Apple is in the early stages of building a new Apple TV device with a built-in camera and speaker, according to Bloomberg.
The latest Apple TV was released in 2016 and has long been in need of updating as it competes with TV products from Amazon, Google and Roku that have gained market share by routinely adding new features.
A camera could enable services such as FaceTime calling, which are already available on Macs, iPhones and iPads, and people can video chat on their TV. That would bring some features similar to the Amazon Fire TV Cube, which supports video chat webcams but doesn’t have its own camera, or the Facebook Portal TV, which has a built-in camera. The speaker could help it double as a HomePod-like device to play music and talk to Siri.
Bloomberg warned that Apple could still decide to scrap the project.
In the meantime, Apple is expected to announce a new Apple TV with an improved remote and faster processor sometime in 2021, Bloomberg said in September.
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