Apple is reportedly working on a wall-mounted display

Apple's next marquee device will be a wall-mounted display that can control smart home appliances. 
According to Bloomberg, Apple will position the device as a central hub for smart homes and is getting ready to launch the device in March next year. 

The project, codenamed J490, will also serve as a platform for Apple Intelligence to showcase its AI smarts. Apple CEO Tim Cook is pushing for the device to be released as soon as possible, making it a priority for the engineering and design teams. 

According to the report, the device will have a 6-inch screen and look like a square iPad with thick bezels around the display. It will have a front-facing camera and internal speakers. The report suggests that Apple will offer two colour options - silver and black. 

The operating system will be similar to watchOS, with an interface comparable to the iPhone's standby mode. It will be controlled primarily by voice recognition through Siri. It will support Apple's App Intents framework, allowing AI to take over apps and command them. 

The report says Apple will position the device as a smart home hub that can control connected appliances and serve as a video communications device using Apple's FaceTime. The higher-end variant could cost as high as $1,000 (€943.20 or £785.12). There will be various attachments for the device, including one that will fix it to the wall like a security hub. The device will also have sensors to determine how far or near a person is from it. 

It will have a customizable home screen with support for widgets, home controls and a dock for your favorite apps. It will be a standalone device that requires an iPhone for initial set-up. It will also support Apple's Handoff feature. The device is a collaboration between Apple's hardware engineering and software engineering teams, with Matt Costello and Arun Mathias as heads of the project.