According to Apple Insider reports, Apple’ s recent job recruitment data shows that Apple is developing a series of new home products and preparing retail talents in advance for the release of the iPhone 13.

US data analysis website Global Data analyzed the job listings published by Apple and pointed out that Apple' s recruitment scale in July increased by 78% year-on-year. Among them, household product development and retail business departments have increased recruitment. Although Apple will start large-scale recruitment in North America this quarter in previous years, the position of "product manager" has increased from 130 jobs in March to more than 270 in July.

In the "business development manager" recruitment details, Apple needs to have more than 10 years of business development experience in the field of home services, and can work closely with other teams such as products, technology, and business operations to help consumers transform their family life experience.

Another "home service product manager" job posting revealed that the applicant will serve smart home products such as Apple TV, HomePod mini, HomeKit, and so on. The position pointed out that ideal candidates must have work experience working with home service providers, manufacturers and technology providers, which shows that the HomeKit platform is constantly evolving.

Apple' s overweight in the layout of the smart home business may be related to its lagging position in the home market share. According to Strategy Analytics data, in 2020, Apple’ s market share of TV streaming media devices is only 2%, HomePod’ s market share of smart speakers is less than 10% most of the time, Amazon has 70% of the smart speaker market, and Google has 20%.

In April of this year, Bloomberg quoted people familiar with the matter as saying that Apple is developing a new multifunctional device that will integrate Apple TV set-top boxes, HomePod smart speakers, and camera functions. Users can use it to watch videos and games on Apple TV and use Siri digital assistant to play. Music, video conferences can also be conducted through Internet TV. If launched, it will represent Apple'v s most ambitious smart home hardware product to date.

People familiar with the matter added that Apple is also considering combining the iPad and HomePod speakers to launch an advanced speaker with a touch screen that can track the user' s position and move to compete with Google and Amazon. At present, these two products are still in the early development stage.