Apple: About Those HomePod Firmware Revelations

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By Mark Hobben On Saturday, July 29, MacRumors reported, "Yesterday, Apple pushed out firmware for its $349 HomePod smart speaker ahead of the device's launch in December..." This immediately struck me as a little odd, since Apple's (NASDAQ:AAPL) HomePod has not been opened up to third-party developers, and its presumptive variant of iOS doesn't even carry an official moniker the way that tvOS and watchOS do. For the Apple platforms that are open to development, the company makes available the latest operating systems and betas for registered developers to download. There is nothing currently available on Apple's developer site to download for HomePod. Source: Apple The reference that MacRumors offered in the article is IPSW Downloads, a third-party repository for IPSW files, which are the files one can download and install through iTunes for restoring an iOS device. What is referenced is a .zip file claimed to be an over the air (OTA) update for HomePod. Because my MacBook Pro is currently in the repair shop, I haven't been able to open or examine the file. But I'm reasonably certain that whatever this file is, it's not something that was ever made available to the general developer community. Even OTA updates are targeted to specific devices and only uploaded to the device once it's been verified by Apple. This means the update either went to an actual HomePod device or possibly passed through a developer's Mac on the way to the device. Either way, IPSW Downloads would not have been able to simply pluck this update from the ether. It had to have been made available by someone with access to a HomePod. Since HomePod hasn't gone on sale yet, nor been made available to developers, those with access must be a select few. Even more odd has been the steady stream of revelations about, not HomePod, but iPhone 8. HomePod is apparently running a beta version of iOS 11, but such betas have been available to developers for various iOS devices since WWDC. Certainly, iOS 11 betas have been scoured for any possible clues about iPhone 8, but heretofore Apple has not obliged. An inexplicable breach Yet, for some inexplicable reason, Apple has overloaded the firmware for HomePod with numerous references to unrelated Apple products and then conveniently allowed this firmware to be published on the web for all to see. If we are to believe the interpretations of Steve Troughton-Smith, iPhone 8 will feature infrared face detection for purposes of unlocking the phone, but will lack under screen fingerprint sensing. The iPhone glyph "discovered" in the HomePod firmware is believed to be representative of the iPhone 8 design: It's been rumored for some time that iPhone 8 would feature an "edge-to-edge" OLED screen that would eliminate the Home button. Troughton-Smith also found indications that the screen size will be 2436 x 1125 pixels. iPhone 8 may also have front and rear cameras capable of recording 4K video at 60 FPS. In addition, the firmware suggests that an Apple Watch with LTE and Apple TV with 4K capability are coming soon. In short, the HomePod firmware revelations have produced a wish list of features and products that many of us have wanted for some time. Along with the rather odd circumstances of these revelations, this makes me suspicious that it's all too good to be true. Since we don't know where the IPSW Downloads file came from, we should at least consider the possibility that it's a hoax. Will Apple Watch get LTE sooner than expected? In the HomePod firmware rumors, one gets the sense of these rumors feeding off other rumors. On August 4, Bloomberg reported that Apple plans to release an LTE-connected Apple Watch. No sooner had the Bloomberg report come out than another developer, Jeffrey Grossman, claimed to find a reference in the HomePod firmware to a Watch-embedded SIM, which presumably would be used for an LTE-connected Watch. Bloomberg identifies Apple's newfound ally Intel (NASDAQ:INTC) as the source of the LTE modem. For the past year, I've noted the development of Android Wear 2 and Qualcomm's (NASDAQ:QCOM) Snapdragon Wear systems on chip that enable LTE-connected smartwatches. I have thought that it was only a matter of time before Apple would build an LTE-connected Watch. However, after WWDC, I concluded that the company simply wasn't ready to go there. In the next watchOS, there was little in the way of peer-to-peer connectivity support except via Bluetooth. It appeared that battery life was still the major concern that was holding Apple back. Also, Apple had no way to build an equivalent to the Snapdragon Wear chip, since it doesn't have the capability to integrate cellular modems with its systems on chip. Apple is one of the few smartphone makers that still uses a discrete modem chip, bought either from Qualcomm or Intel. I figured this would probably not work for an LTE-connected Apple Watch, especially to compete with Android Wear. So, Bloomberg's assertion that "Intel Corp. will supply the LTE modems for the new Watch" seems more than a little far-fetched. I would like to believe Bloomberg, but I'm skeptical about the maturity of the technology. Apple is part of the Rethink Technology portfolio and is a recommended Buy. Disclosure: I am/we are long AAPL, QCOM. I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it (other than from Seeking Alpha). I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article. https://seekingalpha.com/article/4095714-apple-homepod-firmware-revelations

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