There have been rumours spreading that Apple is looking at moving onto the ‘next big thing’ when it comes to tech innovations since abandoning their automobile project, and we may finally have a clear understanding of what that thing is. Introducing the Apple Robot, a new concept that is rumoured to be introduced by Apple within the next couple of years.
There's already a lot of speculation over what this could entail, so let’s take a look at this possible upcoming project, comparing it to past projects and giving an insight into our opinions.
(Please note: Nothing has yet been confirmed by Apple at the current time, all information in this blog is purely based on rumours and opinions spread on social media.)
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Is Apple making robots?
Although this Apple Robot is nowhere near being confirmed by Apple, there is a lot to unpack over what has been revealed so far. We know that Apple is keen to branch into the smart home and home robotics industry, they mastered the wearables with the Apple Watch so now it only makes sense they move on to much bigger, better things. The robot, currently nicknamed by fans as the iRobot, will supposedly follow users around their homes to help with household needs and there will be a tabletop device that uses robotics to help adjust display screens.
We don’t yet have any images released of this iRobot, so we have no idea if it will be a life-sized replicant of a human or a small box with wheels. Considering we also have no price range for this iRobot, we cannot guess what the robot will look like either in terms of size. One thing we can assume though is that this product won’t be cheap. The latest iPhone 15 Pro Max sells for over 1k and the Apple Vision Headset sells for over 3k, so we know that 1k is the lowest this iRobot will sell for. (We assume it will be much, much higher, however.)
Was the Apple car Cancelled?
Lots of dedicated Apple fans will be slightly confused when it comes to this recent announcement. We were told by Apple that they are focussing on AI advancements and that was why they cancelled their decade-long Apple Car Project, we knew Apple wanted to work on AI, but was robots what they meant?
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The Apple electric car was originally considered to expand Apple into new markets and grow the company's tech abilities, however, over the last 10 years, the project has been very off and on. After the successful release of the Apple Vision Pro in 2024 Apple decided to put their Apple Titan project back on once more, attempting to release the vehicle by 2028. But yet again, it fell through and was officially cancelled in February 2024. Now 2 months later, Apple are back with another major concept, the iRobot. We do think this project is a bit out of nowhere, moving from big projects like the Apple Car to focus on AI, then jumping straight to an iRobot, why could Apple have decided to do this?
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Are robots in high demand?
Like we said the iRobot feels like it’s coming out of nowhere, but we know Apple likes to keep ahead of their competition, so we know this project has meaning to it. Only a couple of robotics at home have been created previously by big companies with only 1 robot released to the public, we assume Apple wants to beat others to it whilst they still can.
The iRobot would follow in the footsteps of Amazon's 2021 Astro robot and would possibly beat tech competitor Tesla who are working on their Tesla Optimus Gen 2 Robot which was announced in 2023. The tesla Optimus gen 2 prototypes will do anything that humans don't want to do, designed to be a similar shape and size as humans so it can replace human labour seamlessly. We assume this is the only reason Apple is pushing this project so quickly, to compete with Optimus gen 2 Tesla.
Will the Apple Robot happen?
There have also been talks that Apple are slightly concerned about this upcoming project in terms of sales. Considering it's a product that isn’t needed by customers and the home robot industry is still very new, there are fears that the product won’t sell or will be classed as too expensive. On socials, fans expressed their thoughts asking why this robot seems to be the new focus, not the upcoming iPhone 16 or possible release of a new iPad. Whilst we are still awaiting a new Apple iPad release since the previous model was released in 2022, is it the best time for the company to focus on these new top-priced products that no one will buy?
Conclusion:
In our opinion we can’t see the iRobot project going ahead any time soon. We also can’t see it being put into development however we would be very shocked if this project does end up being completed. It took Apple 10 years to run and finally cancel their automobile project, and the lack of interest from fans is another reason we can’t see it going ahead. It appears like Apple is just trying out as many projects as possible to see what lands well, they failed with the Apple Car but exceeded with the Apple Vision Pro proving that AI and VR are the way forward. This could be why the iRobot has taken priority as previous Apple AI tech has done so well.
We want to know what you think. Would you ever consider this purchase, or do you agree and think we will never see this final product in stores, let us know in the comments!