Apple delays smart home lineup to September as Siri development falls behind

Apple delayed its smart home product lineup to September after Siri development fell behind schedule, Bloomberg reported. The company had planned to launch new HomePod and home hub devices with significantly improved Siri capabilities. The delay reflects Apple's ongoing struggle to advance Siri's natural language capabilities to compete with ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude. Internal teams have reportedly been unable to meet quality benchmarks. Apple's smart home strategy depends on Siri serving as a competent voice assistant for controlling connected devices, a role where it has lagged behind Amazon's Alexa and Google Assistant.