A new report claims that Apple is working on a Siri-based competitor to Amazon’s Echo, but suggests that the solution will come in the form of a refreshed Apple TV set-top box, rather than the standalone speaker reported earlier this week. A source has told VentureBeat that the plan is to build on the Apple TV to “solve problems with the existing box and remote control,” noting that Apple wants the “Apple TV to be just the hub of everything.” Apple is said to have considered several options, and a standalone speaker was indeed under consideration at one point — however, that option was dropped due to the amount of money Apple has spent on the development of the new Apple TV.
Using the Siri Remote as a hub was also considered, but battery and power considerations resulted in that option being ruled out; the source revealed that the Apple TV will instead eventually get a microphone and speaker, and Apple is reportedly working on “additional computing infrastructure” to process Siri requests from the device more efficiently, along with improvements to speech recognition to deal with interference from other devices near the Apple TV. Apple’s ultimate goal would be to make the Apple TV the main hub within the home for a variety of Apple products and services, a role that the device already fulfills to some degree for HomeKit.
