BloombergMark Gurman revealed today that Apple is developing new speakers equipped with “screens and cameras”, suggesting that we could see a future HomePod-like device that has a built-in display and camera for FaceTiming and other functions.
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Given these rumors, MacRumors contributor Steve Moser was scouring the tvOS 14.5 beta code and found that Apple added the FaceTime and iMessage frameworks, along with a new AVFCapture framework related to image capture.
You may be wondering what the tvOS code has to do with HomePod, but in April 2020 Apple started using tvOS as the basis for the software that runs on HomePod instead of iOS. watchOS, tvOS and the software running on HomePod are iOS variants, but each is differentiated by the device on which the software is intended to run with unique interfaces, APIs and more.
This means that the features included in tvOS are also included in the HomePod software, since they have the same base code. Therefore, the aceFaceTime, iMessage and image capture frameworks added to tvOS in tvOS 14.5 could be designed for a future HomePod that has a screen and a camera, as described by Gurman.
The HomePod and HomePod mini are already capable of using FaceTime audio, but the FaceTime structure discovered in the 14.5 beta is unlike any code related to the existing FaceTime audio feature. The frameworks are in tvOS 14.5 beta and in the 14.5 HomePod beta software available to selected testers.
Gurman says there is no “imminent release” planned for the camera-equipped speaker, so it is possible that such a product will not appear. It is also entirely possible that the iMessage, FaceTime and AVFCapture frameworks introduced in tvOS 14.5 have a totally different purpose that may not be entirely related to a HomePod and may remain hidden in code or used for an unspecified feature that arrives on Apple TV or the HomePod in the future.
In semi-related news, the 14.5 beta also suggests that Apple could be developing some kind of trivia game for Siri, where Siri could provide trivial questions for users to answer. This is labeled “Siri Edutainment” in the code, but it is not clear whether it will be a built-in Siri feature or support for a third party product.