Two revolutions have passed since Apple last updated its HomePod line with the second iteration, and the silence that has followed has echoed louder than the smart speaker itself. Now, murmurs carried by the winds of iOS 26’s fourth developer beta suggest that Apple’s next HomePod may not only break that silence, but speak in pictures.
According to a discovery by the team at MacRumors, a new beta version has a key message in the location settings. It states: “Your HomePod won’t be able to show you the local weather, time, or answer Siri questions about your area.” The word “show” may seem simple, but it’s crucial when we think about it more. Right now, no HomePod model has a screen that can “show” anything. This one word could be our first hint at a new version of the Home-Pod that might have a screen for display.
Whispers from the supply chain echo similar sentiments: a redesign is allegedly in the works featuring a square-shaped touch-sensitive display. It could catapult the HomePod from an ambient audio companion to a command center, an interactive heart of the smart home, capable of orchestrating HomeKit and Matter devices with both gesture and gaze. Yet, even with this tactile evolution, Apple’s ethereal voice assistant, Siri, is expected to remain at the helm, anchoring the experience in familiar, if sometimes fallible, voice control.
Rumblings suggest that part of the delay surrounding this new device lies at Siri’s feet, more specifically, in Apple’s struggle to harmonize it with their evolving Apple Intelligence framework. MacRumors posits this very friction may have pushed the HomePod’s timeline further into the horizon.
If these hints materialize, Apple may be aiming to challenge devices like Amazon’s Echo Show or the Pixel Tablet hub, which blend voice and visual capabilities with domestic control. Their new HomePod, if timelines hold, is rumored to make its grand emergence in the spring of 2026.
Until then, we wait. But this time, we may be waiting not just for another speaker, but for the eyes of the HomePod to open finally.
