Apple ramps up hiring for work on home robotics devices

Last year, Bloomberg News‘ Mark Gurman was the first to report that Apple had secret engineering and research teams working on robotics technology and future products for the home. Now the company is ramping up hiring for the effort.

Mark Gurman for Bloomberg News:
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This initiative has its origins within Apple’s self-driving car unit, which was disbanded last February. The robotics work is being led across two departments: the Home Labs hardware engineering group and Kevin Lynch’s AI special projects team within the machine learning organization. They have their eyes on a tabletop robot and, maybe one day, a humanoid model.

The company is still in the early research phases of developing a mobile robot, whether it’s humanoid or not. But the tabletop bot — an adaptation of Apple’s upcoming smart home hub — should launch by 2027.

Now, there are signs that Apple is further committing to this effort. For one, the company has been hiring more engineers and researchers with experience in robotics. Over the past several weeks, Apple posted several new job listings for robotics specialists. “As a member of the team, you’ll have the opportunity to work with a small team of highly skilled engineers and scientists to bring new experiences to Apple products,” they say.

In a related development, as highlighted by MacRumors, Apple published a research paper last month that detailed work on a tabletop robot. The device resembles the lamp from Pixar’s logo and could give a very early idea of what Apple’s 2027 product might look like. Ultimately, Apple’s tabletop robot is likely to be something closer to a HomePod smart speaker with a screen attached to a robotic limb. But it’s worth watching the embedded video to get a sense of why such a device might have appeal.

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MacDailyNews Take: Check out the video in Apple’s “ELEGNT: Expressive and Functional Movement Design for Non-Anthropomorphic Robot” whitepaper.

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