Little more has been heard since then, but a new Bloomberg report says that the product now exists in prototype form and has begun testing outside the lab …
Bloomberg says that work on the product began more than two years ago.
The report also corroborates the rumored facial-recognition camera, but says that it may go even further than previous reported.
It had been reported at one point that Apple was considering building the functionality into the Apple TV, but Bloomberg says that the company decided against this.
Apple has acquired the facial recognition startups Faceshift and Emotient over the past two years, which may help the device act based on who is in a room or a person’s emotional state.
Apple engineers are said to be testing the device in their own homes, an approach the company has taken before. The latest Apple TV with Siri remote was reportedly tested at home for around a year prior to launch, while Tim Cook tested the iPad for about six months before it went on sale.
The initiative is said to form part of an ambitious plan to enable people to fully control all of their Apple devices via Siri within three years directly from within apps, rather than doing so overtly.
Apple’s goal is for Siri to be able to control the entire system without having to open an app or reactivate Siri. For example, a user would be able to ask their iPhone to open a web page and then share it with a friend without the need to ever launch the Siri interface.
