Last week Patently Apple posted a report titled "Google Home: Advanced Home Automation for Android Users Introduced at Google I/O." In that report we noted that Google Home was like Amazon's Echo meets Apple TV. Earlier this month we posted a patent report titled "Future Apple Devices will Automate Home Automation Processes According to User Behavior Patterns," wherein we presented an overview of Apple's intellectual property relating to home automation coming to Apple TV and beyond. The key patent figure is presented below.

The report further stated that "With Amazon and now Google catching up to and surpassing Apple's Siri in some ways, we can only hope that Apple is going to finally deliver on this kind of service for Apple TV at their developer conference next month and out to market this year."

One week later and 'The Information' webstie is claiming just that. The report notes that "Apple is upping its game in the field of intelligent assistants. After years of internal debate and discussion about how to do so, the company is preparing to open up Siri to apps made by others. And it is working on an Amazon Echo-like device with a speaker and microphone that people can use to turn on music, get news headlines or set a timer.

Opening up its Siri voice assistant to outside app developers is the more immediate step. Apple is preparing to release a software developer kit, or SDK, for app developers who want their apps to be accessible through Siri, according to a person with direct knowledge of the effort."

Will Apple introduce a new Home Styled version of Apple TV during Apple's upcoming World Wide Developer Conference in June as we openly hoped for last week? While only time will tell, we won't have to wait too long to find out if this rumor pans out.

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