Apple
12 stories filed under Apple on Spoot: Spotted Early. The newest of them: “Apple finally built a smart home hub, and it brought some friends”, “John Ternus is making Apple weird again and twelve new designs prove it”, and “The HomePod Mini 2 finally exists, preorders are open, and Spoot already has a tab open”. Apple finally built a smart home hub, and it brought some friends. John Ternus is making Apple weird again, and twelve new designs prove it. Spoot: Spotted Early New things, caught while they're still new and a little weird. Spoot finds fresh gadgets, clever inventions, crowdfunding campaigns,… The list below is every Apple story on Spoot: Spotted Early, newest first.
Apple finally built a smart home hub, and it brought some friends
Apple finally built a smart home hub, and it brought some friends. The HomeView is Apple's first smart display, and it arrives with a 7-inch squircle design that looks like a gargantuan smart speaker grew a face. It costs $299 and preorders are open, which is nice because Apple has been threatening to make a smart display for years and years without ever actually doing it. The HomePod Mini 2 also finally exists after nearly six years, coming in at $149 with preorders open and a Friday launch date. Spoot already has a tab open on that one. The whole "Welcome Home" event dropped a slate of new smart home and security accessories too, built with trusted third-party manufacturers. It is the most serious hardware push Apple Home has seen in a long time.
John Ternus is making Apple weird again and twelve new designs prove it
John Ternus is making Apple weird again, and twelve new designs prove it. Fifteen years of polished arrivals, of showing up late with the best snacks, gone. Under Ternus, Apple has shipped twelve new designs in six weeks, and they don't feel like committee decisions. They feel like someone finally asked what if the thing had a hinge that made you stop, or a material that shouldn't work but does. I love it. This is the Apple that used to burrow into your curiosity and stay there. It helps that the new Citroën 2CV concept is doing something similar on wheels, reinventing a classic as a tiny electric roll-top, weird and wonderful. Ternus isn't polishing a legacy; he's prying it open.
The HomePod Mini 2 finally exists, preorders are open, and Spoot already has a tab open
Apple didn't forget about the HomePod Mini. After nearly six years, the Mini 2 is real, preorders are open at $149, and it lands October 30th. Inside is the S10 chip from the Apple Watch Series 10, a small, clever piece of silicon that now has to power a speaker. It will eventually get Siri AI through a future update, which means the voice assistant might finally become someone you actually want to talk to. You can build a four-speaker surround system with the new Apple TV 4K, or use them as wireless computer speakers if your Mac supports Wi-Fi 6E. That's a lot of connectivity for a little puck. If Apple's recent weirdness has your attention, you should also read why John Ternus is making Apple weird again.
Apple's smart home finally gets a front door, and we're already inside
Apple's smart home finally gets a front door, and we're already inside. October 13th, 9AM ET, New York. "Welcome Home" is the name, and it's doing exactly what Apple event names usually only promise: giving the company's scattered home gadgets an actual address. We're expecting refreshed Apple TV and HomePod Mini boxes, a brand new smart home hub, and possibly the debut of homeOS, a platform that sounds suspiciously like the thing Apple should have built five years ago. LG partner devices could show up too. What we probably won't see is the touchscreen MacBook, which Mark Gurman says is waiting until later this month. That's fine. A proper hub matters more than a laptop you can poke.
The AI assistant is the product, the gadget is just its cage
The AI assistant is the product, and the gadget is just its cage. That's the takeaway from this week's Vergecast, where David and Nilay tear through Microsoft's high-end laptop, Amazon's fancy Android tablet, and Apple's headfirst dive into the smart home. The hardware is shiny, sure, but every single launch is really just a vessel for the same idea: the AI should run the computer. Whether that's even the right idea is the question worth asking. It's gadget season, and the spec sheets are full of clever hinges and long battery claims, but the actual strategy is suspiciously uniform. If you want a deeper cut on the weirdness, the Apple robot arm piece is worth a read. Spoot's take? The cages are getting prettier. The thing inside still hasn't proven it can fly.
Apple's robot arm finally gives the HomePod something to reach for
Apple event names usually read like perfume ads. Wonderlust. Scary Fast. It's Glowtime. This one, though, landed with a thunk: October 13th, and the HomePod is finally getting something to reach for. A screen. A robotic arm. A speaker that turns toward you like a sunflower with better taste. The invite alone is doing more heavy lifting than a spec sheet, because the question was never whether the HomePod sounded good. It always did. The question was whether it would ever do anything worth watching. Now it moves. That's the razor clam: not the display, not the motor, but the implication that Apple finally believes a speaker should follow you around the room. If you've ever yelled at a stationary device from the couch, you already know why this matters.
The M6 Mac Mini finally stops pretending it costs that much
The M6 Mac Mini finally stops pretending it costs that much. Apple's latest pint-sized powerhouse debuted at $899, a full $300 jump from the M4's launch price, and for a machine that's mostly unchanged apart from a 20 percent faster chip, that stung. But October Prime Day just clawed $119 off the base model, bringing it to $779.99 at Amazon. That's the first real discount on this thing, and it flips the math completely. Best Buy is still asking $799 for the older M4 version with the same 256GB storage and 16GB RAM, which now feels like a trap. Don't get that one. The M6 is faster, cheaper, and finally priced like the sensible little box it always was. If you've been circling, this is the tab to keep open.
October Prime Day digs the AirPods Pro 3 out of the noise at $179
October Prime Day just dug the AirPods Pro 3 out of the noise at $179, the first time they've dipped below $190 since June. That's $70 off, and for earbuds with five ear tip sizes, live translation, and a heart rate sensor that actually works, that's a razor clam worth circling back for. Apple recently launched the AirPods 5 at $149.99, and those are fine if you hate ear seals. But for thirty bucks more, the Pro 3 hand you superior noise cancellation, better bass, and a fit that stays put. It's the kind of value that makes you wonder why you'd settle. If tiny, clever design decisions are your thing, you'll love how our piece on that 20-foot tiny home burrows into the specs and finds a better floorplan.
Apple's rumored camera watches but doesn't look, leaving only text
Apple is building a home security camera that refuses to show you a single frame of video. Instead, according to Mark Gurman on the *Power On* podcast, these little devices, part of a program called J450, will send you text descriptions of what they saw. No footage. No live feed. Just words. That is a genuinely weird bet for a company that sells screens by the billions. It is also the kind of narrow, stubborn detail that makes you stop scrolling. A camera that doesn't look? That is either paranoid genius or an overcorrection for privacy anxiety. I lean toward the latter, but I want to see how it plays out.
Apple's smart-home anchor finally has a date, and a mini entourage to match
October 13th. Circle it, charge the HomePods, and clear a spot on the wall. Apple's long-rumored smart home hub finally has a date, and it's bringing a mini entourage. Bloomberg's Mark Gurman says the new 6-inch display hub, which mounts or sits like a tiny countertop Picasso, will debut alongside a fresh HomePod mini and an upgraded Apple TV. The whole crew is built to flex Siri AI, Apple's overhauled assistant. The hub is reportedly about as thick as an iPhone, with bezels that'll make you nostalgic for older iPads. That's a delightfully chunky little anchor. It's a new category for Apple, so the skepticism is warranted, but the specs here feel right. The real question is whether Siri finally catches up.
Steve Jobs' favorite sneaker just got 20 percent easier to love
There's a quiet thrill in watching a classic get a little more attainable. British retailer End is selling a premium version of the Made in USA 992, Steve Jobs' favorite sneaker, and it's 20 percent easier to love because it's 20 percent cheaper. That's it. That's the footnote that beats the marketing copy. The 992 never needed hype; it just needed to be worn. So seeing a solid discount on a sturdy, heritage-heavy shoe feels like the universe finally cutting a break to people who appreciate a good heel counter. It's not a flashy deal, and that's exactly why it works. If you're circling back for something with wheels, our Schwinn's Hurricane return pairs nicely with this kind of sensible savings.
Apple's own code just whispered three new gadgets before the year ends
Apple's code just whispered three new gadgets before the year ends, and honestly, that's the kind of gossip we live for. MacRumors contributor Aaron Perris dug up images and details pointing to a refreshed HomePod mini, an iPad mini 8, and an Apple TV 4K, all expected after this month's iPhone 18 Pro and folding iPhone Duo debut. The HomePod mini 2 reportedly keeps the original's shape from late 2020, which is fine, but I'm side-eyeing the color situation. The current model pops in orange, yellow, and blue; if the leak's images suggest a muted palette, that's a quiet downgrade for a speaker that made brightness its personality. We'll see what ships.