John Ternus opened his first keynote as Apple chief executive by describing the ideal AI device, then said it already exists and is the iPhone. People inside Apple expected him to introduce the home hub instead, according to Mark Gurman, and that hub, codenamed J490, is being tested in employees' homes and could ship as early as next month. The framing matters because it tells buyers where Apple intends to put its AI effort: into the phone they already own, not into a new category.
What happened at the first keynote
Ternus asked the audience to imagine designing an AI device from scratch. It would need an always-on connection, a decent display, good cameras and microphones, long battery life and easy interoperability. Having listed those requirements, he said the ideal AI device already exists, and that it is the iPhone. Gurman writes in Power On that people inside the company thought he was about to introduce the home hub. Apple also cut a handful of Fitness+ staff, mainly on the audio side, which Gurman says does not mean the service is being killed.
The home hub, known internally as J490, is being tested widely in employees' homes and could be released as early as next month. Gurman describes a roughly square screen, either on a stand resembling a HomePod mini cut in half or mounted on a wall, and compares it to an Amazon Echo Show with a considerably smaller screen. The interface is a mashup of iOS, tvOS and watchOS, and it pairs with an iPhone for setup. Its notable hardware feature is facial recognition through the front camera, without the depth sensor Face ID normally requires, personalising what appears on screen for whoever is looking at it.
Apple planned to introduce this device as far back as 2024 and could not until the assistant was good enough. The hardware had been finished for months, and Siri was the hold-up. Siri AI was released this month with iOS 27, which is what unblocked the launch, and it shipped with a waitlist, which is not the posture of a company certain of capacity. The assistant is also not wholly Apple's: Siri AI was rebuilt on a custom Google Gemini model, reportedly costing around $1bn a year.
What this means for business
For companies that buy AI hardware, the practical consequence is that Apple is asking them to treat the phone as the centre of an assistant strategy rather than a new device. Everything else the company is building tethers back to the phone, including the smart glasses expected next year and the camera-equipped AirPods reported for 2027. A small business evaluating assistants can therefore postpone a hardware decision and test Siri AI on iPhones it already owns, while a larger organisation planning a fleet of wall-mounted or desk devices has to wait for the J490 terms and for language support to widen.
What remains unclear is availability rather than capability. Apple said during WWDC week that Siri AI would not launch in the European Union while negotiations with the European Commission over the Digital Markets Act were unresolved, and it is not established whether that position has changed. Gurman reports that iOS 27.2 adds support for more Siri AI languages, which is not the same thing as market availability. A hub whose main feature is Siri has no proposition in any market where Siri AI does not run, so buyers should ask the vendor which languages and countries are covered at launch, how the waitlist affects access, and what the device does when the assistant is unavailable.
The Fitness+ cuts are smaller than the headlines: Gurman reports a handful of employees were cut, mainly on the audio side behind Time to Walk and Time to Run, and that new audio content will appear less often rather than stop. He is explicit that he does not believe the service is on the chopping block, though it is seen inside the Fitness+ organisation as the start of more serious cost-cutting, with an expectation that Apple eventually folds Fitness+ into the revamped Health app. This follows cuts in August across Siri, Vision Pro immersive video and gaming teams, which Gurman calls increasingly common. The contrast with rivals is sharpening: Google Home has opened to Claude, OpenClaw and other third-party agents, while Apple's hub is Siri or nothing.
Two markers will show whether the strategy holds. Watch whether the J490 hub ships in Europe and with what language support, since selling a Siri-led device where Siri AI does not run would be a decision rather than an oversight. Watch OpenAI's device as well: if a dedicated AI computer lands well, the argument that the perfect AI device is the one already in your pocket gets harder to make twice.
