Apple is in the early stages of building a new Apple TV device with a built-in camera and speaker, according to Bloomberg.
The newest Apple TV was released in 2016 and is long overdue for an update 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 like FaceTime calls, which are already available on Macs, iPhones and iPads, and would let people video chat through their TVs. That would bring some features on a par with the Amazon Fire TV Cube, which supports webcams for video chats 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 speak with Siri.
Bloomberg warned Apple could still decide to scrap the project.
In the meantime, Apple is expected to announce a new Apple TV with an improved remote control and a faster processor at some point in 2021, Bloomberg said in September.
