Is this WWDC25 session secretly about the HomePad?


A recent WWDC session might be yet another hint Apple slipped in plain sight for its long-rumored smart home display. While it obviously doesn’t mention the upcoming device, it’s hard to watch and not think about how these elements might behave on something like the so-called HomePad.

The session, called “Design interactive snippets”, is all about a new UI framework for App Intents. The idea: let developers create small, glanceable, actionable widgets, called snippets, that can surface context-aware info and quick actions inside Siri, Spotlight, and Shortcuts. These snippets are lightweight, interactive, and designed to sit at the top of the screen as floating overlays.

That all sounds useful for iPhones and iPads, sure. But taken together with recent iOS beta findings and earlier reports about Apple’s homeOS device, it feels like these snippets could actually be laying the groundwork for something else.

The HomePad connection

If you’ve been following along, 9to5Mac previously reported on internal references in iOS 18.6 beta code that point to a device running homeOS. The screen resolution is around 2176 pixels wide, suggesting something in the ballpark of an 7-inch display.

What’s interesting is how the WWDC session explicitly called out design constraints for snippets: Apple tells developers to design within a height limit of 340 points, to avoid scrolling friction. Why? Because this kind of glanceable, quick-hit UI makes a lot more sense on something you’re viewing at a distance, say, from across the room on a smart display.

The session also emphasized larger text sizes (bigger than system defaults) and higher-than-normal color contrast for readability “from a distance”, another strong hint that Apple is targeting a new form factor here.

And if that’s not enough, even developer Steve Troughton-Smith picked up on the vibe, suggesting that this session felt like it was originally written with the HomePad in mind.

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Why now?

According to reports, the HomePad’s planned launch earlier this year got delayed, reportedly because the Siri updates it depends on weren’t ready yet. But that doesn’t mean the software foundation isn’t already shipping.

Given that these new App Intents capabilities and snippet design guidelines are rolling out as part of iOS 26 and macOS Tahoe 26, it makes sense that Apple would start preparing developers now, quietly, so that when the HomePad (or whatever Apple ends up calling it) does arrive, there’s already a layer of third-party app support ready to go.

In the meantime, snippets will start appearing on existing Apple devices this fall. But between the new homeOS assets in the beta, the screen-size clues, and this cryptic WWDC session on UI overlays for Siri-driven intents, it’s getting harder to ignore the signs that Apple’s long-awaited home display is inching closer to reality.

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