What if HomePod Used a Hologram For FaceTime?

New rumors about HomePod claim we might one day be able to make FaceTime calls on one. A stationary iPad with better speakers? How boring.

I love HomePod; I have three. The sound quality and HomeKit abilities are great (Siri isn’t anything to write home about, but when is it ever?) I’m sad to see HomePod discontinued, but I get it. The Amazon Echo has a wildly better voice assistant, Alexa, the speakers are good enough, and it costs $200 less. People aren’t buying an Apple-made Facebook Portal with better sound for the same reason they didn’t buy a more expense Amazon Echo alternative — the differences didn’t justify the premium.

But, what if Apple did something fun with HomePod 2.0, like give it hologram technology for FaceTime and doorbell cameras? No “screen” but a holographic image darting straight out the top of HomePod.

It’s not (entirely) crazy to think Apple would do this. Tim Cook and Co. have signaled interest in holograms for the past decade. In 2011 Apple considered implementing hologram technology for their full-fledged TV before scraping the product all together. The issue with a hologram-based TV isn’t that it couldn’t be made, but that the resolution would be considerably worse than most other TVs out at the time. That’s less of an issue when video chatting (While I enjoy a crisp picture when I watch a new superhero movie, I don’t need to see my sister in 4K when I FaceTime her). In 2018 Apple purchased Akonia Holographics, a start-up focused on holographics for AR headsets. In August of 2020, Apple filed a patent describing holographic imagery generated from a micro-LED screen.

We may also consider Apple’s affinity for turning sci-fi tech into real life products. The iPad was inspired by Star Trek, AirPods from the movie Her, and Live Photo from Harry Potter. Would you buy a Hunger Games-like holographic projector / HomePod for $350? I could be persuaded.