Apple's new CEO, John Ternus, is reportedly pushing the company's household robot ambitions, and the first product to debut may be a home robot designed to autonomously roam around while supporting FaceTime calls and switching lights on whenever a person enters the room. Because nothing says "premium innovation" like a $1,000 device that does what a $20 motion sensor and your existing phone already handle.

The AI-driven home robot, code-named J595, could be named HomeView Ultra to align with Apple's new HomeView stationary smart display, according to people who worked on the projects speaking to The Information. The company is reportedly aiming to launch the robotic product with a possible price tag of $1,000 or more by 2027, though development delays may push that back to 2028. So you have between one and two years to start saving for a robot that will follow you around while you video chat.

The earliest prototypes of the home robot first came out in 2018 and received approval from former Apple CEO Tim Cook to continue the project. The Information describes Apple's engineers as trying to give the robot more capabilities beyond being a "fancy way to make FaceTime calls" in order to justify a high price tag, even as the team has spent years refining the software and incorporating more AI technologies. That's right - they're still working on making it more than a very expensive video phone on wheels.

However, the robot's few reported features seem underwhelming so far when compared with existing smart home devices and systems, or even a run-of-the-mill robot vacuum with a clearer use case for households. Is there a market for a smart home device costing more than $1,000 that moves around while hosting FaceTime calls, automatically handling room lights, and occasionally ordering the family cat to get off the dining table? One can only assume the cat will be unimpressed.

One of The Information's sources also described Apple as having a very small team of about 10 "true roboticists," with many members of the initial engineering team having departed over the years. The software side boasts a significantly larger team of approximately 300 people. So roughly 30 software engineers for every hardware roboticist - a ratio that suggests the robot may be better at talking about moving than actually moving.

Still, Ternus has been backing this home robot as well as a separate Apple project focused on developing robots for household tasks like folding clothes, according to The Information. The latter would presumably require robotic arms and manipulators, though it's unclear if that means Apple has ambitions to develop a general-purpose humanoid robot for household use like robotics startups 1X and Figure AI. Folding clothes is, of course, the holy grail of domestic robotics - and also the chore most likely to make you question why you spent $1,000 on a robot that can't even do it yet.

From a technical and safety standpoint, Apple's initial focus on a limited-purpose home robot still makes much more sense right now than any attempt to develop a general-purpose autonomous robot that could pose greater risks when operating near humans. The question is whether Apple can find enough customers willing to pay whatever it charges for a limited-purpose home robot. Given that Apple has successfully sold $1,000 monitors and $700 wheels, the answer is probably yes - but it's still a question worth asking.