Apple mulls Apple TV with a built-in FaceTime camera and gesture-based controls

Apple TV 4K and its Siri Remote
Apple may be focusing a bit more on the smart home segment, including mulling the release of Apple TV hardware with a built-in FaceTime camera and gesture-based controls.
Mark Gurman for Bloomberg News:
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The Vision Pro headset ushered Apple into the mixed-reality category, which the company refers to as spatial computing. But its greatest potential may be replacing the Mac and iPad, rather than becoming an entirely new revenue source. And for the device to make any meaningful headway, the company will have to develop a cheaper model and ideally bring it to market within the next two years.
Then there’s the smart home segment, where Apple still has grand ambitions. It has discussed automating household functions and offering a revamped Apple TV set-top box with a built-in camera for FaceTime videoconferencing and gesture-based controls. And the technology will all work seamlessly with both the iPhone and Vision Pro.
One piece of the strategy is a lightweight smart display — something akin to a low-end iPad. Such a device could be shuttled from room to room as needed and hooked into charging hubs stationed around the house. Apple has started small-scale test production of the screens for this product, but hasn’t made a decision on whether to move forward.
Creating a unified smart home strategy remains an Apple goal, but the vision has been hard to fulfill. The need to finish up the Vision Pro got in the way, I’m told, diverting resources away from the smart home efforts.
But now that the Vision Pro has shipped and the electric car has been canceled, Apple has more bandwidth to refocus on the home.

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MacDailyNews Take: A company the size of Apple has some severe structural bottlenecks if some projects take away from others. A properly managed company the size of Apple should be able to work on Vision Pro and smart home products alongside an untold number of other major initiatives concurrently without causing delays.
Regardless, an Apple TV with a built-in FaceTime camera would sell.
A camera for FaceTime (and Zoom, etc.) should have been built into Apple TV units years ago. Hopefully, HomePod TV will sometime see the light of day! _ MacDailyNews, April 13, 2021
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