Mark Gurman, reporting for Bloomberg:

Apple Inc., seeking new sources of revenue, is moving forward with development of a pricey tabletop home device that combines an iPad-like display with a robotic limb.

The company now has a team of several hundred people working on the device, which uses a thin robotic arm to move around a large screen, according to people with knowledge of the matter. The product, which relies on actuators to tilt the display up and down and make it spin 360 degrees, would offer a twist on home products like Amazon.com Inc.’s Echo Show 10 and Meta Platforms Inc.’s discontinued Portal…

Apple has now decided to prioritize the device’s development and is aiming for a debut as early as 2026 or 2027, according to the people. The company is looking to get the price down to around $1,000. But with years to go before an expected release, the plans could theoretically change.

The prospect of a HomePod with an iPad-like display has excited me since it was rumored a few years ago because it would blow out Google and Amazon’s ad-filled hellhole competition, especially with the addition of Apple Intelligence. Apple’s experience would be much more premium, and I think it should charge top dollar for it. That being said, $1,000 is excessive, and I surmise the extreme price is due to the unnecessary robotic arm that tilts the display around. It’s not hard to imagine such a feature — Apple would probably name it something clever like “Center Swivel” or something, akin to Center Stage, and the robotics would make an intriguing keynote demonstration — but just like Apple Vision Pro, the whole idea focuses on marketing appeal than consumer appeal.

I’m sure the advertisements in train stations around the world will be incredible. The event will be remarkable. Everyone will be talking about how Apple brought back the iMac G4, this time built for the modern age — but nobody will buy it because it’s $1,000. Apple could easily lower the price by $400 by substituting the actuators for manual joints, just like the iMac G4, and still market it as versatile, practical, and innovative. A $600 competitor to the Amazon Echo Show and Nest Hub would still be on the pricier side, but it would be much more approachable and acceptable since the product would be that much better, both software- and hardware-wise. But because Apple instead seems to want to focus on abundance rather than practicality, this endeavor will probably end up being a failure going the way of the first-generation HomePod, which Apple axed a few years after its release.

This is not the first time Apple has done this, and every time, it has been a mistake. Yes, Apple needs to spend more money on groundbreaking products, and it has the right to price them highly, but it shouldn’t overdo it. Apple needs to continue to remain price-competitive while retaining the wow factor, and it has only been accomplishing one of those goals for the past few years. The Apple TV is a great example of a premium product with lots of appeal: it’s much more expensive than the Roku or Amazon’s Fire TV streaming devices, yet it sells well and is beloved by many due to its top-tier software, excellent remote and hardware, and blazing-fast processor. No other streaming box can compete with the Apple TV — it is bar none. Apple can and should replicate its success in the smart speaker market with this new HomePod, but to do that, it needs to lay off the crazy features and focus on price competitiveness.