Apple is said to be delaying plans to make a renewed push into the smart home space in an effort to cut spending across the company, a new report states.
In Mark Gurman’s Power On newsletter for Bloomberg, the Apple tipster states that a number of new product projects have “been pushed back until next year at the earliest,” as the company moves to strengthen its finances in a challenging financial environment.
These allegedly include a screen-equipped HomePod product to follow up the HomePod 2, and potentially a faster Apple TV 4K and docking station for iPads — all primed for controlling the HomeKit gear like the best smart lights.
This would be unfortunate timing for Apple, given the current roll-out of the new Matter smart home standard that its competitors in the space are capitalizing on — a new brand-agnostic inter-device smart home communication system that will effectively allow any connected home product that supports it to speak to any other Matter-supporting product. Unlike previous similar attempts to unify the world’s disparate smart home systems, Matter finally seems to have the support of all the major players, and looks to ignite fresh consumer interest in the smart home proposition.
Mo’ money, mo’ problems
Apple is making these cuts in an effort to avoid the layoffs that other tech companies like Meta, Microsoft, and Amazon are having to endure at the moment, with tens of thousands of job cuts hitting the tech sector.
Compared to its Silicon Valley counterparts, Apple was cautious over hiring during the pandemic, an approach that’s served it well in the long term given the inevitable economic downturn that was set to follow the surge in home-working consumer tech interest. Unavoidable world events like the war in Ukraine and spiking interest rates haven’t helped either.
The Cupertino company’s belt-tightening will extend beyond product delays too. Corporate bonuses are to be delayed, travel allowances have been cut, and open roles will not be immediately filled. Budget sign-offs are under more scrutiny than previously according to Gurman, too.
With a war chest still comfortably tipping the scales at $165 billion, it wouldn’t be a great PR look for Apple to push for mass redundancies. So a prudent, slowed approach to launches may be more commonly seen in the near future.
