Apple HomePad Skips September and Still Needs an iPhone

Apple’s rumored HomePad smart home hub is set for as early as October, after Siri AI began rolling out as a beta on September 14. The square kitchen screen still needs an iPhone to set up, and Apple has not confirmed a name.

On September 9, CEO John Ternus used the Surprise and Shine event to sell phones, not a wall panel. Mark Gurman wrote that staff expected the home hub, and that Ternus called the iPhone the ideal AI device.

The September Event Left the Hub in the Lab

Gurman, in his September 20 Power On newsletter, said the AI home hub with a screen “is finally set to be introduced as early as next month.” Units are already in employee homes. A new Apple TV 4K and a new HomePod mini are expected in the same window, all sold on Siri AI.

That timing is the delay, written down. Apple planned to show a screened home device as far back as 2024, then aimed at spring 2025. The hold was the assistant. Hardware sat finished for months while Siri’s overhaul slipped through 2026, first toward September, then past the iPhone keynote.

Ternus still framed the phone as the AI hub. The HomePad, if it ships on that October track, is the device he did not put on the stage. It also remains tied to the phone he did praise, because setup and a list of admin jobs still run through an iPhone.

WHAT WE KNOW

• The window: Gurman narrowed the launch to as early as October after saying in August it was still on track before year end.
• The two bodies: Internal names point to J490 on a stand and J491 on a wall, both with a roughly square 7-inch class screen.
• The tether: The hub syncs with an iPhone for setup and various other tasks, then acts as a stationary command center.
• The software: A new OS built around Siri AI, described as a mashup of iOS, tvOS, and watchOS, with a home screen, widgets, and clock faces.

WHAT IS UNCONFIRMED

• The name: HomePad is the leak nickname; Apple has not confirmed it, and some notes still say home hub or command center.
• The price: Gurman floated about $350 in October 2025, a figure later guides repeated without a second source.
• The event: Apple sometimes drops late-fall hardware by press release, so an October stage show is not locked.
• The extras: A rechargeable battery, a full App Store, and a Face ID depth sensor are not in the newest Gurman account.

Retail teams are already moving the home bays in stores this fall, including the perimeter walls known as the Avenues, to make room for new hardware. Gurman has said those changes look too large for a quiet Apple TV and HomePod mini refresh alone.

A 7-Inch Square That Still Needs an iPhone

The screen is roughly square and smaller than the Echo Show it is being measured against. One version sits on a stand Gurman likened to a HomePod mini chopped in half. The other attaches to a wall. Silver and black are the colors in circulation, with thick bezels around an all-display front.

Older notes described a 1080p front camera for FaceTime and a device light enough to carry between rooms, about the width of two iPhones side by side. The newest Gurman account says the camera does facial recognition without the depth sensor Face ID normally uses, then personalizes the screen for whoever is looking at it.

Proximity sensing is part of the same pitch. When nobody is nearby the panel can sit on a clock or a temperature widget; when someone walks up it can switch to controls, photos, or a calendar. Multiple units in one house are meant to work as room-to-room intercoms, and the speakers are expected to take AirPlay.

THE TWO BODIES IN LEAKS

• J490: Tabletop hub on a speaker base, the version most often compared with a halved HomePod mini.
• J491: Wall-mount panel with the same square screen, closer to a small Echo Show hung in a kitchen.
• Shared jobs: Home controls, video calls, intercom, media, Apple apps, and a Siri AI search app.

None of that removes the phone. Current Apple Home already asks you to set up a home hub with a HomePod, HomePod mini, or Apple TV if you want remote access, automations, and a proper Matter path. The HomePad is being sold as the first Apple screen built for that job, and it still borrows the iPhone to get on the network.

That is the objection that keeps coming back in smart-home circles, and it is fair. An iPad already runs Home, FaceTime, widgets, and a calendar. The case for a dedicated 7-inch slab is that it stays in the room, recognizes who walked in, and does not get carried upstairs. Whether that is worth another box is the October test.

Siri AI Had to Ship Before the Screen Could

Apple’s own software post is the gate the hardware was waiting on. On September 14 the company said Siri AI, “an entirely new version of Siri powered by the next generation of Apple Intelligence,” had started rolling out across iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch, and Apple Vision Pro. The Siri AI beta in English is live; French, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, and Spanish are listed for October.

The same notice is blunt about where it does not go. Siri AI will not be available at first on iOS, iPadOS, and watchOS in the EU. It will not be available in China while Apple works through rules there. A home display that leans on Siri AI will therefore ship into Europe while the phones that set it up still lack the assistant the hub is built around.

Apple is also paying for the last delay. A $250 million settlement covers Siri AI features it advertised in 2024 and did not ship on time for iPhone 15 and iPhone 16 buyers. The HomePad is the next product that cannot pretend the assistant was ready when the plastic was.

HOW THE WINDOW KEPT MOVING

1. 2024: Apple planned to introduce a screened home hub and could not, because the assistant was not good enough.
2. Spring 2025: The public target for a smart home display, later pulled when Siri’s overhaul slipped.
3. March 2026: Gurman said the hardware had been finished for several months and that launch had moved toward September to meet the new Siri.
4. September 9, 2026: Surprise and Shine puts iPhone hardware on stage; the hub stays off the keynote.
5. September 14, 2026: iOS 27 and the Siri AI beta begin to roll out.
6. September 20, 2026: Gurman says the hub is in employee homes and can show up as early as October.

Software strings in recent Mac builds have pointed to an A18-class chip and at least 8GB of memory, the floor Apple Intelligence has used on phones. Treat that as code, not a spec sheet. The OS has been called Charismatic inside Apple, and trademark filings through a shell company have gone out for homeOS in several countries.

What the HomePad Is Built to Control

Once it is on the network, the pitch is a domestic command center: lights and locks, video calls, intercom, media, and Apple’s own apps on a screen that never leaves the room. There is no dedicated App Store in the current reporting. Safari, Apple News, Apple Music, Notes, Calendar, Photos, and Home are the titles named as preloaded.

Siri is the feature Gurman put in quotes as “the killer feature,” and the workflow he describes is cross-device, not a talking clock.

Apple imagines people using Siri on the home hub to look up information across their devices and accounts. They could ask it to play a podcast or song someone sent them a while ago, find a particular image to display, or carry out more precise tasks in apps like Notes, Reminders and Calendar. The Siri AI app will also let them conduct more complex searches within an Apple interface.

Mark Gurman, Power On newsletter

WHAT THE SCREEN IS SUPPOSED TO HANDLE

• Family faces: The front camera IDs who is standing there and swaps widgets, photos, and calendars without a passcode dance.
• Home controls: Connected accessories, cameras, and rooms land on one panel instead of a phone you have to unlock.
• Calls and intercom: FaceTime on the 1080p camera, plus drop-in audio between hubs in different rooms.
• Siri AI search: A dedicated app for longer lookups that span accounts, not only a wake word over a speaker.

A later indoor camera, tracked under J229 in some notes, is a separate product. Privacy is the selling point against Ring and Nest, and it is not on the October list Gurman just narrowed. The hub is the face of that plan, not the whole house in one SKU.

The quieter read is that Apple does not need everyone to want a smart home. A family buys a calendar with a camera, then adds a lock, then a doorbell. The screen becomes the way accessories enter the house, which is a different job from asking people to build a HomeKit graph from a phone.

Amazon and Google Already Price the Same Counter

Gurman’s own comparison is an Echo Show with a considerably smaller screen. That is the market Apple sat out while Siri stalled. Google still sells a 7-inch Nest Hub for $99.99, with Gemini for Home, Voice Match, Sleep Sensing, and a built-in Thread border router. Amazon’s current Echo Show lineup starting at $199.99 for the 8.7-inch Show 8, with the Show 15 listed at $349.99.

If Gurman’s year-old $350 figure were still the brief, Apple would be asking Echo Show 15 money for a Nest Hub-size panel. The Show 8 already bundles Zigbee, Matter, and Thread in the box. Apple has not said what radios sit behind J490.

KITCHEN SCREENS ON SALE NOW

Amazon and Google also ship app catalogs those screens can open. The HomePad, as described, does not. People who already run Home Assistant have been asking where solar, energy, and third-party dashboards would live if Apple will not put a store on the device. That gap is real even if Siri AI is finally decent at Notes and Calendar.

HomePod’s Old $349 Lesson Still Applies

Apple has priced a home product at $349 before. The original HomePod went on sale on February 9, 2018, at that number, then fell to $299, and Apple killed it in March 2021 to push the HomePod mini. In June 2026 the company moved the current full-size HomePod back to $349 and the mini to $129.

Voice-only Siri in a speaker never made Apple a kitchen-counter company. The mini kept a toehold as a cheap hub and a Thread radio. The expensive cylinder did not. A square screen is the admission that the assistant needed something to look at, and that a HomePod cannot be the whole plan.

Ming-Chi Kuo has long described a display HomePod as a repositioning of that line, not a side accessory. Gurman has refused the HomePod name and talked about a new OS instead. Both descriptions can sit on the same plastic: a speaker base with a 7-inch face, sold as the thing you put where an Echo Show already lives.

No App Store, Two Mounts, One October Window

The software story is still a beta. Apple’s September 14 post lists Siri AI on phones, tablets, Macs, watches, and Vision Pro. It does not list a HomePod or a home hub. The HomePad would be a new surface for an assistant that just reached English, with five more languages due in the same month Apple wants to sell the screen.

Siri AI is an entirely new version of Siri powered by the next generation of Apple Intelligence and deeply integrated into iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch, and Apple Vision Pro.

Apple, software platforms newsroom post, September 14, 2026

That sentence is why the hub missed September 9, and why October is the first month the company can pretend the brain and the body arrived together. It is also why a European living room is a problem: the hub’s headline feature is gated on the same phones Apple says will not get Siri AI at the start.

Employee homes already have the hardware. The October drop, if it holds, sits next to a new Apple TV 4K and a new HomePod mini. Apple still has not put a final name on the square.