a room, notice you’ve walked in and turn on the lights, scold your cat if he jumps on the table, and…make FaceTime calls. If this simply sounds like an “Ultra” version of the Apple HomeView—that’s exactly how the company could frame it, former Apple employees told The Information. The base model could cost about $1,000—or more, pending any further hikes in component costs. (CEO John Ternus did just warn in Apple’s earnings call yesterday that memory prices are “unprecedented.”)

The long road to robots: This home device is something Apple’s been working on since around 2019, with the hardware pretty much wrapped for two years now. What’s slowed the company down is the software, including questions about adding more features or streamlining it to focus on smart home capabilities. And, apparently, there’s been a tussle around how many agentic AI features to offer.

Apple’s just joining the party: There’s a good reason for Apple to try to sell this bot next year: Competitors around the world are tinkering with home robots, too. Meta recently made a 106-pound humanoid prototype called Max for doing household tasks, according to The Information—an early glimpse of the tech company’s push into both robotics and consumer hardware. (Perhaps unsurprisingly, Max was reportedly created with a robotics firm in China, which builds most of the world’s humanoids.)

The most similar competing product to Apple’s household bot, though, might be OpenAI’s “donut-shaped” home device with a camera, speakers, and moveable parts. (And, you might recall, Apple sued OpenAI over allegedly stealing trade secrets it says helped the AI lab’s hardware effort.)

Bottom line: Earlier this year, LG’s laundry-folding robot made big waves at CES (even though it moves at a truly glacial pace). In 2027, we might finally start seeing some smaller versions of these robo-servants—and Apple’s reportedly also working on bots devoted to specific chores (like, you guessed it, folding clothes). —WK