Apple just pushed back its long-rumored smart home display yet again, and this time the culprit is Siri. The device codenamed J490—dubbed "HomePad" by insiders—was supposed to ship this spring after missing a 2025 target. Now it's pushed to fall 2026, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, all because Apple's chatbot-style AI overhaul for its voice assistant isn't ready. The delay signals just how critical conversational AI has become to Apple's hardware strategy—and how far behind the company is in catching up to rivals.
Apple keeps moving the goalposts on its smart home display, and the latest delay reveals something more telling than just another missed deadline. The company's HomePad—internally tagged J490—is now slated for fall 2026 instead of this spring, according to Bloomberg reporter Mark Gurman. The reason? Apple's AI-powered Siri overhaul simply isn't ready.
This marks the third delay for what's essentially a HomePod with a screen. First it was supposed to arrive in 2025, then early 2026, and now fall at the earliest. Leaker Kosutami flagged the shift on X last week, but Gurman's report confirms the AI dependency is what's holding everything up.
The stakes are higher than just another hardware launch. Apple's betting that its next-generation Siri—rebuilt with large language model capabilities and conversational AI—will be the killer feature that differentiates its smart display from Amazon's Echo Show lineup and Google's Nest Hub devices. But that technology isn't baked yet, and Apple apparently won't ship the hardware without it.
According to Gurman's sources, the revamped Siri was supposed to be finished by now. Instead, it's been pushed back to later in 2026, likely arriving alongside iOS updates for iPhone. That timing creates a cascade effect: no AI Siri means no HomePad launch, at least not one that meets Apple's internal standards for what a smart home control center should do in 2026.
