Bloomberg: Apple Is Working on a New TV Product With HomePod and Videoconferencing Capabilities ⇥ bloomberg.com

Mark Gurman, Bloomberg:

The company is working on a product that would combine an Apple TV set-top box with a HomePod speaker and include a camera for video conferencing through a connected TV and other smart-home functions, according to people familiar with the matter, who asked not to be identified discussing internal matters.

Gurman says that this product is “still in the early stages” which, if you want to be a bit cynical, gives this report enough wiggle room to never pan out.

But it is intriguing, isn’t it? I know that it is something I would have loved to own this past year. Over Christmastime, I used AirPlay to place a FaceTime window onto the television and set my MacBook Air on the coffee table so that we could spend time with family in a more immersive way. It was a pretty nice, albeit janky, setup.

The obvious question about something like this is where a camera would be mounted, given that some people probably do not put their Apple TV out in the open or adjacent to their television screen. The other question is whether we can expect a new remote, something that for years I have been hearing is in the works, yet somehow never arrives. The Apple TV appears to be on the development cycle usually reserved for new kinds of water.