1. Have a battery so you're not tied to a cord. Even old poor batteries are better than no battery.
2. Have apps! How does this not support apps?!
3. Have a huge range of 3rd party products and hacks and 3D models to wall mount it or stands for it
4. Are kitchen-safe (splatter proof, far fewer holes than this product, movable out of the way)
5. Also support siri and facetime and everything this device does AFAICT
I'm guessing they realized this and made sure it's priced lower than the cheapest new iPad, but it will be interesting to see if the price difference can compete with the old iPads most of their customers have in drawers or already on walls.
Maybe the purpose-built nature will be a reasonable enough differentiator, but I'm not sure it's focused enough for that. It's both a passive information station and for calls? It's for recipes which implies you put it in the kitchen, but it looks like a nightmare to clean with all those holes? It's also a very small screen when you have to read the recipe from a distance because it has no battery. I can't move my stove to it, and I definitely don't want it too near a stove or sink!
The multiple users feature is a really neat trick, but I would kill to have this for all Apple devices. Let me hand my kid my phone and it automatically switches to kid mode!
Please Apple don't lock multiple users to stationary devices like HomeView!
That’s why this device has multi-user support: you’re only supposed to have one of them, which everyone uses. The Apple TV also has good multi-user support, because Apple doesn’t expect you to connect one Apple TV per user to your television.
The Apple TV and Homepod mini already support Matter.
An old iPad on a stand on the table in the breakfast nook is conceptually fine as a Matter controller until someone picks it up and leaves with it, or unplugs it and lets it run out of battery.
Apple forbids this kind of use because it defiles the majesty of their garden and its walls (or something), but that's just Apple doing Apple things.
Expectation of usage. An iPad designer assumes it will be taken all around, leave the house, put in a book bag, etc.
While an old iPad being used as an entertainment management surface won’t, that’s not the prime use case intended for iPad.
Apple decided to focus on products whose primary purpose is a stationary device, like a speaker or a TV-attached device. Sure, you can move them place to place, but most won’t.
And the usefulness (or lack thereof) of the functionality can never be tested by real people, because at Apple: Design is everything.
hasn't apple been shipping thread radios in devices for a few years now, with no actual use for them? the only thing blocking iPads from being a home hub for managing matter protocol devices is that apple hasn't turned that feature on.
At the risk of echoing the infamous Dropbox comment...was that ever really considered a technical challenge?
It's not intended for home users of course, because that could jeopardise sales in families.
https://zedshaw.com/blog/2018-03-25-the-billionaires-vs-bran...
Normal users should accept that if they let their kid play Angry Birds they’re risking an accident with all their other apps getting mucked with, and if they don’t like it they can buy five iPads.
https://support.apple.com/guide/deployment/shared-ipad-overv...
It’s only when you want to let them jump in and out of multiple apps (e.g. pick what game they want to play on their own) that you start having a problem.
(And the not-idiomatic-but-people-do-it-anyway solution for that, from what I’ve seen, is buying one extra iPad, and creating a special whole-family Apple account for it, to effectively serve as a game console for the kids.)
The solution to that is Assistive Access.
It’s more painful to use than it should be, but it absolutely solves this problem.
Though the sheer fact that in 2026 it's driven by Siri who is not a conversationalist AI, but still the same frustrating voice technology from 2011 is confusing they would even bother releasing this.
Sooner or later their lack of innovating themselves and just copying is going to make them what the Blackberry was when iPhone was released.
This is no longer the case. Siri as of iOS 27 is a gemini-based LLM system. It has a chatbot app and everything.
I use and have used chatGPT voice while driving for awhile ... here's a very silly example https://www.instagram.com/p/DecaL9Gx6li/ . Besides that silly example im in school now and give chatGPT all my notes to create interact multiple choice questions i take while driving. Overall love hearing how other people are using chatGPT voice and or any other AI voice conversationalist tech.
I use conversational voice AI while driving and with the new Siri i constantly have to use hey siri to keep the conversation going.
Basically, people use them for photos, kitchen timers, quick recipe lookups, quick questions, and "can a dog eat the thing I just dropped".
Accurate. I ask about the dog eating thing at least once a month. Most recently it was cilantro and tomatoes.
After a couple years of use of trying to use the iPad exactly as you stated here (it's lived 24/7 on my kitchen island, I've realized iPadOS is not that great to use in this way).
I'll be happy to have a "dumbed down" stationary device that serves no purpose but exactly what it's intended for.
That's just me, though; I get why many others may disagree. This is just my experience of actually using it in the way in which I will be replacing it for.
So, like: The light switch in the garage is very inconveniently-located, and it's dark AF in there both at night and when I walk in from a bright sunny day. The lights can be activated by voice and that's pretty nice to have.
They're also good when I want background music that's actually-in-the-background: I've got some very nice audio systems for when I want focus on listening to music, but they are much more successful at being involving than at being being ignored. The kinda-meh-sounding Alexa-type widget on the table over there does a better job for background noise.
I'm not anywhere near 60 yet. I just find that stuff like this is useful.
(Yeah, yeah. I could build or buy voice-controlled speaker-widgets that integrate with Home Assistant in an open-source way, and even use them with a local LLM if I wanted to. I'm disinterested in that kind of effort at this time.)
I think the idea is in the ballpark but the form factor is not ideal. The screen should be much bigger so notes can be left for others - maybe from scribbles rather than voice - and calendars and shopping lists can be seen from across the room.
This looks like someone at Apple took a recent Alexa and said "We should do one of those" instead of something more adventurous.
If not for the need for video conferencing, she'd have been fine with an audio only device.
And finally, when they do have issues and ask you questions: now it's questions about an unfamiliar device you may not own yourself!
Old iPad still seems optimal for this demographic.
Not sure if HomeView is the answer, but some aspects of the video were interesting. eg super-fast user switching with no explicit login; and how it puts Siri forward as the primary UI in a way that the iPad doesn't, even if the iPad technically has the same capabilities.
That they drilled a hole through the kitchen island table top for the power cord was hilarious. Exactly zero people in the real world are going to do that.
Exactly zero people
Maybe companies will lean into making the most of whats possible within the apple ecosystem and leave the rest out
The last base iPad still supported on the current OS must be the 2020 version. There was a blip in the corona years, but since the iPad sales have been declining, so the amount of devices still up to date aren't that many.
I'd have the same concern with this device given Apple haven't committed to longer then usual support.
At least I already got my money's worth from the old iPad and being able to give it a new role on the kitchen bench was a bonus.
Apple could most likely replicate the software on an old iPad. But I think this would still be popular because of its form factor.
As you get older you start to realise half of hot takes are a result of living in a different half of the economy which doesn't quite get things like the suburbs are appealing
It doesn't have to do a lot to be useful. If there are even a couple consistent daily use cases I can see this making sense for some people. Even if just means I don't need to go grab my iPad/iPhone from the couch to set a timer or ask a quick question.
Google's Nest Home is only $99, so that is likely the cheapest version from a big company.
Outside of basically just TV's the economy has decided to completely abandon targeting really much of anything at below median wage incomes.
I suspect the reason for this is that it’s not a mobile device and can afford to have the camera always on.
(Not exactly the same power feed but you know what I mean)
I'm still waiting for the 9.7" iPad Pro that I have to swell up. I got it used, but AFAICT the battery is 10 years old at this point. It has definitely been plugged in ~24/7 since I got it.
Sometimes, I notice that has decided it's time to discharge itself somewhat and then recharge again. I assume this is for BMS calibration or battery health or both; I just let it do its thing and it's been fine.
Meanwhile: A disused Samsung Galaxy S7's battery swelled up enough to split the case open while I had it sitting on a shelf, switched off. It was about 6 years old at that point, and I was careful to leave it at about a 60% SoC when I put it on that shelf.
I haven't had the battery well up in phone that sees daily use -- yet. I won't be surprised if/when it happens.
you'd be surprised how much of a barrier this is for average consumer
So this is two birds for me
With this thing ... it remains to be seen what happens in practice.
You've just realized they're going to obsolete all those products.
Lots of parents want to manage it
This is a new device like a home phone.
Kids can securely call who they are allowed to from a fixed location, not wandering off with a device.
This looks like a modern Google Home Screen, likely matching the market when it seems obvious.
Edit: Typos.
This device screams "we came up with use cases in a conference room committee meeting" not "we're solving one problem everyone has in a new way".
The device looks like an ipad merged with a homepod. It's not definitive, but the idea of mounting an ipad on a homepod does seem to exist in the 3D Printing world [1].
The negative effects of screen time on children's brain develop is being more and more intensely researched, and I suspect an adjustment is underway. Low-fi (LCD screens), etc can make a lot of sense.
[1] https://makerworld.com/en/models/811172-ipad-stand-retro-ima...
I'm not sure if this is a kitchen device, maybe an edge of the kitchen device, where a desk or landline cordless phone used to be in some homes.
Apple moving into home is one thing, also people being uncertain about apple releasing new product categories is also not new.
Personally it feels like some of the features in this have been researched with the audience who will buy it (homeowners, parents, kids, etc) which are shown in the imaging as well. This can seem a little off because Apple is usually creating something for everyone and not just some.
The main thing about the screen being on a stand is a child can't be too tempted to walk aroudn with it, or touch it (guided access aside).
While I understand the sentiment, with all of the cloning using AI - it’s far more achievable to now back port an apps behavior to an older iOS version than ever before. I did this very thing for a WiFi fan app that didn’t provide an app which works on an older iOS. So I captured the API calls, grabbed some screen captures and within a few hours had a swift native app that looked and operated well enough on my old iPhone/ipad. Felt good to put some this drawer hardware back into use within the house.
I saw a post here a few weeks ago aout someone publishing a daily "newsletter" for their family of everyone's happenings and going ons.
I believe they were outputting a PDF, and my thought kind of went where yours did.
The PDF is pixels oriented for paper.. or a screen.
One way I see output is a screen is.. a screen, and there's many ways to make the pixels arrange as desired.
The thing I'd kind of still hold off on is this approach isn't for the many, which I believe Apple HomeView is. I could see sending one on a trop with kids, or putting it at family members houses just as a communicator.
Lots of ways to do it again, but it's not about that for most people. There's a reason apple sells so much, they look for creating beginners in the most approachable way possible. It's not the only, best, or exclusive way to do something, but they have an audience they serve.
It’s really out of touch. I don’t see any benefit over any old tablet.
This is interesting!
Idk, to me it's just one more step in widening of the technological Overton window.
Also, the assistants are not recording, they're analyzing sound wave for the trigger word. This isn't recording, it's been explained countless times already.
This whole conversation is about taking it to next level.
I think as soon as the original capability launched the game was over. People don't understand technical distinctions like that and they've already accepted it.
I am talking about the recording that lasts. Recording people's voice without their consent, on your behalf, and transcribing the text for your later use. It's not volatile 2s analyzed by the DSP, it's an actual record of conversation.
This is not the same recording.
But yes, I see your point, too, maybe back then we got used to it at an even less intrusive level. So it progresses, slowly, but surely, like a frog in a pot.
This is about remote control. People who think Apple/Google/Microsoft will just pass on the reigns of that remote control are dangerously naïve.
Apple has locked down whole classes of third-party utilities for its mobile system and Google is copying them as we speak. We are slowing progress at great cost by letting them lock-in and rent seek.
The commenter may have sounded unhinged but the thesis is sound.
If you don’t trust Apple, you’re on your own - you can probably recreate all this on a FOSS stack, but you’re gonna have to do it repeatedly for everything, and you’re on the hook for explaining it to everyone you know so they can use it, too. It’s not that you _can’t_ do it yourself, it’s just a whole lot harder than if you accept the bargain and trust Apple.
Whether or not you want to do that is up to you, but I don’t think anyone’s in the dark on what the bargain is.
I’m honestly surprised in the age of vibe-coding we haven’t seen someone try to build out a direct “open walled garden”.
AI could solve the basic coverage on every operating system and screen shape, while the various p2p technologies have gotten really good and when combined with mDNS and maybe an encrypted byo-cloud-storage (eg drive, Dropbox, etc APIs) for async data synching. The nerd side is build a data sync layer, then a variety of apps and products can be built on top of it.
It doesn’t necessarily need to work as well as Apple, nor as rich features, it just needs to support enough devices well enough to allow heterogeneous-platform households or friends to share what they need.
(They are on watchlist for Apple Maps & other ads…)
And you’re absolutely right - as soon as they break the value proposition, the value of their package and the price people are willing to pay for it drops in half and they’ve all the sudden gotta compete with Google and Samsung and Huaiwei and the rest of that jungle, and that market sucks.
The massive issue in all of this is digital identity.
Everyone is a citizen of a private corporation without any rights or access points to their digital identity.
Humans rely on our digital identity (email accounts, iCloud, google, etc) for nearly everything.
In many ways, it's like the equivalent of using our license or other ID in physical spaces.
Except, humans are relying on digital identities provided as digital citizens of corporations (Google, Apple, Microsoft, etc), whereby they do no have teh same recourse that official access points of data do.
If at any given time, the majority of the identity providers are generally or ultimately not on the side of the identity holders (human) wrt to their inalienable rights.
There's no easy answer for this. Convenience has been used as a massive tradeoff for security for 10-15 years to the point that most people don't know better, or that there were and can be better options.
Downplaying the fact that the single change of a few sentences could change for worse the promises any corporation makes (it's not entitled to serve the user's needs first, after all).
Security and Privacy in Apple certainly seem to be better, but are not the best they could be.
Privacy and security, especially where it comes to protecting people from increasing threats online including AI bots, is not going to come from corporations alone, they haven't been able to build or roll them out while they learn at the expense of people.
There's no answer being pointed to, only that Apple being the only vendor with some promises isn't very good at all.
Otherwise you don't really own your hardware.
LLMs will be able to secure (and insecure) more and more hardware as time goes on.
There’s some resilience, there.
The new ability to add one's own passes to Apple Wallet is nice though. Long overdue.
And yet, won't let me control my Nest Thermostat
(I'm not saying this is exclusively Apple's fault: the lack of Nest interop is Google's fault, but Apple isn't making it easy for third-parties to build Apple-Google bridges either)
(They support Matter protocol)
But I have, for example, a couple of Brilliant smart wall panels (one gang sized little panels with lighting and other controls) that I have to duplicate because despite the Brilliant being able to expose devices as a bridge to HomeKit I can’t say “Run this Scene” because Apple doesn’t allow external integrations to do so.
The systemic "lack of alternatives" is steering you, you confuse "not knowing alternatives" with the actual absence of alternatives and ignore possible further implications entirely.
The pattern is systemic capture, keeping you sedated about it is part of the scheme.
So if everyone else has a feature that lets you use your voice all the time as an input device, you are seen behind the times if you don't offer it. But at the same time if you want to offer protection for that feature, not being able to access it outside the device is the only acceptable answer.
Consumers who are more discerning, privacy conscious and technologically literate would be best. But without that being an option, having one major company still even pretend to care about privacy is at least refreshing
This is the same as with the Meta glasses and that's where I believe said Overton window is being expanded to. I am not one for conspiracy theories but it's not hard to notice the sudden appearance of these devices and their "this is cool" and the implied "what is even your problem" gaslighting advertising.
"for each desired change, make the change easy, then make the easy change"
correction: AI to backdoor vibe-coded designs
if anyone has read the trusting trust paper, one will know you can theoretically create code where vulnerabilities are hidden in plain sight. But that would mean its designed and reviewed by people who don't understand it in the first place.
So...no voice command? Or, is accessible by operating system or Apple?
The point of a secure enclave is to reduce the attack surface to something you can actually reason about the entire thing.
Sticking more and more in there is asking to defeat the whole purpose.
For those following along, the Secure Enclave is a separate core that runs most of the security stuff (including hardware like the fingerprint scanner), and Secure Exclaves are essentially virtual machines on the main AP cores used as a security boundary for specific tasks, kind of like Qubes does.
I think it's actually a very good approach. Obviously depends on actual implementation details, but the premise is good.
So Apple can ship whatever update they want, doing whatever with no oversight or independent review. No thanks - you folks are forgetting the US a surveillance state.
A device with no physical switch for it's microphone and cameras worries me and it's just not worth whatever minor convenience this adds.
This is exactly why Apple emphasizes they lack the ability (keys) to decrypt your data stored on iCloud or in transit. US courts will demand it, and this way Apple can say it literally is unable to comply no matter what the court orders. You can certainly choose not to believe them, but at least they are making the legal argument in actual court cases. I don’t see the other big tech companies doing that.
> The only realistic way to guarantee this sort of thing is to reverse engineer the entire chain between the two and then never install any software updates.
Reverse engineer the hardware and not change it, that's the whole point, it's not in the software, only queries after the keyword are passed forward (if I'm understanding correctly, gee I don't even like apple much, things I choose to spend my time on..)
Anyone who thinks Apple is going to fight for their users if their revenue slips targets and stock tanks is an idiot.
Money talks.
Least of all with home rolled solutions. Contrary to popular belief.
2. Set up TLS MITM between the device and the Internet. Install the cert on the device.
3. On the device, disable certificate pinning for Apple's apps.
4. Use the device normally, observe all the telemetry flowing to Apple.
You might be a little shocked at the amount of... personal and usage details sent to Apple FQDNs.
Remember: Privacy is a feature of the Apple Marketing dept -- not SWE!
1. https://security.apple.com/research-device/https://www.timesofisrael.com/apple-buys-israeli-startup-rep...
Does any third party periodically verify and audit this claim?
— or —
Do we blindly "just trust Apple, bro"?
1. No apps. This would be perfect for my kitchen but I like to watch videos, movies, tv shows while I cook. The aspect ratio is not ideal, but the fact it won't support third party apps means that is not an option. Maybe it will support Airplay video and I can cast from my phone?
2. No battery means it is stuck to the wall. They had to work around this limitation in their own (excellent) promo video by drilling a hole in the middle of their kitchen island. The device would have a lot more utility if it could be moved around a lot and then say in a base station like a Sonos Move.
As for the battery, this doesn't look like a kind of device that's intended to travel with you room to room---but I agree it would have been smart for them to give people the option.
The right app, in the right place can make a lot of sense
Arguably part of why those app ecosystems worked so well was because they were a cross-platform app experience and iMessage only working for Apple devices and most iMessage apps only capable of strong experiences in "blue chat" iMessage user only streams was always a hiccup for why Apple didn't see a larger uptake in the iMessage app ecosystem.
Infuriatingly though it appears to have zero data saving of preferences. I have to manually type my home address and select driving mode, every single time. It's like 30 taps when it could be 1. I sent them a Radar. I'm sure it will never be looked at.
Just now, I realized I can just vibecode my own version.
The battery issue, I agree it is kind of a single room device, but I could see wanting to move it around the room I am in. If I am say, washing dishes versus cooking at the stove, versus doing prep work. Right now I move an iPad around with me in the kitchen. Also, for when there is a facetime call being able to best position it for what I am currently doing verus having to move to the device and face it.
I think the aspect ratio makes sense for the form factor, recipes, FaceTime, music, etc. but it won’t be a very good video device.
Wveryone tried to put app atores inside messages because that's what all messaging apps in South East Asia do.
However, none of western companies ever actually understood how that works.
"Additional apps. HomeView supports compatible third-party audio and video apps from your iPhone for a familiar experience across devices."
If I had to guess this would be kind of similar to the way CarPlay supports apps, but it's admittedly possible this just means "you can use AirPlay yaaaay".
That said, since it's USB-C, it's possible to put a battery pack on it. Cue the third-party ecosystem making a specially shaped battery that can attach to the base (or compatible stand mount with battery for the wall-mounted version).
If this didn't have apps, but did have beautifully designed physical inputs, a color e-ink, and cost 1/3 as much I'd still be very excited for it.
It's just a bit derivative and isn't priced to take over the market (like the mac mini in 2025 was).
The Apple TV is the same price
iPhones and iPads are so expensive these days that this feels like a steal
I’m buying one for my parents and one for my in-laws for Christmas. Easy $300 gift that I know they won’t have.
I’m sure I’m not the only one who will have that idea
Where do they get that pricing from?
I cant buy the LG doorbell camera at my local mall in a fancy store. I had not even heard of it until now.
Volumes of 100s of millions on chips and volumes in hundreds of thousands will have a huge price difference. We are talking 2 orders of magnitude higher.
This is a funny framing. For those who don't know, the Apple TV 4K debuted at $129 USD. Apple then slightly improved the remote and bumped the price up to $199 USD.
Now today they announced a marginal upgrade -- they added a microphone in the base unit and not just on-demanded toggled on the remote, such that it will always be listening, along with a slightly improved CPU -- and they pumped the price to $299 USD.
So sure, the Apple TV is the "same price", to basically universal derision because they took a successful product and decided to turn it into a shakedown.
And to the root post about how great of a success this will be, virtually an identical top-ranked comment happened in the Vision Pro release. I mean, every flopped product has someone doing the "wow I guess it's going to be a huge success" when people question the point.
By no analysis remotely at the pace that their MSRP has, however.
The primary reason the price has spiralled is that Apple is running out of new markets, so every product needs to feed the greed to a greatest extent as they increasingly squeeze their existing customers. It's the same reason why there are paid ads in the AppStore, on Apple Maps, and so on. Expect this behaviour to become more obvious.
I have a lot of sensors, and always build variations of "a dashboard with a touchscreen" to play with them.
Insta-buy for me :).
But even if it did cost $10, it would still be a waste of money because you spend $10 on an useless product, you would be better to spend them to eat a pizza, it would be more useful.
What do you use it for? This reminds me of the digital photo frames that everyone had back in the days and that were almost finished in a drawer after 1 month of usage.
A useless device that sits on a table with the sole purpose to waste electricity, that for what it costs these days, better to use it for something more useful.
Moving goalposts aside, how do you know it’s useless? You might not have a use for it, but it’s weird to make such blanket statements for a product that hasn’t even been out yet.
My only complaint is that a truly environmentally friendly company (like Apple claims to be!) would make this OS available for old iPads. I'm quite sure they're capable of running it (or at least a stripped down version thereof) and lots of people have old iPad Minis sitting around.
I feel like maybe the answer is browser-integrated LLM plugins tasked with "I don't ever want to see anything having to do with this topic of argument ever again."
I feel like it may be the kind of product that makes people realize how much they had become owned by one coroporation.
It looks like a nice device at a reasonable price. I looked at the video, but it doesn't solve any problems I have. We ban screens at the dinner table, it's for having attention for each other, not for screens. I never have to ask for a recipe for french toast, it's either in my head, or in cookbook, or written down on paper. The very rare number of cases someone loses their key, we can just look it up with Find My on the phone, it's such an irregular occurrence that it's not a hassle to find it with a phone. For random queries, phones with Siri can already listen, but the voice recognition or LLM fails on too many queries anyway not to be frustrating.
I could see it being useful as an additional control panel for the smart home, but Home Kit and the Home app are still pretty useless for the smart home. It can't even show a temperature graph or trend, let alone do many other things. So I would like a Home Assistant/Homey/whatever display (which would be possible if it supported apps).
I am sure this will sell plenty. It's an Apple device, people will just buy it for that reason, especially if it's not in the Apple Vision Pro price class. Will the get used a lot? Probably by a very small subset of people. Just like Siri doesn't get used a lot beyond setting timers when you are not in an English-speaking country, or even worse, use multiple languages in daily life. I am not in the US and most people I know never use Siri.
Aside from that most people seem to be more interested in digital detox than getting more pervasive tech in their lives.
The AVP was just an iPad that you strapped to your face. Yes, it had apps, but they could only do more-or-less the same things an iPad app could (in 3D, sure).
That's why I returned mine, it was way too limiting of a platform for the cost. This, while cheaper, is even more limited (no apps).
You should go and reread the HN thread then. There were people ripping the "Nomad" quote and insisting that it was the next big thing: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36201593
Some excerpts from top comments:
But it's going to be a hit. HN is going to be swamped with "How I used Vision Pro to..." posts when it comes out.
It would very obviously be useful for work if you can actually get high res, effectively unlimited monitor space.
[...] considering it is a phone, laptop and massive display bundled into I'm pretty sure there's a more than sustainable market for it.
It’s come in at $3499 and if it performs as good as those videos make out then, if anything, it’s a bargain.
Idk what you’re talking about with the HomePod. It’s still on sale now, they just announced a new one today. Sure it’s not doing AirPods numbers most likely, but it’s not the same category of failure as Vision Pro.
It is like the Apple XDR display. Cool to have, but useless in the grand scheme of things.
And, as the word hit usually meant for something positive, I just wish to highlight that being a financial success does not always mean that something is sensible, worthwhile, beneficial considering the overall picture. Usually being pretty is enough.
If this is what families are like in the US, I can understand why people become massive drug addicts and even to take their lives ...
I watched their video demo with the family getting ready in the morning: there are some interesting ideas here but imo if this doesn't get reasonably full access to the App Store then it's a no-go for me. Like: FaceTime while cooking, sure, but those calls tend to happen on Messenger and Snapchat for us. Music in the kitchen, sure, but I run Plexamp. My kids are always stealing my iPad to run the Toybox 3D printer; this would be a great thing for them to use.
And so on.
My house has a bunch of spots on the wall where an old intercom system used to live: it'd obviously be a budget buster to buy a bunch of these to fit in those slots but even if you did, you'd need Apple to provide an intercom solution (a la the Watch's Walkie-Talkie?) or you're...out of luck.
From their page:
"Additional apps. HomeView supports compatible third-party audio and video apps from your iPhone for a familiar experience across devices"
This implies that Plexamp could be supported, and possibly Messenger and Snapchat calls, but it's too early to tell.
> My house has a bunch of spots on the wall where an old intercom system used to live: it'd obviously be a budget buster to buy a bunch of these to fit in those slots but even if you did, you'd need Apple to provide an intercom solution (a la the Watch's Walkie-Talkie?) or you're...out of luck.
Apple Home already provides this. It's not a full voice chat, but you can tap a thing and say something and it'll broadcast it to the rest of the house; in my case, that's two HomePods Mini, but it's easy to assume it will include this as well.
If you're just looking to say "Hey kids, dinner's ready" or "We have to leave in 15 minutes" to the entire house then that circumstance is handled already; if you want to have a back-and-forth conversation with someone in another room, though, it doesn't do that (yet?).
Maybe it's a bet on LLMs/Siri AI as well: all of the not-iPhone devices become more useful if you can control them well with your voice.
I think people do feel some tension about staring at their phones all day and like the idea that the phone can stay in the pocket or on a desk while stuff like the Watch and maybe a HomeView or a HomePod could cover a lot of the little usages along the way. (I'm not sure people would ACTUALLY use them that way, but I could see it driving some sales.)
That, plus the crowd who would want or like to hack on a device like this, or at least use a non-Apple app or service, is probably far outnumbered by people who don’t care what (and whose) software can run on their screen in the home as long as it looks nice and works well, which is typically the case for Apple.
They talk about it more but very few (low enough to not effectively not matter) actually do anything about it. If you want to spend less time on your phone you can... just do it. Setup screen time and practice an ounce of self-discipline.
It's the same as when people say "People hate their phones so that's why we created <AI Pendant>", uh people _love_ their phones, some to an unhealthy degree but I've never bought into the idea that people are actually pinning for a way to use their phones less. That's why it's going to be a massive uphill battle for OpenAI to break into the hardware space IMHO.
Apple wasn't wrong in their Keynote about how the perfect "AI" device is already in your pocket. Now, it's more limited than it should be due to the locked down nature of Apple's phones but if you could build anything without restriction on the iPhone platform then yes, it would be a great AI platform.
I really hope this is just something that was all packaged up to release and didn't make sense to kill it. I mean, I still think they picked wrong and they should have shelved it and the LG device integrations. I really hope it's not a sign of what's to come with Ternus.
Apple wants to design the best UI for everything and be the front-end to everything their users interact with.
Home automation is a good place to gain market share among their upper income clientele.
I use an iPhone, but I have a lamp, a shaver, and sunglasses from Xiaomi.
But the requirement for everyone to have an ipad or iphone on 27.2 or later (for full functionality) seems more of a showstopper. I would have been in the market for one but haven’t even bothered to upgrade past iOS 18 yet.
This is what irritates me about Parental Controls in 27. Everyone has to be on 27 or nobody gets the new controls. So, we still have a mini 5 that we let the littlest one on. It works, there's not reason to get a new one, but sure would be nice to have the newer Parental Controls for the older kids.
Disclosure: I work at Apple. But that’s also my honest opinion.
Part of Apple's whole appeal is that you get OS patches for a really long time. Outside of tech enthusiast circles, it's not that common to YOLO into bleeding-edge OS updates
Anyway, I'm not criticizing. Run what you like! I just don't expect the overlap between "buys Apple device in entirely new category" and "running OS version from two years ago" to be very large.
So I wouldn’t expect a HomeView App Store soon. I’d expect iPhone-hosted extensions first (widgets, Live Activities, CarPlay-style templates for audio and video), probably at WWDC. That also spares developers who are already scrambling to support the Duo.
Everyone in our family who sould have access to calendars/facetime/messages/etc. already does. It's overkill for just a smart speaker.
I guess maybe the kids who are too young to have their own device could more easily call their grandparents?
Cool hardware and a surprisingly affordable price, I just don't have a use case for it.
EDIT: The wall mounted version seems like a better form-factor though. Doesn't take up counter/table space at least.
We're old school and use a dry erase board on the fridge for our calendar, so a centralized device would be nice. We tried using an old iPad, but it was more clunky to turn it on, click on the app each time. We did try kiosk mode, but it was terrible when we needed the device for something else.
What a novel idea.
Because while yes, that's true, this apparently recognises the different users. So presumably if a child is using it, that will be under managed parameters set by a parent - meaning that it's much harder for the child to circumvent.
It’s not surprising they made it cheap
They’re trying to compete with all the other creepy Flock-at-Home brands
Its only purpose is to disrupt competitors
This was one of the stumbling blocks that really put the final nail in Meta's Portal. You could call your friends on messenger or WhatsApp, but no 3rd party story for FaceTime, Zoom, Google... was a real problem for most folks
According to Wired, “a handful of third-party media apps like Spotify are available, and developers can bring over existing CarPlay apps.”
Also, I believe that form factor was tried by both Meta and Google and didn't really click with people - who has so much free space near a power socket... in the kitchen ... in the morning ... lol.
I’m curious about the wall mounted option, and how that gets power without an electrician running a line to the middle of the wall. It looked like there might be a PoE option, but that also needs cable run. It seems like a bit of a project.
“Power Mount PoE Wired” is an option that will be available in early 2027. I can already see this being a decent option for kitchens that had a wall phone plate (that, hopefully, was wired with Cat 5e…).
Paired with some yet-to-be-released homeOS VoIP app… chefs kiss.
Like FaceTime?
People wall-mount flat screen TVs without an electrician all the time, and it's no big deal. Because of its size, this should be even simpler.
I live in a concrete building, and only the exterior walls and one or two interior walls are concrete. The rest is normal walls that for some reason you refer to as "paper." I guess they don't have lumber in your country.
You're just inventing problems where none exist.
What's also crazy is that they can detect fire alarms, will alert your iPhone, and then can pipe both sound and voice to the HomePod. It announces that it's going to do so, so it's not a privacy nightmare.
Pretty cool. I didn't know it existed until it happened. (Thankfully nothing bad.)
I was surprised when I tried using Plexamp with Siri in my car and it worked (this was with the old Siri, not even the new one).
Apps Available from iPhone:
- Audiobooks
- Classical Music
- News
- TV
Underneath that it says "Supported third-party audio and video apps". I'm not sure what that means.
But yeah! Plexamp works fine with Siri on my phone.
As much as I like Apple hardware I know unless I'm willing to go full Apple on hardware and services (eg. Apple Music in this example) I'm always going to have a mid experience trying to be on the fence of their walled garden.
Do you live in a former schoolhouse, or Uma Thurman's place from pulp fiction?
Sure, it stopped being quite a stupid as before but it's not the nirvana they were promising, checks notes, 3+ years ago.
So it doesn't have the same issues as old Siri, just new issues.
Ahh yes, the only 2 things I can trust it for. The same tasks that now take longer and fail more often. I guess it understands me a little better but it's been rough. Also I see they left in the fun bugs of:
Me: "Siri, set a reminder for 1pm for XYZ"
Siri: ....
Siri: ....
Siri: ....
iPhone: No indication of anything done or Siri still waiting, looks like it just gave up
Me: "Siri, set a reminder for 1pm for XYZ"
Siri: ....
Siri: ....
Siri: ....
Siri: ....
Siri: ....
Siri: "Ok, I've set your reminder"
_1 pm rolls around_
2 reminders fire...
go to settings > siri > and turn off siri entirely. it doesn't break anything. then turn it back on, and they give you the option for siri AI or old dumb siri.
enjoy :)
"These new capabilities are powered by the next generation of Apple Foundation Models, custom-built in collaboration with Google and its Gemini models for deeply integrated Apple Intelligence experiences. "
"Did you mean your device labeled "tv"?"
Yes Siri ffs that's literally the only device called "tv" I have
- "Hey siri, stop alarm"
- Alarm stops
- Meanwhile, the HomePod in a different room chimes in with "Turn off the alarm on Ben's iPhone XR?", pauses for a while then checks in to see if I heard it the first time
The HomePod has now been unplugged.
It's a really nice speaker if I set it on something sturdy that won't rattle, and airplay is still pretty good even on ancient devices.
I can't keep it plugged in because it will just randomly say "You can enable personalized responses in the settings app!" at 3am about once a week if I do. It's horrifying when it happens because it always seems to be 10x louder than I remember it being set to.
Mine are now unplugged after the update to 27 while i'm not home, since they've developed a mind of their own & will randomly turn on the TV or play music themselves.
With this established, it becomes possible to envision a Secure Exclave which handles data from _all_ device sensors, not just cameras and microphones. The Secure Exclave will contain all sensor data processing functions, which will feed the information to the OS. With the processing capabilities of sensor data being unalterable by any web-connected actor, and by building a physical interface for processing capability updating, unwelcome perception becomes impossible, thereby solving the privacy problem.
That being said, I still think this is cool, and I'm glad Apple's spending more effort in this area. I won't replace my custom HA dashboard with it at this point, but may get my parents one.
It's interesting that they consider that this product would be unusable without Siri AI. I've used a Google Nest Hub for years, and I don't think it needs AI to be useful?
Thank god the EU didn’t get it’s shit together before usb-c, the original proposal was to require microUSB lol
Also tbh I would have preferred micro-usb over Lightning. Non-reversible, but it at least would've charged my phone reliably.
Apple basically made a HomePod mini that is also a Skylight - https://myskylight.com/calendar - and it's even competitively priced.
They could turn off all AI (turn off all of Siri even) and this would be one of the best products in the market.
They might be perfectly useable but not profitable enough
https://support.google.com/googlehome/thread/467705013/intro...
The EU's interpretation means Apple must provide third-party AI assistants with access comparable to Siri's, potentially including the ability to interact with messages, files, purchases and other apps.
Apple proposed a secure intermediary called Trusted System Agent and an 18-month implementation plan. The European Commission rejected those proposals.
Google Cast runs the player on the cast target and only uses the device that initiates playback as an optional remote control that can be disconnected without interrupting streaming.
Airplay requires the controlling device to remain available throughout, in my experience; receiving a phone call, watching other media etc. on my phone isn't possible without interrupting playback. (This might have changed in one of the last versions, but that needs app support, and not knowing what to expect on a per app basis is at least as bad, if not worse.)
I tried multiple ways, contacted their support and they just kept me trying to do the same thing over and over again. For some reason I could not register my device with my development account. Tried multiple SDKs to get it to work, just ran into the same isue.
I believe they used to have some default receiver app implementations that you could just send a media URL and they'd play that back; is that what they removed?
But frankly Apple's developer documentation sucks around this, and unsurprisingly people don't understand what's going on when even developers don't.
I'm curious if this is intended to act as a matter hub -- right now a lot of that load is shouldered by an Apple TV 4K if you've got one. Anyway, apple's home automation story has been terrible for ten years, but this device makes me think they will make another serious run in the next five.
RAMpocalypse sucks.
At $299 this feels like a very niche product with limited functionality.
I cannot fathom how this will deliver on the vision when Siri, even the new gemini-under-the-hood Siri, is still maddeningly, bafflingly worthless. To be fair, Gemini, for a consumer of the google ecosystem, is also maddeningly, bafflingly worthless. So we use ChatGPT or Claude, with extremely limited access to the tiny little shortcuts that stack up and make absolute magic for the personal AI assistant.
$300 is a compelling price, but I have a hard time imaging this being successful.
Relatable is probably what they are going for here.
Essentially the angle they seem to be going for is...have you got a busy household with lots going on like these guys? Look how much our new product can help make everything a bit easier/bit better.
Personally I would take an ad with a 'relatable' family over an 'aspirational' one, but I do take your point - the level of snark in that ad is pretty high.
(Also - disclaimer...my household reality is nothing like as frantic as shown, but I deliberate seek to have day to day family live running at a much slower pace than a lot of people seem to want to/aspire to)
that said, also what's with the kids being disrespectful, untruthful, dismissive, and patronizing (in that order) to their parents...I bet these kids were a joy to be around as toddlers and will continue to be so as "formed" adults
I think it was started by the American sitcom culture, the sharp witted, but also confrontational, borderline aggressive comebacks. I am not an expert but I feel like Cheers might have pioneered it?
One of the motivations is to have a "master controller and dashboard" for the (smart-) home that's conveniently always attached and connected to the house itself.
Consider that many houses already have wall-mounted control panels in the main hallway or kitchen for the burglar alarm or thermostat. Replace that with an all-in-one smarthome touchscreen that configures the same security system as well as everything else ... HVAC, lights, blinds, door cam video feed, etc.
Examples of that concept from other home automation companies such as Crestron, Savant, Control4, etc:
https://www.google.com/search?q=Crestron+home+touchscreen+ho...
https://www.google.com/search?q=Savant+touchscreen+home&tbm=...
https://www.google.com/search?q=Control4+touchscreen+home&tb...
Apple's product marketing pages for HomeView at the moment don't heavily promote the idea of customized programming for home automations (HomeKit API) to compete with Crestron/Savant but many observers think Apple wants to expand into that space. (https://www.apple.com/home-app/)
A lot of homeowners don't want to be locked in with Crestron/Savant. Yes, Apple is itself also a "walled garden" but it's a more palatable lock-in situation than the ridiculous re-programming fees that Crestron dealers charge for every little change.
Sorry for not being clear. The Crestron/Savant panels are not typically purchased separately as 1 item. They're installed by certified system integrators as part of a total package where they wire up the whole house (often new construction).
There have been rumblings and predictions that Apple could expand HomeKit's capabilities to eventually be a real alternative to Crestron/Savant. The previous iterations of HomePod and Apple TV acting as a home hub really wasn't a credible threat but a new product like HomeView is a step closer to the "professional smarthome automation" space. E.g. Apple offering a wall-mounted PoE option is evidence of that.
Make it shiny enough, give people an easy way to rationalise the purchase and they'll buy your shit.
Why is an accessory unacceptable but a new device is fine?
It seemed incredibly fake to me, and I couldn't identify a single interesting use case.
A braindead customer is a better customer.
that’s why, obviously!</s>
Literally the first thing that I thought opening this was: “oh great even more spyware in my home” haha. Sure, let’s mount every centimetre with cameras and smart TVs. Even if we buy the premise that there’s no bad intentions, negligence, incompetence and malignant actors can use every iot device as another vector to bug you…
Otherwise looks like an ideal kitchen TV/Movie playback device.
But the general impression from a lot of this is HomeView seems to be trying to position itself as something like WatchOS where it hands off stuff to/from a user's iPhones/iPads. So it should likely support apps, but they may be more like Watch apps/faces/complications and CarPlay apps.
Again, dumbfounded they completely passed on this use-case ...
I stopped using the smart home features of echo since it was too cumbersome to go in and readjust all devices for use by one thing or troubleshooting when there was problems. HomeKit is visible across 20 devices used by a family of 5 and made sense to expose all my devices through it.
I just vibe coded the UI and backend services for a 10 inch, soon to be wall mounted, raspberry pi panel integrated with HomeSeer and UniFi. It switches to the door camera automatically when motion is detected. I added a status screen with important items such as state of door locks, washer, dryer, dishwasher and litter boxes. Very bespoke to my house and family. I will have to see what the ongoing cost of maintenance is of my panel vs HomeView device.
This device (being a Matter hub) doesn't change any of that.
The fact that they're partnering with select companies on producing sanctioned devices also doesn't change any of that.
Makes me even happier I just installed a red wall phone with an armored cable and signed up for ooma’s cheap plan. 911 access and we have no need for whitelisting. Always have outgoing and default to ringer off. Can turn it on (satisfying slider) if we are leaving the kids for a bit and they can have fun hanging up on any spam while we are out.
I know Apple will get the security right, no question. So I would use it but not sure it’s worth it. I don’t see a compelling use case personally
- Photo frame - Calendar view - Home control - Facetime
It's a bonus that the kids can talk to it for LLM answers too.
The price is on par with the Amazon Echo Show devices[0]. Why anyone would shell out $300 buck for an Alexa with a screen is beyond me. With the appleHome, at least you can dump your phone and check in on things (not that I would do that either).
In conclusion, it doesn't seem like there's a huge apple premium on this device. Maybe the move is to cut into competing devices with the apple umbrella.
P.S. It would be dope if the display would follow you around in certain situations. Say you're cooking and moving left and right on the counter. With a fixed display, i would keep walking over to look at it, rather than an angle. Moving around the kitchen and looking up to see the thing you need would be dope. (not that I would use that either). But it would be the kind of polish that people dump cash on.
- Echo Show: 2017
- Nest Hub: 2018
- HomeView: 2026
Maybe it’s my accent? But ChatGPT and Claude have no trouble understanding what I’m saying, so I’m not sure what the issue is.
I saw some discussion about potentially being able to use ChatGPT or Claude as Siri’s backend instead of Apple Intelligence. That would be much more interesting to me.
One annoyance that I anticipate though: can we have a "separate identity" for these 'home devices' ?
[note: this is not a concern if you live alone]
I.e. when used in a family environment, you have to pick one person's identity as the 'main' identity ... but we'd rather have a 'home' person with whom we share stuff, whom we add on calendars etc, and then view THAT info on the home devices.
This sidesteps the whole "WHOSE calendar/reminders are showing" issue.
This is a problem on the homepod, and will only be exacerbated on the HomeView.
Or ... how do other folks solve this?
Pricing is kind of in between those right?
It was $2800 with tax and a keyboard!
Nothing wrong with iPads They are just expensive
This is $350 in Canada. Literally free compared to everything else Apple sells!
Also the most unrealistic part about the intro video by apple for this was that not a single person in the kitchen was on their phone and was waiting their turn to use this thing. Do iPhones doesn't exists on the universe where they filmed that ad?
Like can you do video calling with Google Meet with one of these? Probably not.
It pulls in CarPlay apps, but I’m sure not Android Auto.
That being said, I think this is a smart play and helps Apple ensure the “Apple Experience.”
My take is they should sell these at a loss for a while as it makes their ecosystem more sticky and also viral.
In order to use one properly you basically have to have an iPhone, and so people who buy these will never move to Android, and everyone in their household benefits from the integrations.
TBH the biggest tell was when they started doing fingerprinting for "Hey Siri", so they can make mutli-user devices that can tell apple accounts apart.
It doesn't help that this only gets up to 500 nits...
> comfortable viewing in any light. Brightness ranges from 500 nits for sunny rooms to our lowest-ever 0.3 nits for the bedside
1984 would be if you had to carry a Internet connected camera around with you all the time. Brave new world would be if you had to carry around an entertainment device just to do your banking.
Ridiculous concepts..
LG believes that "We own the glass", and sell that glass real estate to anyone and everyone they can, and are listening to you pretty much all the time to do so, and this is above and beyond the existing status quo of them tracking every single thing you watch, even on that HDMI input.
In the US, they can then go on to sell any of that info to the police and government. The Supreme Court says you gave up your privacy rights from the government when you agreed to the ToS from LG.
We literally have telescreens. They sell very well.
Secure Exclaves are special isolated processes that run on the same application processor as the regular OS. They're a very new OS feature and AFAIK Apple has barely talked about them until now.
Exclaves are isolated because Apple made a proprietary CPU extension called Guarded Exception Levels. It lets you separate an ARM exception level out into two privilege levels: guarded and unguarded. The guarded level can have different page permissions from the unguarded level, and switching between the two modes is extremely fast. Apple uses this to lock down iOS: its kernel, XNU, has it's entire virtual memory system hollowed out and replaced with a thing called the Secure Page Table Monitor (SPTM). XNU lives in EL2 (ARM hypervisor) but SPTM lives in GL2 (guarded hypervisor). In this configuration, SPTM is the only thing that can allocate memory, and it controls all memory allocations in the system. This is specifically why jailbreaks have become far harder to make[0]: you basically need to hack SPTM to get anything.
XNU, strangely enough, lives in both EL2 and EL1 (ARM kernel); but Apple also uses GL1 (guarded kernel) for a second, funnier OS called the Secure Kernel (SK). SK has its own exclusive resources and userland. Processes that run under SK cannot be tampered with or monitored by XNU because SPTM isolates them and their kernel from XNU. This is used for isolating any particularly security sensitive thing.
For example, code signing enforcement happens in an Exclave[1]. XNU can't run unsigned processes because it needs SPTM to bless the pages. But SPTM is supposed to be a very small attack surface; there is a long history of using memory safety bugs in the verification code to gain higher levels of privilege, so putting that code in GL2 would be bad. Instead, it gets put in an Exclave, where:
- A compromised XNU cannot tamper with the verifier, because SPTM won't give it write access to the pages.
- A compromised verifier doesn't compromise the whole system, because it's not part of SPTM/GL2.
- A compromised verifier can't interfere with other exclaves, because they're isolated by SK.
The only thing a compromised verifier can do is fail to reject an unsigned program, which would let you run specific unsigned code in EL0. You would not suddenly get kernel mode access from a verifier failure.
Anyway, what makes this relevant for HomeView is that all the microphone data processing can be isolated in an Exclave from the rest of the OS. So if the CIA wants to force your HomeView to listen to you, it needs to either compromise SPTM (very hard), or find a (non-memory-related) logic error in the listener exclave.
[0] This is also morally the same scheme as the Xbox 360 hypervisor that went decades without a softmod
[1] Morally speaking, it's an Exclave; it lives in GL0. But technically the code signing enforcement is in a different SPTM domain from the Secure Kernel, called the "Trusted Execution Monitor" (TXM). I would not be surprised if Apple migrates it over to an Exclave in the future.
I would want to hear what the sound is like but it seems like it could be a good replacement for my OG HomePods while adding some new features, even if the screen is minimally useful.
I am a bit sad that it seems like it isnt using anything the video apple put out about https://machinelearning.apple.com/research/elegnt-expressive...
I would love to see them open up an app store for this, or even if it is apps tied to your phone like the Apple Watch.
Is this going to work like the Apple TV device? On that you have to pick a user when it starts but then when you open an app like Hulu, you have to pick a user there as well. Why doesn't the Apple TV tell Hulu what profile to use?
Worse, if you open Spotify it just starts with the last user that authenticated so I never know who's account I'm vandalizing as I listen to stuff and star songs as favorites.
Unless they've figured out the multi-user stuff, maybe it would be better to just create a famliy devices Apple ID and use that for shared devices?
The entry ticket is cheap, then you'll probably pay to extend your system.
if they just rebuilt the same device newer, better, with all of the old capabilities, I'd probably buy one.
Otherwise, I'm having trouble understanding why I would use something like this. Is it because it's too hard to pull my phone out of my pocket, so I just need to speak to an ever-present computer?
Now reverse the scenario.
It's a shame that iPhoneOS, iPadOS and Omarchy are designed to be single-user devices.
Android phones (at least Pixels) support multiple users, each with their own apps and data.
what a stupid thing to winge about
I am also guessing this is why early OS X was plasticky like the hardware, and mid-2000s was brushed metal.
(Those were the first two features mentioned)
Currently I have an older iPad on a stand I can move anywhere in my kitchen I want and use Paprika on it for recipes.
No Paprika. No Overcast. No Spotify. No Plex. No Home Assistant. etc...
I recently got a 10in fire tablet for $73 and a metal stand for $7, and put it on the kitchen counter. Great household device, now running my own agent on it - fun for the whole family.
I’ve been with Apple since the first iPhone but I think I’m done. They have dropped the ball on AI. It’s late 2026 and my Opus 5.5 does all my coding and Siri still can’t find info and read back some basic info. Pathetic it’s like they’re not even trying any more.
Maybe i just need a $300 iPad Mini....
The "by the way..." nags irritated us so much we got rid of our two Echos and replaced them with a Sonos speaker and a Homepod Mini.
Apple doesn't typically have the same incentives. It could turn out to be the perfect timing to fill the vacuum Amazon is leaving.
I assume my kids will be able to use it without an iPhone?
It’s a toxic family, where the dad is a useless weak loser (whose wife won’t touch him, much less show any physical affection when heading off to work, so they’re platonic roommates at best), the son is a toxic male idiot who imposes his will on others, and the mom has OCD.
It’s the most pro childfree ad that’s ever been “aired” at this level of distribution.
Whatever Apple was… it no longer is that. Their tech may be fine, we’ll see, but their values, err what was left of them, are not merely gone but inverted
- a Home Hub to connect and drive the accessories and Airplay devices in your house
- a UI to support the user experience
I believe that e.g. an AppleTV is already a Home Hub, and the Home app on your iPhone / iPad gives you control over it.
So the value is in the integration and the multi-user support.
Also completely locked out for 3rd party developers, needs your iPhone to do anything while offering very little reason to do things on it rather than on your phone… (the teenage girl texting on it rather than her phone in the intro video is totally unbelievable)
Hmm, really hard to figure out what they’re thinking on this besides “throw it on the wall and see if it sticks”, aka the HomePod & Apple TV strategy, which is not reassuring. I bought a couple HomePods early on, excited by the potential given how reliable my AirPods were, and they’ve been one of my most hated tech purchases. Super buggy, completely lagging behind in terms of basic features, and of course no fallback to use them as “dumb” wired speakers.
Sad to see this space now taken over by Apple too.
Oh well, I now have something to buy for my mom for Christmas, I guess.
I feel called out here, I looked at this and thought "I've already built this". I've got a RPi with screen and speakers that displays a Home Assistant dashboard as a smart alarm clock and smart home controller.
Thinking if the RAM is good, this is a great jailbreak target with an A18 chip for only $299.
Apple is almost certainly making money selling the hardware itself. It’s a completely different business model. They don’t need people to use it a certain way to be a success. They just need people to buy it.
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https://www.ikea.com/us/en/p/bergenes-holder-for-mobile-phon...
I get this, but I find the difference in application of the DMA pretty weird. In august, the EU came to an agreement with Apple on their developer policy in a way that still really feels like it goes against the spirit of the law, and still puts an insane tax on thousands of European developers.
Yet they seem to play hardball on enforcing a rule that currently just negatively impacts a handful of AI companies but leaves consumers waiting for features. The prioritization feels weird.
They offer more or less this, but do so at a fraction of the price and a lot more "hacker-native".
My money is with Fambot.
Yes, they did:
https://www.apple.com/v/apple-homeview/a/images/overview/hig...
You'd think there would be an audience for using the TV as a big video phone, but that never happened. One could blame it on consumer trust, but that has never stopped them from adopting all other kinds of questionable things.
Maybe I watched too much sci-fi, but using a big screen to make video calls seems like such a natural extension for a TV.
Makes no sense to see TV as a medium for communication.
Low enough price for me to be speculative. I go hunting for my iPad to frag it in the kitchen… often.
Maybe it has some value but seriously, home automation is solved already. Pretty interfaces are solved. This is just a more constrained and more expensive version of what already exists, that neat little rig we can hack up from the Drawer Of Shame which we all have. Maybe it's just an experiment but to me it looks like e-waste.
THe video has the girl check her messages and her brother trying to read them, and the mother checking her calendar. Without logging in or switching users.
That's really cool.
But maybe that’s just me?
Sure.
It's a related device in a different form factor. Some people will buy it, most will not. Just like Apple TV.
The Home app launched in 2016 (HomeKit in 2014).
The Health app launched in 2014. Both apps meant to work with third party devices/apps and act as a hub of information.
I have no reason to own this, neither my family.
I am also not into smart watches, rings, alexa dot and other stuff like that, I like a dump house for the most part.
I am a dev and this looks like another Smartphone I don't want to own.
That said, I think the screen is a tad small. My guess is that they felt the need to differentiate the HomeView with a smallish square screen in an effort to avoid comparisons to an iPad on a stand and to invite comparisons to the Apple Watch.
Version 2 will undoubtedly have a new larger screen launched with great fanfare.
Which is perhaps not the feeling Apple intended.
Why even have a screen at that point?
They somehow missed the memo that Sophia’s choice wasn’t an operating manual.
I mean, I’m single indie developer and I have a process to give a lifetime membership to people’s significant others (as Apple has nothing between “a single person” vs “a whole family”, and no option to give eg. discounted bundles for couples), so it doesn’t seem like a rocket science.
An incredibly locked down device from a manufacturer with terrible track record for this category of device. Their Homepod line has been completely neglected, even with the Mini 2 announcement today it's clear Apple's heart's not in it.
Couple that with the LG trash they are pushing (again, because Apple doesn't care) and it's clear Apple's HomeKit endeavors are still just as dead as they were yesterday. They ceded the home wifi space at the worst possible time and instead of trying to rectify any of that, they ignored that space for over a decade.
That's kind of what I want. I bought a Homepod Mini to replace an Echo and it has worked without me thinking about it for many years now.
The Echo was replaced because Amazon kept messing with it. The by-the-way prompts were so irritating. They were trying to solve a discoverability problem that I didn't have. If Amazon had neglected the device, it would probably still be in my kitchen.
In 2004 they produced a device with wireless audio over WiFi, that worked really well. It felt like the future. Then Sonos took over the market, and the rest of the market became flooded with products that didn't really work that well. E.g., in a home people would have a set of audio products to their TV, then a bluetooth boombox somewhere else, then just a laptop with internal speakers somewhere else - and not in a connected system.
Similarly with Home (automation) products, Apple launched their Home offering that seemed interesting and with the promise of an ecosystem. However, again - the market became dominated with e.g., Home Assistant, together with a flood of products and mini-ecosystems that don't really work that well. E.g., Samsung Home etc. And just like the audio market, Apple deliberately let it go.
Apple is one of the few players that can combine world class hardware, great user experience, and now increasingly privacy focused AI. You may not like their hardware, or their software, or think that their AI is not privacy focused. But it's still one of the few companies that can credibly do this.
I'm unsure if what we see is another meh / one-shot product that will be on the shelves with their HomePods. Or if it may be a stronger push into an interesting market where there the technology is far ahead of the products and ecosystems out there. Future will tell.
All that said, HomeKit was announced 12 years ago and it pales in comparison to every other smart home ecosystem. Samsung probably has the best "off-the-shelf" unless you want to invite 10's of dubious Chinese wifi devices into your house and control them with Alexa (yes, I know it has other radios). Thread/Matter were supposed to improve this but I've yet to see that happen.
My decision to got all-in on Home Assistant looks better and better as time goes on. I can even re-export my devices to HomeKit if I hate myself.
I've done every song and dance required to try to hook my smart house devices into the Apple Ecosystem and it's complete trash. Even with HA having a much higher learning curve, I'd pick it every day over the buggy mess that is HomeKit. Oh, a gnat sneezed? I guess you need to re-setup your HomeKit network from scratch. And I hope you like the worst UI imaginable to configure your devices when you add them.
- Signed, someone who has, stupidly, tried to integrate with HomeKit on no less than 6 different occasions only to be burned and give up vowing to never waste my time again.... only to try again every year or two. HomeKit is like Lucy with the football, and I keep thinking "this time maybe it will work".
I recently tasked Claude with creating a vector floorplan of my house, then added icons for lights/fans/etc (Claude wrote a little tool where I could drag everything where it goes), and then set it up in HA so I can click on devices on the floorplan to toggle them. It's so cool.
Video of my HA dashboard: https://cs.joshstrange.com/8cFn6sbs
[0] TTS on my mac -> Claude Code, not via Alexa or other smart speaker
Huh, good idea, thanks!
A video with how customers will use this in real life, alone in a room talking to a machine - would just look like somebody who needs to be taken to a mental asylum.
The format is right, it is stuck to a power cord, it would integrate with iPhones that waiters use to take orders, it apparently has a USB-C connector perhaps for a receipt printer, it has Bluetooth and WiFi of course. It can control the music and security systems and lights in a business locale.
Most importantly it has easy separate login for different employees.
And the price is just right.
Is there any important detail I haven't thought about?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IMac_G4
But seriously, how cool would it be if V2 of this product had mesh wifi and/or could be used in bridge mode?
Dropped the ball on the usability there with no arm. Could have also marketed a table game function; placed at center of table, arm could allow screen to swivel 360 for everyone to use as needed
The iOS-ification of hardware while they keep part prices high to get people hooked on networked AI over a dumb terminal
Hard pass
Is iffy if they will allow a run it like on iPad but you see iphone form factor on it. The UX likely suck bad if they go ahead and takes away from the form factor. Plus companies like FB may just leave it at that like how they did with instagram for ipad for a decade.
> Usage limits may apply.
What a great way to start out, to openly flag that people shouldn't rely on it, as it can be pulled away from you without notice. Feels very atypical of Apple, are they starting to get short on cash or what's going on?
Seriously?
I know nobody who has only friends on Facetime (instead of Whatsapp, Wechat, LINE, Zoom, etc etc you name it)
No Youtube, really?!
I mean who lives like this?
Apple really wants their own "own the glass" moment.
On the product itself, why?
Apple Home.app has an awful UX. Have any more than 10+ IoT devices and it’s a shit show. This will not improve the walled in system created by Apple. Even if I was Apple-pilled or Apple-maxxing, why wouldn’t I just buy a last gen iPad mini and use that to control home. Has all the features of "HomeView" plus acts as a regular device that can browse web, video chat, and games.
Plus any home automation enthusiast will use home assistant and integrate it with their existing thread border router and Zigbee/Matter/Thread enabled device. Who are they trying to target?
“Apple HomeView is designed to bring more joy and convenience to everyone in your household. Siri AI comes built in for personalized AI assistance that’s truly useful in your everyday life. And with a vibrant display and powerful acoustics, your music, videos, and calls look and sound amazing. Meet the new heart of your home.”
Is “designed to” lacks confidence. Does it do it or not? I don’t care what your intention was. And the Siri AI sentence is vacuous, including the pointless modifiers (truly useful in your everyday life). You can’t convince me you care or put effort into the little things when your ad copy is slop. Apple used to put more thought into this sort of thing.