Apple’s first smart display could resurrect one of its most beloved designs

All eyes are currently on Apple’s exciting week of Mac launches, but the company has something more unusual up its sleeve for next year: a smart display with an oddly familiar design.

In the latest edition of his Power On newsletter, Bloomberg reporter Mark Gurman predicts that this long-rumored product will resemble the “sunflower” G4 iMac from 2002 in its physical design, with a screen up top and a curved base down below. This is now regarded as a classic of industrial design, but Apple hasn’t done anything similar since then, preferring to either build the innards of the machine into the screen itself (as in the modern iMac) or to use a separate tower (as in the Mac Pro).

The smart display won’t look exactly like the 2002 iMac, of course. For one thing, it will be considerably smaller. Gurman says the display itself will be roughly the size of two iPhones side by side, which suggests something in the region of 150x150mm. This display will sit “at an angle” on a small base reminiscent of the iMac’s circular bottom, Gurman explains–although in functional terms this format means it’s much like a HomePod with a screen.

“The small size fits with the idea that the product will be relatively cheap and easy to have in different rooms of the home,” he writes. The device is intended to function as a hub for smart home products and is expected to eventually sit alongside a more expensive sibling display with a robotic limb.

For more information on both of Apple’s in-development smart displays, check our coverage from last month. These aren’t new rumors, although as is generally the case with such projects, we’re gradually learning more about the specifics–such as this month’s information about the design.