Malcolm Owen
A trademark filing for "homeOS" may mean that Apple is actually preparing to bring out its smart home operating system, potentially during WWDC.
Apple has long been rumored to be working on a new operating system aimed at the smart home. This operating system has been rumored for years to be called "homeOS."
In a discovery by Parker Ortolani posted by 9to5Mac on Thursday, there may be evidence of it actually existing. A trademark filing reveals that someone registered "homeOS" back in April 2025.
The record for the trademark reveals it was registered by "Home Operations Suite LLC," registered at 251 Little Falls Drive, Wilmington, Delaware. The address is known to be used for corporate registrations by many companies.
It has a listed correspondent of Amy J Benjamin of Benjamin Law PC, which specializes in intellectual property and advertising law.
As for the classification of the trademark, it is listed under two classes.
Class 009 refers to "Computer and Software Products & Electrical & Scientific Products" while class 042 is for "Computer & Software Services & Scientific Services." Obviously, both classes describe what an operating system does, or practically any software.
All of these elements point to a potential trademark filing by Apple for HomeOS, performed in a fashion that tries to minimize the chance of it being attributable to Apple. The company also habitually uses shell companies to hide registrations, and is a very well worn playbook.
Not a guarantee
The discovery of a trademark for a rumored piece of software is something that has been done numerous times before, and can be considered a good sign for its existence at WWDC. However, it's certainly not a guarantee that it will actually happen.
In 2022, just before WWDC for that year, there was the discovery of realityOS as a trademark. At the time, rumors were spreading about something that would eventually become visionOS and the Apple Vision Pro.
While there was excitement about realityOS, as well as references in Apple's code for it, it didn't become a real release at all.
It's entirely plausible that the same thing could happen again with homeOS. There's a chance that, if Apple filed that registration, it could be one of multiple name applications, to protect all possible brand ideas before it settles on one.
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5 Comments
There's a good chance they are just filing the trademark, possibly to use in the future but not necessarily this year.
Apple really needs to get Apple Intelligence and Siri right before they can tackle home control systems. Let's remember that home control really only pertains to when you are actually in your own home. Technologies like Apple Intelligence and Siri affect all Apple users whether they are at home, at work, at school, on the road, on vacation, etc.
And ideally home control will go through a user's smartphone or smartwatch, the only two things people tend to keep on their person at all times. All these silly rumors of some wall-mounted touchscreen tablet are dopey. No one wants to get out of their home office chair, walk to the living room/kitchen/whatever, to twiddle with some menu on a wall-mounted tablet just to dim the lights or adjust the window blinds. Voice control makes the most sense but for that to happen you need really, Really, REALLY good voice recognition technology. Like 99.99% accurate. Not just for your voice or your spouse's voice, but for ALL voices. No one has that level of accuracy in 2025.
My guess is that Apple executives know all this.
They must get Siri working reliably (again 99.9+%) before they can seriously tackle home control.
homeOS could be very interesting, especially if it integrates better (more closely) with Shortcuts, and then improve the ease of using Shortcuts to build some very good automations in the home. Seems like the two would do very well being more tightly integrated.
I will believe when I see it.
Siri is dumb and stupid. I don´t know how much HomeOS would improve without Siri improvement.