Apple’s Welcome Home launch live blog: Last-minute rumors

Welcome Home: What we expect

As the Welcome Home tagline suggests, Tuesday’s announcements will all be related to Apple’s smart home. While two of the products are expected to be relatively minor updates, they will all be part of a significant push into becoming a major player in the smart-home market, with Siri AI at the forefront. Here’s what’s coming:

Apple TV 4K: It’s been four years since the 3rd-gen Apple TV 4K arrived, and Apple is finally ready to release a new model. It’s expected to have a faster chip with Apple Intelligence support.

HomePod mini: Apple’s smaller HomePod hasn’t received an update since its 2020 debut, so to say the 2nd-gen model is overdue is an understatement. However, it’s not expected to get much more than a new chip and a new array of colors.

Smart home hub: Tuesday’s big announcement will be the debut of Apple’s long-rumored smart-home hub. There will reportedly be two versions—one that sits on a table and another that hangs on a wall—and it will run a new interface powered by Siri AI.

Welcome Home: Latest news and updates

There’s been a flurry of last-minute rumors about Apple’s slate of announcements, mostly from a report by Mark Gurman at Bloomberg. Here are the latest news and rumors:

Apple TV 4K: The update to Apple’s set-top box is expected to have an A19 chip with 8GB of RAM. That’s double the RAM and a big step up from the current model’s A15 Bionic processor.