Earlier this month, Apple discontinued its last battery-powered speaker, the Beats Pill+. Following the news, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman revealed that Apple had discussed and prototyped a battery-powered smart speaker internally.
In the latest issue of the Power On newsletter, Gurman said that while Apple prototyped a battery-powered smart speaker several years ago, it never came out. Currently, the HomePod mini is the only smart speaker Apple sells, and it must be connected to a power source in order to use it.
Gurman touched on a number of other topics in this week’s newsletter, including the long-rumored Apple AR/VR headset, which he said again will perform as well as the M1 in the new MacBook Pro. The Pro chips are comparable, and will likely cost over $2,000 at launch.
Gurman also said Hyundai’s luxury brand Genesis plans to support Apple’s Digital Car Key feature, which allows users to lock, unlock and start their vehicles using a pass stored in the Wallet app on their iPhone or Apple Watch. The feature has been limited to select BMW models since its launch in 2020, but Gurman said Genesis plans to roll out support for the feature in the summer.