Apple explores personal robots after pulling plug on ‘Apple Car’

Tim Cook’s Apple is investigating a push into personal robots, a field with the potential to become one of the company’s ever-shifting “next big things,” Bloomberg News reports citing “people familiar with the situation.”
Mark Gurman for Bloomberg News:
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Engineers at Apple have been exploring a mobile robot that can follow users around their homes, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the skunk-works project is private. The iPhone maker also has developed an advanced table-top home device that uses robotics to move a display around, they said.
Though the effort is still in the beginning stages — and it’s unclear if the products will ultimately be released — Apple is under growing pressure to find new sources of revenue. It scrapped an electric vehicle project in February, and a push into mixed-reality goggles is expected to take years to become a major moneymaker.
Though the robotic smart display is much further along than the mobile bot, it has been added and removed from the company’s product road map over the years, according to the people… Still, Apple hasn’t committed to either project as a company, and the work is still considered to be in the early research phase…
The table-top robotics project first excited senior Apple executives a few years ago, including hardware engineering chief John Ternus and members of the industrial design team. The idea was to have the display mimic the head movements — such as nodding — of a person on a FaceTime session… One pie-in-the-sky idea within Apple was having it be able to handle chores, like cleaning dishes in a sink. But that would require overcoming extraordinarily difficult engineering challenges — something that’s unlikely this decade.
Before the EV project was canceled, Apple told its top executives that the company’s future revolved around three areas: automotive, the home, and mixed reality.

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