Whereas most HomePod rumors have claimed that Apple will add a display screen to a future mannequin, new analysis exhibits the corporate is considering making it a horizontal sound bar.
So that you’d suppose that it was Apple’s second-least regarded product after the Apple Pencil. Behind the scenes, the corporate retains plotting.
However now Apple has been granted a patent regarding the design of what appears to be like like only a horizontal HomePod. As a substitute of the cylinder of the unique, and the tennis-ball like HomePod mini, this model has audio system unfold extensive away from a central Siri show, and tilted at an angle.
The newly-granted patent, referred to as “Audio Speaker System,” is extraordinarily transient. Other than brief captions for its six drawings, the one textual content describes the patent as being for “The decorative design for an audio speaker system, as proven and described.”
These six drawings, although, additionally trace at this being a HomePod that customers might join different sources too. Tantalizingly labelled solely as “a rear view thereof,” one determine exhibits a spread of ports.
At current, nothing in any respect will be linked to a delivery HomePod besides the facility cable. There are not any ports, no sockets, and so no potential for DJs to attach turntables to the HomePod.
It is debatable which might be extra welcome in a future HomePod, the flexibility to attach different sources, or the broader, much less tall speaker association.
Whereas there is not any scale within the drawings, the scale of what seems to be the Siri display screen means that this may be not less than extra akin to the full-size HomePod than the HomePod mini.
However then the form of the design can be not less than paying homage to the Beats Tablet vary of audio system. The drawings lack the management floor of the Tablet, and the rear is barely vaguely related, however it’s potential that the patent is for a possible Beats product.
It isn’t stunning that there needs to be similarities, although, as a result of one of many two credited inventors on this patent is Robert Brunner. He was Apple’s design chief from 1989 to 1996, and since then has labored with Pentagram and Ammunition Group, each of which have created headphones for Beats.
Observe, although, the presence of a granted patent isn’t any proof {that a} product is coming from both Beats or Apple. It’s proof that Apple has not less than spent a while designing such a mannequin, although.