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Apple Plans Aggressive New Push Into Smart Home
Exclusive: Meta’s Muse Tops 3 Million Weekly Users -- Revenue Quintupled at AI Memory Maker Micron -- DeepSeek Open-Sources Software Tools for Huawei AI Chips -- Microsoft Science President Peter Lee to Step Down
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The Information’s TITV: Tech news and analysis. Every weekday at 10 am PT / 1 pm ET. Now streaming → → Oct 01, 2026 The Information AM Supported by Save 25% on an annual subscription to read the most important news about technology and business first. For even more, Save $250 on The Information Pro for unlimited access to our proprietary org charts, databases and surveys. Happy Thursday! Apple plans an aggressive new push into the smart-home market. Meta's Muse now has more than 3 million weekly users. Micron's revenue nearly quintuples on strong demand for memory hardware for AI chips. Read more briefings 1. Apple Plans Aggressive New Push Into Smart Home By Aaron Tilley Source: Bloomberg Apple plans to launch a smart home hub device on October 13th, Bloomberg reported. The hub has a roughly 6-inch square display that can sit on countertops or be mounted on walls, the news outlet reported. The device will showcase the capabilities of Apple’s overhauled Siri, which was recently released after a delay of two years, and be able to recognize people who interact with it. The screen will display the identified user’s personal information, such as messages and upcoming calendar appointments. With the new product, Apple is moving into a crowded market. Google and Amazon launched their own smart home displays years ago. Apple has dipped its toe into the smart home over the years, with features like HomeKit to let devices hook into Apple’s software, but has limited success compared to rivals. As part of this push, Apple is also releasing an updated HomePod mini and a new Apple TV. 2. Exclusive: Meta’s Muse Tops 3 Million Weekly Users By Jyoti Mann Source: The Information Meta Platforms’ Muse now has more than 3 million users who give the AI agent at least one prompt a week, according to internal data reviewed by The Information, giving the product a sizable active audience just weeks after its launch. That figure is a subset of a broader group totaling more than 4 million who use the AI assistant in some way at least once a week, according to the figures. The gap is attributable to people who review something Muse did, approve an action or otherwise interact with it without giving the assistant a new task or query. The number of daily active users who have sent at least one prompt to Muse surpassed 1 million, the internal data showed, with the majority of Muse’s prompts coming through the app rather than the web. The figures provide the clearest picture yet of Muse’s nascent popularity, and mark a sharp increase from figures previously reported by The Information that showed Muse had about 500,000 weekly users and about 250,000 daily active users about a week after it launched. The early numbers point to strong initial adoption, but they remain tiny compared with Meta’s broader reach. Meta’s family of apps reaches billions of people globally, meaning the millions of users currently active on Muse represent only a fraction of the company’s potential consumer base. Muse is also entering an increasingly competitive market for AI agents that can take actions on behalf of users. SpaceXAI launched Grok Bot in beta in August and OpenAI introduced Dots this week, its own always-on agents. Instinct, another AI assistant app launched by a fledgling startup, has also gained popularity in tech circles. 3. Revenue Quintupled at AI Memory Maker Micron By Amir Efrati Source: The Information Memory maker Micron said revenue nearly quintupled to $54.2 billion in the quarter ending Sept.3, as demand for high-bandwidth memory hardware for AI chips showed no sign of slowing down. Micron’s gross margin nearly doubled to $86.8%, thanks to its price hikes, allowing it to generate an astounding $33 billion in free cash flow during the quarter, up from about $17.5 billion in free cash flow in the prior fiscal quarter. That’s higher than Apple’s $32 billion in free cash flow in the July quarter, and also far higher than even