A square screen that recognises faces for the home, and the Duo Pencil Apple scrapped before launch
Mark Gurman describes Apple's home hub in detail — a square, Siri-driven display that recognises who is looking at it and could arrive as early as next month — and explains why the shorter Apple Pencil planned for the iPhone Duo never shipped.
Bloomberg's Mark Gurman used his Sunday newsletter to put the fullest description yet of Apple's home hub on the record: a square, Siri-driven display that recognises whoever stands in front of it, with an introduction possible as early as next month. The same newsletter closed a question his own August reporting left open — the shorter Apple Pencil built for the iPhone Duo ran into technical trouble before mass production and was dropped. The 24 hours to Monday morning also produced panel numbers for the 2027 iPhone 20 Pro, IDC's first-year forecast for the Duo, and job cuts inside Apple Fitness+. No insider report about an unannounced iPad, AirPods, Vision Pro, Apple Watch or Mac product appeared in the window.
A home hub that runs on Siri and recognises who is looking at it
Apple's home hub is known inside the company as J490, and Gurman describes it as a roughly square display running a new operating system built around Siri AI 12. The device comes in two versions: one on a stand that looks like a HomePod mini chopped in half, and one that attaches to a wall. It is being tested widely in employees' homes on the way to release.
The pitch is a single device for the home that gathers connected-device controls, video calls, intercom and media, and opens the door to Apple's services and apps. Setup runs through an iPhone. The display has its own home screen, widgets and clock faces, in the vein of an Apple Watch or the iPhone Duo's StandBy mode. A front-facing camera system recognises who is looking at it, without the standard Face ID depth sensor. It then personalises what appears: apps, notes, calendar appointments, news, music and podcasts 1.
Siri is the main feature. Gurman expects people to ask it across their devices and accounts — to play a podcast or song someone sent a while ago, find a particular image to display, or carry out precise tasks inside Notes, Reminders and Calendar. The closest comparison he offers is Amazon's Echo Show, with a considerably smaller screen. The framing is chief executive John Ternus's intelligent personal hub: the iPhone is the hub a person carries, and this display is the hub for the home. It joins a new HomePod mini and a TV set-top box, both of which also carry Siri AI 1.
Apple has never acknowledged the device and has published no price. Several of its elements had already circulated: AppleInsider, which relayed the newsletter on Sunday at 14:59, notes that the square shape, the two mounting options and the cameras used for ambient sensing have all been reported before, with a launch pointed at this fall 345. The codename and an October window were public in Bloomberg's September 14 product roadmap 6. Sunday added how the thing works, where it is being tested, and how soon it might arrive.
One aside carries over to the iPhone Duo. Gurman writes that Apple's ability to run facial recognition without a Face ID-level depth sensor gives him confidence the company could eventually bring the feature to the Duo, which today relies on fingerprint-based Touch ID 1.
The Duo Pencil Apple planned and then scrapped
Gurman reported in late August that Apple had tested a new Pencil for the iPhone Duo — shorter and magnetic, so it would attach to the hinge — and said at the time that the accessory was unlikely to be unveiled 7. Sunday's newsletter explains what became of it. The original plan was to introduce the Pencil designed for the Duo, and a few months ago it ran into technical problems ahead of mass production. Apple then pivoted to supporting the Pencils it already sells for the iPad, on both the outer and the inner screen 18.
Making an iPad Pencil work on the Duo takes more than enabling a switch. Apple has to roll out new software and work through internal testing, a process Gurman says is now under way, with support promised by the end of the year. He reads that promise literally and expects the software late in 2026. MacRumors and 9to5Mac both relayed the account on Sunday night 910.
The same newsletter answers a second Duo question. Apple shipped iOS 27.2 rather than 27.1 to developers, and Gurman's reading is that the .1 release is exclusive to the iPhone Duo. That matters for anyone planning to set the phone up on October 23: he would keep a Duo off the 27.2 beta while the version numbers differ. The gap it leaves is real. Apps have to be recompiled against iOS 27.0 at minimum to use the Duo's inner display, and against iOS 27.1 to use its own tab bar, so how much third-party software arrives ready stays an open question for launch day 1112.
The iPhone 20 Pro's panel, in numbers
The display-supply-chain leaker Digital Chat Station, posting on Weibo, gave early screen figures for the iPhone 20 Pro series: 6.41 inches at roughly 2686 x 1236 pixels for the Pro, and 6.96 inches at roughly 2912 x 1340 for the Pro Max 13. The same post describes a borderless quad-curved design and a punch-hole cutout it calls a small Dynamic Island, both under test. Ice Universe, a China-based analyst on X whom this channel tracks, relayed the figures at 04:33 14, and Gizmochina followed at 05:06 and worked out the comparison against the phones on sale now 15.
That comparison is where the leak gets its value. The iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max, on sale since September 18, carry 6.3-inch and 6.9-inch panels at 2622 x 1206 and 2868 x 1320, both at 460 pixels per inch. The 2027 figures come out about a tenth of an inch larger on the Pro, a little over half a tenth larger on the Pro Max, and a few dozen pixels wider along each edge, at the same pixel density and the same proportions 15. For a reader weighing this year's Pro against waiting for the anniversary phone, the leaked screen is the current one moved by tenths of an inch and dozens of pixels.
The front of the phone is the part still unsettled. Digital Chat Station said in April that Apple was working with Samsung on a custom display curving on all four edges with no polarizer layer, and May's render footage showed no visible cutout at all, with the camera and Face ID tucked under the display 15. The punch-hole in the new post points the other way, with the front camera visible. Digital Chat Station draws these figures from test units, which it says can change before launch.
IDC's first year for the Duo: 10 million units
The market-research firm IDC expects Apple to sell 10 million iPhone Duos in the first 12 months, bringing in about $27 billion once higher-capacity models are counted — roughly 6% of Apple's expected revenue for the fiscal year — according to a report in The Information on Sunday 1617. Francisco Jeronimo, IDC's vice president for data and analytics, puts the mechanism on novelty: the Duo gives people who normally wait four years a reason to move sooner.
IDC's category numbers frame the same forecast. Revenue from foldables rose 16% in 2025 against 7% for everything else, and Android foldables held close to 90% of the category that year. IDC's 2026 split is about 30% Apple against 50% Android, moving to roughly 40% for iOS in 2027 17. AppleInsider's headline reads that last figure as "close to half of the foldables market"; IDC's number is 40%.
The 10-million figure covers a period that starts at the Duo's launch on October 23.
Fitness+ loses a handful of jobs, and two outlets read it differently
Apple cut a handful of employees working on Fitness+ in the past week, and the affected staff include people who worked on the service's audio side — Time to Walk and Time to Run, the audio-only sessions you play from an Apple Watch 11819. New releases for those audio sessions will drop in frequency, and Gurman reports that people inside the organisation read the cuts as the beginning of more drastic cost-cutting and other changes to the service in the months and years ahead 20.
Gurman does not expect the service to be shut down, and his own bet is that Apple eventually folds Fitness+ into the revamped Health app, now that both sit under the same operation — Apple's services chief Eddy Cue and health lead Sumbul Desai. Apple is already adding video clips to the Health app revamp 1.
AppleInsider came back at 15:12 with a different reading: the cuts amount to a handful of roles, Apple is advertising 73 Cupertino-based positions that mention fitness, and the argument that Fitness+ is an easy place to cut leans on costs that behave unlike a production company's, because Apple owns the studios and they cost money whether anything is being filmed in them or not. Its view is that any absorption into Apple Health would more likely arrive alongside an Apple Watch announcement or a similar event 21.
The layoffs themselves come from one reporter, and the newsletter gives no subscriber figures behind the churn argument. Apple has not commented.
| Signal | Reporter and time (UTC) | What it rests on | How much weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| The home hub's description, and an introduction "as early as next month" | Mark Gurman, Bloomberg Power On, Sunday 14:00; AppleInsider at 14:59 13 | Bloomberg's Apple reporting, by the reporter who named J490 and its October window in the September 14 roadmap | The fullest account of the device yet. The description rests on one reporter, and AppleInsider's coverage is a relay of the same newsletter. |
| The Duo Pencil was planned, then scrapped after technical problems ahead of mass production | Gurman, same newsletter, Sunday 14:00; MacRumors at 02:47 and 9to5Mac on Sunday 910 | Bloomberg supply-chain sourcing | Consistent with the August report that the accessory was unlikely to ship. One source, and Apple has said nothing. |
| iPhone 20 Pro panels at 6.41 inches and 2686 x 1236, and 6.96 inches and 2912 x 1340 | Digital Chat Station on Weibo, relayed by Ice Universe at 04:33 and Gizmochina at 05:06 1314 | A display-supply-chain leaker's test-unit information | Early-stage numbers that can still change. The quad-curved direction has been reported since April, and the cutout design still contradicts May's under-display renders. |
| IDC's 10 million units and $27 billion across the Duo's first 12 months | IDC via The Information, Sunday; AppleInsider at 17:16 1617 | A named analyst house, with its analyst quoted | A forecast for a product that reaches customers on October 23. The revenue figure counts higher-capacity models and subtracts no costs. |
| Fitness+ job cuts, and what they mean for the service | Gurman, Sunday 14:11; AppleInsider's counter-reading at 15:12 1821 | Bloomberg's sourcing on the cuts, against AppleInsider's check of Apple's own job postings | Firm that jobs went and that audio releases will thin out. The scale of any wider change is disputed, and the fold into Health is Gurman's expectation. |
What to watch next
- Tuesday, September 22 — the M6 and M5 Pro Mac mini and the M5 Max and M5 Ultra Mac Studio reach stores. Buyer-run benchmarks from those machines will be the first hardware-backed numbers for the M6 generation.
- October — the earliest month that fits Gurman's "as early as next month" for the home hub, and the same window Bloomberg's September 14 roadmap gave J490. Apple has never acknowledged the device, so an event invitation is the thing to watch for 6.
- Friday, October 16 and Friday, October 23 — iPhone Duo pre-orders open and the phone goes on sale. Watch whether Apple ships Apple Pencil support before the launch, since Gurman expects the software late in 2026, and check which iOS version an app was built against before counting on the inner display 11.
- No public date — iOS 27.2 stays in developer testing. Gurman's reading that the .1 release belongs to the Duo alone is worth checking against the next beta, because it decides whether running 27.2 causes trouble setting a Duo up 1.
- Any Fitness+ announcement — whether the audio sessions thin out as described, and whether the app moves under Apple Health or stays where it is 1.
What stayed out
- iFixit's iPhone 18 Pro teardown, published Sunday evening, with battery capacities for the eSIM-only models — 4,288 mAh for the 18 Pro against 4,252 for the 17 Pro, and 5,567 mAh for the 18 Pro Max against 5,088 — plus a finding that the screen's plastic frame cracked or broke away on three of the four units it opened, which iFixit says needs more testing 2223. A teardown reports on hardware already in buyers' hands, and the capacity question for the tray models was reported before launch.
- Apple's Siri AI settlement website going live, with claims open from September 21 to December 21, an estimated $25 per eligible iPhone and a $95 maximum, and payment waiting on a final approval hearing set for February 24, 2027 24. This one concerns money Apple has agreed to pay out rather than anything it plans to ship.
- Gurman's line that Apple is gearing up to launch Apple Pay in India by October — his restatement of reporting this channel carried on September 18 from Reuters 25.
- The leaker Majin Bu's Sunday claim that Apple is working on an iPhone with a glass front and back for 2028, hung on one photo of a Foxconn prototype he dates to July 2024, with his own caveat that the design is not final and may not match the shipping device 26. A single claim with one prototype photo, pointing at the same 2027-2028 window as the panel leak above.
- The rest of the day's consumer coverage: iPhone 18 Pro and Apple Watch Series 12 hands-on, review and buyer's-guide posts, Siri AI complaint round-ups, iPhone 18 Pro accessory lists, Apple Watch launch discounts, the Satechi Thunderbolt 5 CubeDock review, and the Apple TV series "The Savant" moving its release again.
- No qualifying insider report about an unannounced iPad, AirPods, Vision Pro, Apple Watch or Mac product appeared in this window. Ming-Chi Kuo's newest post is still his September 1 MediaTek note and Ross Young's is his August 31 post, so neither analyst published an Apple component claim here.
References
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