HomeOS Handicapping
Last week’s rumor mill leading up to Apple’s WWDC conference yielded one piece of information that was of particular interest—a leaked job posting referencing “homeOS”, alongside existing operating systems “iOS”, “iPadOS”, and “macOS”.
While this may have been a typo, or wishful thinking from someone inside Apple, most rumor-watchers took it as a serious indication of concrete future plans.
My mission, as a long-time Apple rumor junkie and co-founder of a company, Volley, that builds games for other “Home OSs” (Amazon Alexa and Google Home), is to do the absolute maximum amount of extrapolation humanly possible, and predict years of Apple’s product roadmap based on a single one-word slip-up.
This should be fun!
I’ll present the predictions in descending order of probability of occurring at WWDC. (I’ll also include my odds of them happening by the end of next year, because certain events seem more likely on that timeline) Further down the road, we’ll be verging more into wishful thinking, rather than actual predictions, but, who knows, maybe somebody at Apple is wishcasting along the same lines.
homeOS is revealed as the operating system that runs the HomePod Mini
65% by WWDC, 80% by 2022
HomePod runs some kind of operating system—why not call it homeOS? This seems like a slam dunk to happen at some point, but it’s possible 2021 is too aggressive.
In general, the fact that the HomePod can serve as a hub for all manner of smart home objects, including light bulbs, fans, plugs and the like, makes its software (HomeKit) a prime candidate for a rebrand.
Siri gets “fixed”
60% by WWDC, 90% by 2022
Siri is the lynchpin of any optimistic view of homeOS. Without a great voice-controlled interface, even basic 1st-party features like controlling music, getting the weather, and sending text messages become too frustrating to use consistently.
This is the state of Siri today—it is 85% reliable in a world where its competitors (Alexa and Google) have reached 95%.
Its deficits likely stem from it being based on software from ~2010, before large scale machine learning (ML) and AI allowed speech recognition and natural language processing to make the leap from “cool demo” to “this works and now I will use it every day”.
Apple is clearly aware of its 3rd-place position in machine-learning-driven software, as the company poached John Giannandrea, Google’s Head of AI, in 2018. One can only assume his mandate was to upgrade the company’s ML systems to the modern era.
2019 and 2020 felt too early for Siri to make its giant leap forward, but 2021 feels about right. My only reservation, prediction-wise, is around whether this will be saved for a big consumer product launch (September), or if the developer opportunities around Siri/homeOS will lead it to be featured at WWDC.
Siri enables conversation-driven 3rd-party applications
35% by WWDC, 60% by 2022
Time to think bigger. Instead of Siri/homeOS merely answering basic questions, shouldn’t it be able to run applications? Alexa and Google Home have proven that there is *some* value in voice-controlled home devices being able to do things beyond 1st-party music and weather.
For starters, 3rd party audio applications, like podcast players, would be great to have on HomePod mini. Radio and audio news is another obvious opportunity. And beyond basic “audio catalog” apps, more interactive products like family quiz games and choose-your-own-adventure storytelling have proven resilient (here I can speak from experience—our games “Song Quiz”, “Yes Sire”, and “Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader” have millions of users on Alexa and Google).
The predictive tea leaves in this area are compelling as well. In 2019, Apple acquired a company called PullString, which created a “drag and drop” tool for designing and deploying voice-controlled applications to Alexa and Google. Why buy this company if you *aren’t* planning to allow developers to build robust, interactive Siri applications?
tvOS is unified with homeOS
20% by WWDC, 35% by 2022
Why is the world comfortable with the status quo in which home speakers are voice-controlled, but televisions mostly aren’t? Even the new Siri remote is under-ambitious—Apple gave up on a fully-functional multi-touch surface in favor of a 4-way directional-pad from the 1980s.
Embracing that the television should be fully voice-controlled would allow for a whole new level of creative freedom for developers. Voice could replace the remote control, and, given the ease of voice as an interface, a Cambrian explosion of TV apps would burst free.
Remember the Nintendo Wii phenomenon? An intuitive interface for console gaming expanded the market to players who would have never taught themselves the Xbox or Playstation control schemes.
Voice-controlled homeOS apps on the Apple TV, with robust visuals, would be an order of magnitude more accessible than the Wii, with all the power and functionality of iOS apps.
A HomePod with a screen launches
5% by WWDC, 60% by 2022
Big screens are immersive, but small screens can go everywhere. The Echo Show and Nest Hub prove that there’s demand for a 5-10 inch screen on the kitchen counter and in the living room. Apple could create an even better version of these experiences by leveraging their lead in hardware engineering and robust developer tools.
An 8-inch voice-controlled iPad with a speaker attached to the back of it, at a reasonable price point, would be a killer device for recipe applications, video chat with family, and interactive video apps that don’t yet exist.
Apple is rumored to be working on such a device, but it seems unlikely to ship before 2022. As a developer, my hopes are high, as this device would unlock the world’s largest, most passionate developer ecosystem to tackle the problem of bringing immersive voice-controlled software into the home.
Fingers crossed.
