Apple’s Next 6 Devices Could Lock You Into Its Ecosystem

Craig: apple is done playing defense in the ai war, and they're about to flood your entire life with six brand new hardware categories. from robotic butlers to ai pendants, the walled garden is officially turning into a fortress. so apple's six front hardware blitz is coming out. mark gurman reveals that apple is developing six new categories, including ai glasses, a tabletop robot, a home and home security to launch between 2026 and 2028. most of these rely on the iphone as the brain deepening user lock in. this is apple's most aggressive expansion in decades, moving them from a pocket and desk company to every room and every outfit company. what do you think about this, john?

Jon: yeah. so i'm questioning whether or not this is tim cook or if this is john timis or ternis, the guy who's taking over as ceo in september. and i also am thinking, is the macbook neo the john turner as well, who's the incoming ceo as of i think it's september 1. so, i'd i'd be curious to get your your insights on that. so

Craig: i got insights on that right now. both.

Jon: okay. go ahead.

Craig: it both. you know, john, ternus is a product guy. right? so he's a hardware guy. he's been involved in hardware. he's been involved probably in most of these projects. yeah. however, just like when steve jobs left, we didn't really see tim cook's impact on the hardware till five or six years on. we're not gonna see that this time because he's pretty much been the head of hardware development. i can't remember what his title was, but, he's been involved in the making of most of this all along. so

Jon: he was senior vice president of hardware engineering.

Craig: there you go. so that just tells you he's been involved in most, if not all, of these products in all of the hardware situations. so he'll have his signature all over this stuff much faster than tim cook did, just as a result of that.

Jon: yeah. yeah.

Craig: okay. go ahead.

Jon: yeah. so let's dive into this. i think these ai enhanced airpods are just bs. so smart glasses, yes. samsung's coming up with smart glasses too, by the way. they should be coming out in the next couple months. the wearable pendant we've seen, i don't think we've covered. the smart home display, obviously, it's the part of their smart home all integration, especially because they're coming out with a smart security camera and this tabletop robot. the one that in that intrigues me the most is this tabletop robot. the rest are just like, they're yeah. just to me, it's, it's not nothing that's just, oh my god. they're innovating, like they used to. but that's my opinion. what are your thoughts on the new devices that they're potentially coming out with?

Craig: well, i'll just quickly go through them so our, listeners know what we're talking about. the ai airpods, smarter hearing, will lean heavily on siri on device and on device ai processing is designed to work as a companion to the iphone for ai powered features. so now you can just say, hey, siri, and do all sorts more stuff to it, i guess, built in your ai. but we know, siri is just crappy at all this stuff. but expect to include upgraded health and hearing sensors because we've seen those patents and that stuff testing and part of a broader tree of ai wearers alongside glasses and pendants, and we're gonna talk about that. so that's the ai integration with your earbuds. so now you'll be able to talk to ai directly without, you know, looking at a screen, i guess. you could just talk to it. the smart glasses or the m 50 projects is apple's entry into smart glasses internally codename n 50 is one of the most anticipated products. design resembles meta ray bonds and form factor, includes high resolution cameras for photo and video, built in speakers and microphone, relies, paired iphone and siri for ai processing. and it's not to be confused with ai vision pro. these are lightweight everyday classes glasses. so they're supposed to be unveiled late this year and, or early twenty twenty seven for mass, production starting in december and shipping to customers, in 2027. the ai pendant, apple's wearable wild card. so this is the most mysterious product on the list. gurman first reported a device in early year two twenty twenty six. it positioned as an alternative ai wearable for people who don't want glasses or earbuds but still want hands free ai access. so it's worn around the neck like a pendant or necklace, functions as an ai interface connected to siri phone, part of the same wearable family as glasses and airpods, not confirmed is, display or, likely audible audio or touch base. so we'll have to see how that goes. the idea here is that apple's building multi entry points in their ai assisted life, and they'll lock you in there. and then the homepad smart display. so it's like, the homepod getting an upgrade. so now the personal assistant's got a big screen on it. it's a seven inch touchscreen display, functions as siri and a homekit command center. i was referenced directly in the i o 20 ios 26 code leaks, so we're expecting this to launch fall this year, enhance the broader, apple ecosystem. and like you said, the apple tabletop robot is probably the most ambitious and probably the most, highly anticipated thing. internally called project j five nine five, it's unlikely any unlike anything else in the history. it's a motorized rotating base, carries an ipad like seven inch display mounted on a thin robotic arm. the arm and screen rotate to track users as they move around the room, includes a facetime camera, and the estimated price is about a thousand dollars us. so i guess this is apple's answer to amazon's astro and a direct play for ai home assistant market. the rotating screen that follows you around the room makes facetime calls, siri interaction, and home automation feel more personal. we'll see. if it's just a rotating i ipad screen, is it really that exciting? you're on mute, john.

Jon: sorry. i think where they're going with this stuff is away from having to use a phone. so with the pendant and the ai earbuds, you can interface with ai without having to bring out your phone. you can take pictures. you can do all that sort of stuff with the pendant, without having to take your phone out. so, maybe that's where they're going. i don't know. what do you

Craig: think about that? well, you can record obvious, your conversations, like, say, the plaid pin and a bunch of other tools that are out there, your location, your context, your calendar, where you are. and then, you know, with all of that, be able to use ai to have way more contextual awareness around your life with all of these things. as you put them all together and it feeds into an ai that knows you, this becomes apple's personal ai assistant in their garden. right? and let's not forget the apple security camera, which they're gonna try and take on ring, i guess, and nest. it was referenced in the ios 26 leak code, and so we're expecting it, late this year.

Jon: yeah. i'm surprised they haven't come up with a camera sooner, but it made sense.

Craig: so, this is great. think of this update like apple building a physical nervous system for your life. the iphone has been the brain in your pocket for years, but now they're giving it eyes in your glasses, ears in your pendant, and even a body with a robotic arm on your kitchen counter. it's no longer just a phone. it's a lifestyle operating system. so some of these are rolling out to fall, the home pad and the airpods, security cameras, and some of these are rolling out next year. so the tabletop robots' actuators likely use high precision silent brushless dc, direct current motors. tech, apple refined for the vision pros, interpulmonary distance adjustment. so by entering the security camera market, apple is weaponizing its privacy first marketing to directly attack amazon, ring, and google, which face public scrutiny over their data access. they give it out to law enforcement or whoever. and the ai pendant category is an industry hail mary response to the failure of stand alone ai pins. so apple is betting that by making an accessory to the iphone rather than a replacement, they can succeed where others have crashed.

Jon: yeah. we'll have to see.

Craig: so here's my one question before i go on to this. none of this has referenced johnny ive in any way. mhmm. and he was going off, then they were gonna do something, and we were told specifically, again, with openai that it wasn't gonna be a wearable. so with apple pull producing this stuff, and this was the hardware kind of in their pipeline for a while understanding that. so johnny i would probably be aware of what's going on here at a muslim. what do you think openai and johnny i were building hardware wise?

Jon: a phone.

Craig: oh, yeah. yeah. you're right. it wasn't a wearable, and they're coming out with a phone we talked about at the beginning of the year. i thought it was gonna be something else. so, you know, it makes yeah. it makes sense. you know? maybe they're gonna be farther along the way with the phone than i thought. so apple is no longer just making devices. they're building a twenty four seven ai shadow that follows you from your bed to your car to your office. the only question is really are they gonna have the ai to keep up with their hardware or not? would you actually let a thousand dollar ai robot follow you around your kitchen, or is moving a screen one step farther into uncanny value having a camera follow you around the room? let us know in the chat.