Apple might be updating its HomePod to have an LCD screen, according to a leak that shows a normal HomePod 2 with a small screen inserted on the top of the speaker.
Sometimes leaker Kosutami provided the picture shows the HomePod running a barely visible app called “LcdUTest”.
According to 9to5Mac, this particular leak is not a fraud and the new device is codenamed B720.
The “advanced-stage prototype” actually exists, and the “LcdUTest” is an internal application engineers will use to test the display.
For now, the site says the device is being “actively worked on by Apple”, and is not “something that the company has experimented with in the past.”
Other details of the prototype have come out, such as the HomePods speaker runs a fork of tvOS called audioOS, and Apple has seemingly been making adjustments of specific tvOS apps to run in the different aspect ratio.
Additionally, Apple Music and Apple Podcasts tvOS 17 code has been rewritten for this new aspect ratio, which is not unsurprising for a mainly audio device.
Sources also say that it has “blurred animation based on the colors of the album art when a song or podcast is playing” and further “hints that it will show some important notifications, potentially to answer phone calls and reply to messages.”
The HomePod resembles more an Apple CarPlay than the Nest Hub due the way users can see basic details and controlling playback, however, Apple could still be looking at this sort of prototype more generally.
If Ming-Chi Kuo’s leak that a HomePod will have a 7-inch screen, it could be that some of the software engineered for this trial product may be reused somewhere else.
