The weird thing about this product is that its biggest competitor is "an old ipad." I feel like most of their target customer base already has an old ipad that's better suited for what this does in every way. Old ipads:
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!
It's really common to see integrated iPads in all sort of kiosk/control panel applications. Afaik iPad has a dedicated kiosk mode which doesn't allow you to exit the running app. Android tablets too.
I think the real issue is that this is "competing" with 7 year old Google Home and Alexa show devices. Devices that were $50 for a lot of their useful life (Now they have of course, become more expensive, and worse.)
Basically, people use them for photos, kitchen timers, quick recipe lookups, quick questions, and "can a dog eat the thing I just dropped".
Old iPads are better than this in every way except for the way that matters most in a shared family device, then? I'd love for Apple to add multi-user support to iPadOS and think it's way past time they did, but it's not going to be a simple software update. This device has on-chip support for multiple FaceID accounts so it can distinguish them securely.
Apple has multi user support for iPads, but only if you’re a school.
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.
I believe the idiomatic solution for “handing your child an iDevice but only letting them touch one app” is Guided Access mode.
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.)
Multi-user "Handoff" seems interesting as well. The implications from a lot of the descriptions is that this HomeView is designed from the perspective that every user also has a primary iPhone or iPad and HomeView coordinates data sync across a number of apps from that primary device. (Several features mention that they only work with that user's iPhone or iPad on the same Wifi network.)
Agree this should just be a dock/charger for iPads.
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.
A lot of those cons are advantages for at least one target market, the elderly. It's much better for them if the device can't move and can't install new software.
Every 65+ person I know has one of those alexa-speaker things. Nobody I know under 65 has one. I wonder if there's just some generational expectation for a fixed household object, like phones and televisions were for people in the twentieth century.
Fair but I also know plenty of people who give their elderly folks their old iPads. If you fit all the important apps on the home screen and tweak a couple things, I can't imagine the UX could be any more complex than for this device. Mobility and screen size is even more important for the elderly. They don't want to stand in their kitchen staring down at a little computer to talk to their grandchild on a tiny screen.
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.
Screen size is a good point. For the other things, I suppose I was thinking of my own grandparents, who had memory issues and would've benefited from a device that can't be misplaced.
iPad OS still has a zillion failure modes for the elderly. Long press, split screen and the other multitasking paradigms, multi-finger gestures, touch id, background audio from some tab in Safari... there's just no end of features that can throw them off. And it isn't multi-user.
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.
You are wrong! I was redoing my kitchen recently and there’s a huge variety of accessories that kitchen worktop suppliers offer that have to do with using electronics on a worktop. A round hole with a lid to thread the power cable through is a very common thing that kitchen planner software includes nowadays, especially for kitchen islands. You can even have a completely flush wireless charging pad on your kitchen worktop if you want.
It's very obvious which comments are from those without kids and a busy kitchen. This hardware is built to sell apple family one subs. The multiuser is not a feature of the iPad, and this alone means an iPad can't replicate this.
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
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.
Isn’t there a safety hazard with battery swelling and such if it’s always connected to power? May be I have outdated information I unmounted the iPad after reading about it.
Limiting charging below 100% (which many tablets now support) helps, but the battery is still likely to be the component that fails before anything else.
It's a niche product and pretty cheap. Of course you can do everything and more on an ipad but I see this as basically a competitor to Alexa that sits on a kitchen counter and is occasionally useful. In that scenario never thinking about a battery is an advantage. I imagine you might leave this unlocked all the time and it is closer to a hands free device which is useful while cooking. The splatter thing is really only an issue if you place it like right next to your stovetop or sink. Even one foot away on a counter pretty much eliminates that issue.
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.
Definitely not pretty cheap. We need to stop normalizing high prices just because we happen to be in the upper part of the k economy. It's an entire week's pay at minimum wage. To have a screen with a camera and speaker on a weighted base.
I did a very quick search for "kitchen smart hub" and a lot of the devices (including some by Amazon) were in the same price range. Even the Meta Portals were $199 to $349 when released.
Google's Nest Home is only $99, so that is likely the cheapest version from a big company.
It's not extremely cheap for an Apple product. It's the same price as all of their accessories. It's similar in price to the cheap phones they sell. Why are you trying to convince yourself this is cheap?
Given that even an AppleTV uses less power at maximum usage than an XBox does when it's asleep, I feel as though the power usage is not going to be too much of an issue.
I think the main thing that this does better than an ipad is voice control. Maybe you can buy an iPad dock with a speaker and a good microphone that would obviate this concern (happy to take correction if so), but if you're in the kitchen it's often nice to be able to ask it to play music or if carrots are safe for dogs to eat or whatever. It's nice not to have to use your hands when they are covered in chicken juice or whathaveyou.
For the parents that are engaged with trying to solve a problem like this, it's not solved by an old iPad, because old enough iPads often can't run current apps.
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).
> it's not solved by an old iPad, because old enough iPads often can't run current apps
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.
The average age for first phone in the US at least is now around 8.5yrs. The kids who are capable of independently deciding to call a friend or grandma already likely have a phone.
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".
> Secure Exclaves. The A18 chip inside HomeView contains Secure Exclaves that process the camera and microphone feeds in a secure compartment that cannot be accessed by the operating system or by Apple. This enables HomeView to recognize the face and voice of each user without exposing the audio and visual data used for recognition to the operating system.
I feel like we’re already surrounded by devices that do this without any security whatsoever (TVs for example). So, it’s nice to see one implementation try to do it safely. Though, I do agree that normalizing overt recording could embolden the rest.
Well, the devices were doing it in the most hidden way possible. This is plain in the open and that's how that window is moved. And yes, I absolutely believe that the overt recording is the actual moment where they expect us to actually get used to it.
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 do see your point, but what the assistants are doing is recording. It's only a second or two, on-device, and not stored, but it is already a recording. Apple is just changing the duration and retention.
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.
The fuck are you talking about? Doing it safely is extremely easy and already solved: have the user be root.
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.
There's an argument to be made that progress on desktop personal computers has been faster because hackers (in the good sense) can hack around and invent new stuff in ways you really cannot on mobile/tablet locked-down hardware and software.
The commenter may have sounded unhinged but the thesis is sound.
Apple themselves keep assuming that they themselves can be unquestionably trusted. The same company that keeps inventing ever more elaborate ways to forcibly insert itself between users and developers to collect rent even when explicitly required by regulators to open up its devices to allow anyone to freely install anything.
Apple’s agreement is that if you trust Apple, their stuff is the best in the business - if Apple is not a weak link, it’s real hard to argue with the design, and the ease of use and UX for the level of security you get is unequal anywhere else. Apple’s side of the bargain is you pay them money, and lots of it.
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.
> you can probably recreate all this on a FOSS stack, but you’re gonna have to do it repeatedly for everything
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.
Yeah, so this is also why there’s a raft of stuff Apple will never support integrations with. They’ll bill it under security, and they’re not entirely wrong, but it’s also a threat to their core value prop, so you’ll never get open source iMessage, for example.
Are you kidding me? The absolutely vile vitriol that the members of the open source/modding/FOSS/self-hosting communities have been spitting out for actual years now, against ai and against vibe coding and against the people who use either has been so tremendously effective. And you want to know why someone hasn't used ai to gift you an entire ecosystem? What an incredibly out of touch statement to have to read on this site, where so much of the vitriol lives even today.
More than one. The Apple Wallet fiasco, apple maps thing, etc have tested customer perception, before. Even some utter bullshit ones like the battery thing… they still sound like trust violations to dummies.
That’s part of the agreement too. Ternus or next guy/gal messes up one huge thing in any significant way, trust is burned and they’re just another Google.
(They are on watchlist for Apple Maps & other ads…)
And the reason to trust Apple is because they recognize this - they’re not under any illusion about why their products command a premium, and so the security and privacy angle is (or should be) one of the sacred cows inside Apple.
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.
I understand the argument that the lesser of two bad options is the better one.
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.
(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)
That's a Nest issue, not an apple one. Google neutered their own API as of 2019, then did even more shenanigans after that. It's a google product, assume it will be killed the moment whoever is actively working it sees a new shiny.
I find it frustrating that I can’t drive HomeKit externally. I have a large home ecosystem, something in the order of 100 devices, from lights to outlets to motion sensors to security and locks to the garage door, some native and some bridged via HomeBridge. I have a bunch of scenes and automations.
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.
You're in the dark yourself already, as you frame the bargain in a simplistic way. You imply, this was just about having "nice stuff" and the lack of short-term alternatives was imposing merely a life-style choice upon you.
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.
The issue seems like every other company is speed racing into data capture (and perhaps surveillance). There is obviously some end user advantages to all that data and continuos listening of signals, which other companies leverage as "features" rather than their entire business model.
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
The issue with this particular Watch is they talk so much about the privacy of the recording from device's owner perspective, while they completely disregard the aspect of consensuality of third parties who are also being recorded.
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.
Then they'll share the information with the government under the guise of "think of the children" or "stopping racism". Anyone against the conversation collection will be pro child abuse, or in support of antisemitism.
I am afraid that this is indeed being orchestrated. Apple's ad explaining why you'd want that recording working on your Watch was really pulling some very odd use cases, like the restaurant specials. Which got me thinking they had a product first and then needed to justify its existence....
Yes? It's just a matter of time before governments figure out they can simply use AI to backdoor designs and insert themselves anywhere in the supply chain. If it isn't happening yet, it soon will be ...
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 Apple pinky-promises they will record everything you do at home and they won't use it? In any way? I find this really hard to believe. Apple is into ads now, so would you let Google/Meta see and listen inside your home all day? Nope.
So what was the furore about when that Ring/Amazon superbowl ad happened. They have to promise and they should be able to be held liable if that promise is not kept.
> Obviously depends on actual implementation details
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.
> you folks are forgetting the US a surveillance state
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.
Except if a device has a microphone and a network interface, it has the technical capability of sharing those recordings. 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.
> 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..)
They've published several whitepapers and technical documentation on how the secure enclave works and it's been poked at by security researchers for years.
Let's please dispense with the "trust me bro" paranoia takes. Link to something that demonstrates your point or you're just making baseless accusations that discourage people from trusting actual privacy and security research.
I think it is a neat product with two strange limitations that I can't quite figure out:
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 adamesque wrote, it's going to be more like the Watch or even CarPlay. And I think this is probably the right approach, market-wise: Apple ran with the idea that every device needs its own standalone app ecosystem, to the point where they even tried putting an app store in iMessage, and it didn't really work out. Apps on the Apple TV that aren't effectively "channels" (i.e., streaming services) have mostly fizzled, and I bet most readers even on Hacker News forgot that the Watch even had a standalone app store for a while. The HomeView absolutely seems like the kind of device that's going to do better with "companion apps": install them on your phone and let them install a little mini-app or widget on the HomeView. I don't need to manage a whole new set of apps on my smart home gadget---I just need to be able to futz with lights and the thermostat, listen to music and podcasts with the music and podcast app of my choice, and get to my recipe app if I'm going to be one of those monsters who puts one in the kitchen.
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.
I built an iMessage app that allows my wife and I to easily send goal updates from our daughter's football matches. Typing who scored what goal, or even keeping track of the score to send to each other when you're standing on the sideline in the cold and rain on a Saturday morning wasn't fun. This works so much better.
The right app, in the right place can make a lot of sense
The built-in "Check In" app is really great (it automates the "text my parent/friend/relative when I get home" flow, including texting obvious delays from GPS tracking data). iMessage apps are a good idea in general even without a "deep bench ecosystem". Though obviously when it was added Apple was hoping for something like the ecosystem seen in the Asian messenger app space where WeChat and others became the primary app stores and "everything" became a messenger app for a while. (Even in Europe there have been points where WhatsApp had a huge app ecosystem.)
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.
Yeah, as long as there is a way to cast video to the device I think it works...some consumers may struggle with that as they are used to apps being on device, but it works for me.
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.
Unless made for a square display, video will not be ideal on this device. Even SD NTSC content is 4:3 and would require cropping or matting. Anything modern would be tiny on this display.
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.
Yeah, and the screen is just 7 inches to begin with. I just don’t know if I would get enough utility out of this device… I think it would be more interesting if it was a MagSafe dock for an iPad and that put the iPad into home hub mode or something.
"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".
I agree that a battery would have been nice. My first thought was that I would like to move this around in my kitchen while I'm doing this and that.
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).
Well, this is Hacker News, and you can’t even make apps for the device - there’s nothing to hack on. Of course this audience isn’t excited about it. It’s a Facebook Portal, with better privacy (at least).
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.
$299 is not cheap, is more than what the phone that the average person has costs (that is not an iPhone). And with a smartphone you surely can do much more things than that object. With $299 you can also buy a tablet, even a decent one, where you can install whatever app you want.
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.
$300 doesn't buy you a decent tablet, let alone a laptop. I say this because I thought about using it in a conference room, but lack of 3P apps means never mind.
> $299 is not cheap … But even if it did cost $10, it would still be a waste of money because you spend $10 on an useless product
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.
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 $299 USD.
So sure, the Apple TV is the "same price", to basically universal derision because they took a successful product and decided to turn it into a shakedown.
And to the root post about how great of a success this will be, virtually an identical top-ranked comment happened in the Vision Pro release. I mean, every flopped product has someone doing the "wow I guess it's going to be a huge success" when people question the point.
My guess is that memory is the real reason for the price upgrade. Apple probably added some things to mask the price increase but the real reason is the chip. The old 4GB ram in A15 Bionic probably bumped in price so it went up to 199$ and now the new chip costs even more. Also its easier for Apple to make the same chip in a lot of hardware as opposed to having multiple chips being made, especially when its fused with memory and thats costing a lot.
Sure, Apple's BoM has definitely increased given the pressures on the fabs.
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.
Yeah I'm absolutely the market for this thing. We have an old Google Home that we use as a digital photo frame and Google has progressively destroyed every other piece of functionality we once used on it.
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.
Cynicism about selling new devices aside, if they really want Siri intelligence on these, old iPads can't do it, and Apple won't (if they can avoid it) sell a "product" with varying features.
Agree. $300 for a speaker + home automation hub + timer + digital picture frame appeals to a lot of older people and busy parents who spend a lot of time in the kitchen.
My parents have been using an Alexa screen for years for this, but then started buying cheap Android-based picture frames because they somewhat want out of the Alexa ecosystem (and also couldn't resist "cheap" for larger form factor picture displays). I could definitely see recommending this as an option to consolidate their ecosystems somewhat.
I can’t wait to get rid of the last of one retailer/tech giant’s ad machines in my house and replace it with another tech giant’s device. No sarcasm there either. Going down to one voice system across all devices available in house and out of the house, easily, will be nice.
Yes, I predict the same outcome. For one, I would buy it if I could. I don't get why people think this won't sell when Alexa has a market (and I believe that Apple can be better at a consumer device than Amazon)
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 failed on price, yes, but also the limitations of the software (and lack of content, which I think go hand-in-hand).
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).
> Every human on earth was cynical about that thing
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.
Suffice it to say, there are people that will just say whatever is satisfying to them regardless of how good the product actually is. Maybe a better example is the HomePod, which died an agonizing death despite the people who were certain that the smart home was Apple's final frontier.
I think this entire form factor is useless when you have phones and tablets around the house. Will it sell? Probably, it's Apple. Will people use it for anything other than a clock on their counter and maybe a smart speaker? I would bet no.
A product needs to fulfill the needs of the lowest common denominator to become a hit. This does not seem to address or solve any problems of the lowest common denominator.
It is like the Apple XDR display. Cool to have, but useless in the grand scheme of things.
The audience here does not really represent the generic population.
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.
My problem is mainly with the family dynamic in their 'film'. Nobody in that ad seems happy, they even seem to hate each other. Is this normal enough in the US that people can ignore it and focus on the product?
Hah, I just watched it on your recommendation. I think they were going for the vibe of a cynical sitcom... but they forgot to put any decent jokes in, and they didn't do what successful sitcoms do and paper over the nastiness with charisma and some moments of warmth. So it's just 3 minutes or so of stress-inducing bleakness.
Props to Apple for making this. Always cool to see them try stuff. That said:
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.
> this doesn't get reasonably full access to the App Store then it's a no-go for me
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?).
It sounds like it'll be integrating with the call and widget apis. Right now, you can redirect any voice call that uses the system call UI to your homepod. Adding video, maybe?
Yeah, the grandparents scenario was exactly why I immediately bought it. Younger kids with limited screen time. The grandparents call our phones to talk to them and vice versa. I'm curious how this will work for my kids who don't have apple devices/accounts.
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.
Fax machine? Genuinely not sure what you mean. Is the answer just "a computer" ?
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 makes sense they'd eventually do that. The Apple TV didn't launch with an App Store, and it took 8 years after its first generation to get an App Store! I'd guess Apple sees that most apps wouldn't make sense for the HomeView, and they'll likely restrict what categories of apps can launch on it.
Also all the developers are angry and trying to build for Duo right now that didn’t even give them a simulator in time, so makes sense to not rush this out right away.
For what it is worth, this seems to have a similar screen form factor to the expanded to Duo, so maybe they were waiting for this announcement before revealing the simulator to make it clearer that apps supporting one of the devices may support both? Not the first time Apple has made multi-device plays on a new form factor.
Yeah the lack of an app store is fine for the first year.
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.
> 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.
One issue with upgrading: macOS 27 doesn't run Xcode 26 which most developers probably want to continue using until they finish polishing the apps for Duo.
You're right, it is. But there's some annoying caveats. Parental Controls - every device has to be on 27 or nobody gets the updates. Have an iPad mini 5 that we let the youngest use, so that messes with everything.
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
It's hardly "YOLO into bleeding-edge OS updates" to run something more recent than a 2024 major release.
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.
I think the Watch is a better precedent than the Apple TV. The product page already borrows its vocabulary: customizable faces, Live Activities, and “compatible third-party audio and video apps from your iPhone.” That’s how WatchKit started in 2015. Third-party Watch apps ran as extensions on the paired iPhone, went native with watchOS 2 later that year, and didn’t get an on-device App Store until watchOS 6 in 2019.
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.
I suspect this might be the beginning of a new turn for Apple strategy under Ternus: more satellite hardware that’s cheap(ish) compared to the flagship devices & locked down, reliant on your iPhone to do anything useful, pushing you to use exclusively Apple services rather than 3rd party ones. The App Store
strategy is a thing of the past.
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.)
> people do feel some tension about staring at their phones all day
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.
> some tension about staring at their phones all day
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.
Rumor has it that this product has been kicking around internally for 1-2 years waiting on a better Siri to pair with it. Meaning it would have been released under Cook if not for the disastrous showing of Siri and all things AI from Apple.
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.
That's the big agent play for everyone. What good is this thing unless your whole family has an iphone, you use iCloud for email/calendar/contacts, you have HomeKit running your house, AppleTV, etc? Failing that, it's a big, voice-activated kitchen timer; just like everything else.
Ternus being named CEO is a long-term project that certainly includes him and Tim Cook. I don't think it's a surprise to anyone internally that there are several big releases after his nomination.
> if this doesn't get reasonably full access to the App Store then it's a no-go for me
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
Same, all of the apps they demo in the video are not useful in my family - we use a different messenger, different calendar, different video calling app... it's not just about the App Store, if it's supposed to integrate with house things (there was the doorbell camera in the video) it needs to work with "homes" from other vendors, not just HomeKit.
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.
The intro video does an excellent job of hiding the fact that this needs a power cord. There's one quick shot shows a hole drilled into the middle of the kitchen island to provide access to the USB-C cord.
I was looking for the power cord as well, and required actually looking for it.
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.
> It looked like there might be a PoE option, but that also needs cable run
“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.
That only works if you live in a paper house. Drilling through normal brick/concrete walls is not that easy - we do call someone when we need our wall mounted TV setup.
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 strongly agree. Lack of support for Plexamp is a dealbreaker for me. At minimum they're going to need to support Spotify or they'll kill the product. I think it will probably need YouTube support as well. There is a worryingly sparse amount of information published about what it will support.
Yep. I'm afraid they're going to "require" that you use Apple Music and HomePods to be useful. I'm pretty interested in trying the product, but that depends on Sonos and Spotify support at minimum.
Well, plexamp is a dealbreaker for Apple that more and more wants you to buy Apple Music and all their services. They have more to lose by opening to plexamp users, who are not the more prone to spend money, or other services, than to lock users in their very own walled garden. Open source software on consumer friendly hardware is the way now.
I don't know if that's obviously true. I'm sure Plexamp is small potatoes compared to how many are on Apple Music, and there's a solid chance that anyone running a Plex server is doing it on a Mac.
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.
There’s a potential argument that’s brewing how software moat is null, distribution is still hard-to-impossible to crack. A company, could, spin up software very easily by monitoring the requests of the existing clients that have purchased the hardware. Having such teams that push out software would be valuable, as you’d get a complete walled garden experience. Would be hard to pull off though, as your marketing team needs to be insanely good at convincing people that the product itself is valuable.
Press the wavy-lined icon on the left at the top right cluster of three icons.
Or ask Siri to "Intercom <stuff>" and it'll pipe it out the speakers (and peoples phones if they set that enabled!)
Walkie Talkie has a dedicated "app" icon on WatchOS and I wonder how much more it would be used by people if iOS and iPadOS offered a more obvious link pinnable to the Home Screen like WatchOS.
"My kids are always stealing my iPad to run the Toybox 3D printer; this would be a great thing for them to use." Is it? Why not get them a iPad instead?
Through the incredible power of Siri AI™, you can now get a "I didn't understand that. Do you want to search the web for 'turn on the kitchen lights'?" response faster than ever before.
Yep, I really wish I could revert to previous-Siri on my iPhone 15 Pro. Old Siri was reasonably predictable and faster. New Siri is slower, more ambitious, and fails more often.
you can. i just did it on my 17 pro and my watch. i get instant timers again. it's unreal we lost this technology.
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.
- 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
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.
I have an original homepod, and man, I wish I could lobotomize it easily.
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.
I can't believe they haven't redesigned the Home app interface! I've always thought it was pretty terrible UX-wise and looked like they just threw together a very basic UI to have some support for home automation. I always expected they'd get around to formulating an actual design perspective for what a good-looking smart home control interface may look like, and this seemed like a perfect opportunity for that. I guess not.
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.
Why don't you like 15000 entries dumped at you at once? With just three options for automation? Oh, I meant scenes. Oh, I meant Shortcuts, that may or may not do something.
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.
Looks nice, unfortunately I'll have to stick with however Google's alternative is currently called since Google Cast is the strictly better model for these types of devices in my view, compared to Airplay.
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 will say my experience making a chromecast custom app though has been painful. It's fine to just send media though.
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.
Chromecast used to support streaming from the casting device, i make an app that used to use it. Sadly they no longer support that feature. Having everything on your device allows considerable more freedom.
It's definitely still possible since effectively the cast device just runs a (display-less, in case of speakers) browser instance navigating to some URL and communicating with the remote using a message passing API, right? You can display whatever you want in that URL, including HTML media elements playing back HLS or MPEG-DASH streams.
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?
Separating the camera and microphone data processing functionality into a Secure Exclave should be seen as a genuinely important step forward to protecting privacy, not just implementing data control schemes which masquerade under the name of "privacy." This approach should be the norm moving forward, as cameras and microphones provide the biggest issues for privacy.
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.
Yeah Apple does it right. It’s why I was desperate for them to get Siri AI out: people are going to use these services and if Apple’s privacy-focused version isn’t ready, people will use unsafe and untrustworthy vendors instead
Nice very Apple-esque thrust to unify and refine a chaotic field of tech into an elegant experience.
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.
Feels like the wrong approach. Why not just create a docking station for the iPad and a software docking view? Identical to Google's approach with the Pixel Tablet but Apple's superior will be more refined. It even uses the A18 SoC!
At $299 this feels like a very niche product with limited functionality.
$299 makes me think they want to sell something at-cost or at loss to get people onto services more. And it's intentionally gimped to not compete with any of their more expensive products.
> Apple HomeView is not available for sale in the European Union, as Siri AI is currently unavailable in iOS in the EU. Apple is working constructively with the EU in an attempt to find a path forward.
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?
They were shipping USB-C MacBooks since 2016, plus the iPad Pro at some point. All those years they didn't bring it to iPhone, so I don't see any indication that they were going to do it, unless someone at Apple knows.
Also tbh I would have preferred micro-usb over Lightning. Non-reversible, but it at least would've charged my phone reliably.
HA's bridge to HomeKit is decent, but the Home app is miserable to use and flakey. It seems a strong breeze will break everything and re-setting-up 100+ devices is not something I enjoy doing.
Interesting, the calendar2 has a header that says "Designed to Delight", and the new apple page says "Delight Up the House". That CAN'T be a coincidence...
The rumor is that this has been ready for 1-2 years and was waiting on "good Siri" before they would/could release it. So it follows that if they aren't releasing "good Siri" in the EU that this device wouldn't be available.
i would love a dashboard for my smart home, but even as a fanboy of Apple i feel like HomeView doesnt do much, i'll just buy an eink screen, attach a esp32 of sorts and have it the way i want it without additional mics and shit
Specifically, Article 6(7) of the EU's Digital Markets Act, which forces Apple to give competing companies access to the same hardware and software capabilities it uses itself.
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.
It's not even a very functional size. Honestly makes me go why not just get a phone charging mount by my HomePod in the kitchen and save $300. Plus add on a mount and charger and it's $400. No thanks
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…
that's all i see as well: self surveillance. when I read other comments like "the family in this ad is exactly like mine" or "oh if it had app store access then itd be great" it makes me think of that scott alexander essay "i can tolerate anything except the outgroup" where he makes the analogy of living side by side with people who exist in entirely separate and impenetrable social bubbles, like light and dark matter.
This is a nice design, and a very aggressive price. I like the design enough I'm interpreting that price as a sign Apple's serious about getting these into a lot of homes.. I wasn't thinking I'd buy one of these, but I changed my mind looking at the pitch -- at this price it's sort of a 'hmm, I could imagine wanting one of those in X room'.
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.
Nest Hub was $99, and is now perpetually out of stock. AFAICT it's discontinued. Which is strange, and a shame, because it's a great product. People are paying similar prices for digital picture frames with a cloud service, which the nest hub can do with a little bit of config, and a bunch more.
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:
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.
>Didn't even occur to me to look for a purpose-built smart home console.
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.
Yeah, a lot of people are using old iPads for this sort of thing. That seems to be the biggest competitor to HomeView is "old iPad mounted somewhere". The multi-user Face ID seems a big differentiator in that competition and might for some be a good reason to upgrade that old iPad to something newer.
I gave up with these questions, some people will consume and buy anything offered to them. I know obese people who do 0 sport and 0 effort to improve yet buy $800+ apple watch ultra for """health""" reasons...
Make it shiny enough, give people an easy way to rationalise the purchase and they'll buy your shit.
I don't enjoy figuring out how to stand it up, or having the screen constantly lock. And I don't want to buy accessories or mess with settings to fix this.
And what's wrong with moving a laptop around? They're designed to do that. The keyboard and trackpad give you great tactile control of what you're doing.
And yet from what I can see on the product page this thing doesn't have video apps on it, and doesn't work as an Airplay video target, so you still end up with a laptop/iPad on the kitchen counter.
Is this really a good solution for cooking though? The grid of holes for the speakers in the main column are going to get clogged with food spatters in no time, and they wouldn't be easy to clean. An iPad I can understand, since you can just wipe it off.
I thought the "ping my keys" was cool until I took out my phone and asked Siri to "ping my keys" and it worked (I do have the iOS beta with the newer Siri fwiw if you try and it doesn't work).
One personal use case is I have my home set up with smart lights. My family can control the lights from our phones, but friends and extended family cannot. Having a dedicated device like this gives others the ability to control home automations too.
unless you are not into home automation you cannot understand how useful this is. Years ago I bought a slightly broken Ipad Pro just to hang it on the wall and control my lights. But I agree the screen size is not right. I cant do shit besides listening to music
The product ad (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkrYiZ_g9tw) is amazing, honestly, and I can't think of any other brand that has this kind of "feeling". Most other just copy this style, like Google or Microsoft, but they just don't have the "coolness". And I am not saying Apple is the ultimate cool, just that from all big tech, they're consistently the best of them.
Production values are high but I don't see how this is any good as an advertisement. This family is not aspirational. They're arguing and sniping at each other like a sitcom with no laugh track. The only nice thing about them is their house. Realistic, maybe, but realism doesn't make me want the product.
> Realistic, maybe, but realism doesn't make me want the product.
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)
the ad did a good job of displaying all the features of the new device, of course it left out the parts I would have liked as a parent who's already dealt with these types of devices. I mean apple had the benefit of 20/20 vision and could have looked into blocking little kids from just going to it to watch YouTube. It could have also solved the issue that dad's around the world would have united against: locking who gets to set the thermostat.
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
The snarkiness is just typical American ad style, like 80% of ads are like this, even simple three sentence exchanges. It's actually quite fascinating, because it stands out from any other culture's advertising I know.
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?
I’ve had one Echo device or multiple around the house since they launched. several years ago I whittled it down to one Echo Show in the kitchen. I like the screen just being there on the counter with timers and easily visible. I can finally retire this ad machine and be Alexa free.
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.
I was so ready to buy one of these things on day one to replace the iPad that awkwardly sits on the side in my kitchen and they completely missed that relatively simple target. All I really want is a device that will accept AirPlay video in my kitchen with a decent speaker or two.
That is an image of listening to the Pluribus podcast about Pluribus. It shows that it supports the Podcast app.
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.
I wonder if this works as a screen mirroring device, so you could mirror your iPad to this device. Wouldn't work very well, but that might be a way to watch media
Yeah, I expect not also, but let's say you wanted to watch a video while doing a workout or doing the dishes and you wanted to make it follow you around? (I can't find anywhere whether or not it has a motor to rotate, but that is what was rumored so I am going off of that info)
Looks like a terrible TV/Movie playback device. But potentially a nice device to quickly glance at information, or show information based on what you ask
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.
Yea I struggle playing Spotify across home devices. My kids will start music in their rooms on smart speakers and it uses my account, so when I am listening elsewhere it stops (or plays their music). I even have a family spotify account but no one does a great job managing the handoff. As a single person, loved spotify account sharing across devices. Now not so much
I kind of like the idea of this for a home phone replacement and a good way for our family to communicate as we get more comfortable with leaving the kids home alone. But it won’t be able to call 911 and I do not trust it.
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 am assuming but as far as I am aware that would be some separate app/service. You need a number that is locally registered so it routes to the correct dispatcher.
I think any HomePod can call 911, so I assume this one will be able to as well, but yeah, it requires an iPhone within connection range. So not for kids left alone unless they have a phone.
Even iPads with a cellular modem only have data enabled. Calling anyone, including 911, from an iPad requires some setup of Wi-Fi Calling ahead of time with a paired iPhone on the same Apple account: https://support.apple.com/en-us/108066
The thing on the stand is goofy, partly because it's like a large Apple Watch. Especially goofy when it's pictured with a hand, and it isn't actually all that big. But their wall mounted design looks interesting, kind of for the same reason? Aesthetically it immediately makes me think of a wall clock, which tells me exactly where it belongs. I kind of feel like they should lead with that one. (Although maybe they should be honest that it obviously needs a power cable).
Something like this was coming. Apple has the best distribution to put devices in someone's home, which allows them to capture the "SmartHome 2.0" wave from AI. Especially when people's calendars, communications, and contacts are already integrated
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.
I think this is pretty classic Apple – they take their time jumping into a new product segment and only do it once they feel their product would work and be received well. The iPhone Duo being released this year after ~10 years of foldable Android phones is a similar story
Anything powered by Siri is pretty much a failed product to me right now. I’ve been using the new Siri for a while, and it’s okay, but it still fails on most of my requests.
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.
Hmm. I'm currently looking to update my Alexa echo dot combined with a wall-mounted iPad connected to my Home Assistant instance. I don't really know if this thing is what I should get instead of waiting for a Home Pod update and using that for voice with my existing iPad display. Maybe it could be useful as a condensed UI for some important Home Assistant entities I link into HomeKit? Can it be powered through PoE which I already have set up for the iPad? (edit: yes, looks like a PoE adapter is coming for $130). But if I get the non-wall mounted version I can replace my bluetooth speaker for music. I just hope it supports more than just core Apple apps because I don't really use those. For $299 I might just pick it up for fun and see how it works for me (edit: I pre-ordered the regular non-wall mounted one)
I suspect that this hardware is highly subsidized. Apple needs to quickly push AI (Apple Intelligence) and leapfrog SI (/s). It's unlike Apple to release a product like this so cheap. They're planning to make money through future AI services.
So these are cool, especially for families and grandparents, but I think it may be a much better experience for fully Apple families.
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.
I have no need at all for a device like this, but I love the iMac G4 vibes. That was probably my favorite Mac of all time--the screen, which was mounted on an arm of the future that was anchored by the round base that housed DVD drive, moved so smoothly that you could adjust the display with your pinky.
A lot of people in the "just use an iPad" camp seem to not understand that this has enough speaker to actually fill a room with other noises going on. I'm not trying to listen to music blasted from an iPad while I'm cooking.
Not made for this, doesn't have good speakers, doesn't have all the surround sound features that the airplay products have. Doesn't have multi user support. These all could be solved by improving the iPad (increasing price drastically), but why do that when you can make a specialized product that is cheaper than an iPad for those who want it, instead of charging everyone for some stuff they won't use?
I wonder if someone can just vibecode an app for iPad mini to do the same things as HomeView and just mount it on the wall or have a 3D printed stand for it.
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?
If it auto-rotated to face the person speaking, that would make it much more useful. Having to manually move the thing around (especially in the kitchen, where your hands are likely to be dirty) doesn't seem great.
I dunno. That's what an Ipad is for? Also, this push into home automation. I don't want some 4T lb gorilla in that space. That should remain as open as possible and Apple just isn't known for open.
I can't put my finger on why exactly, but HomeView, iphone duo, and vision pro all seem like areas where apple could've innovated further, but didn't, and end up looking the same as existing hardware with apple software being the differentiator. Maybe other companies just started making hardware the way apple does, who knows. but these products feel very bland.
Most interesting part to me here is that the announcement notes that the A18 has "Secure Enclaves". Is this the first "plural" use of Secure Enclave? Is it needed for multi-user?
The Secure Enclave processor (SEP) is a separate processor that holds cryptographic material unique to the chip. That material is isolated from whatever compromise might happen on the main application processor; and there is no particular reason why you need more than one of them, even for multi-user. macOS has multiple users and uses the Secure Enclave just fine. For data encryption you'd have the SEP derive a different key for each user.
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 love the callout to the classic lampshade Mac. I would love them to bring that back one day. I use one as a music machine -- driving the classic clear acrylic Harmon Kardon column speakers, essentially using a machine I could never had had back in 2004.
This is a massively optional device that sits on your counter or wall.
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.
1984 is modern televisions that all require you to sign a EULA and ToS and Privacy Policy before watching an HDMI input because they quite literally don't think you own the TV.
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.
I think this is supposed to behave like HAL from 2001 or otherwise like 1960's sci-fi style AI where a house has a computer that people have conversations with.
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?
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 wonder how well the multi-user stuff works? Are we going to have to authenticate to this thing many times a day?
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?
HomeKit isnt new though, the accessories are the same accessories that have existed for years. Sure Apple has announced new ones today, but its just more options.
Home Automation has always been expensive regardless of the ecosystem your in.
I find it so weird the wall mounted version is a different product, it seems like a lost opportunity to do more interesting things with a speaker base.
The problem is if they made it battery powered with a speaker dock, people would criticise them for just making a nerfed ipad with no app store, which is what it is.
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
Square screen is a no from me. I'm overall tired of the Google ecosystem, and I want to replace our Nest Hubs with something else. I was hoping Apple would come out with something large enough for wife and the kids to use when we're not in the tv room. :(
I just wish they'd fix what they already have. the nest hubs are a completely fine format. but they're underpowered (the UI lags badly), and they completely destroyed the voice assistant which had LLM-like answering capabilities in 2018. Now it just says "I'm not sure, but here's some results".
if they just rebuilt the same device newer, better, with all of the old capabilities, I'd probably buy one.
there is not a single person in the part of the world that matters and probably even in the parts that dont where multiple users are using the same phone for personal use
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.
Agreed. The video they showed tried to downplay it but I would imagine very few people have a hole in the middle of their kitchen island/counter to feed power through (even weirder for the wall-mount option). A rechargeable base or base-station would make more sense to me.
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...
Bummer that this can't double as a security camera itself. Would have been neat to hang one on the wall near each exterior door as a control panel + camera.
This seems like a really interesting view of the future of HCI. Imagine this device but with an LLM that dynamically generates interfaces from the voice/video input it gets. I think the future will be a bit like the movie Her but with devices like this as the common-area screen people look at.
BTW - I was expecting a "Welcome Home" keynote/event where this would be presented. Is it just to me it is a surprise they updated the website ahead of the event?
I got an iPad mini a few years ago and tried to use it like this. There’s almost no actual utility to it that “Siri set a timer for 12 minutes” or “Siri what’s the weather like” doesn’t already do on my phone.
It was heavily rumoured. Maybe they disabled it after the negative reactions to the Apple Watch always listening feature. Can't have too many issues at once.
I was waiting for Apple to release something privacy-focused and instead they have decided not to release in Europe because 'it lacks AI'. You know what, all yours, I guess I will just buy an old Alexa and hack it.
Nope, just Apple apps, but they support streaming audio from compatible iPhone apps (probably anything that can integrate to normal system audio, so your podcast app). I imagine they might open this to 3rd party _widgets_ in the future.
Has anyone successfully jailbroken Amazon Echo and Google Home devices to make them Claude/ChatGPT assistants without any telemetry/dependency on Amazon/Google respectively.
Yes, but only older models. I looked into getting a Show 5 to use with Home Assistant but I don't love building on/relying on deprecated hardware no longer in production with no hope of jailbreaks for the newer versions (different tech stack IIRC).
I'm curious how they settled on the square shape, instead of a traditional photo frame shape. I know they're differentiating. But If I were to replace my Aura frames (we have several), I'd want a different aspect ratio.
It is an interesting format. When I first saw it I wasn’t too sure but after seeing it a bit more I actually don’t mind it and perhaps prefer it to a rectangular shape.
> You can have up to six members of the household enrolled on Apple HomeView through the Home app. They each must have an Apple Account and an iPhone or iPad running the latest software.
I assume my kids will be able to use it without an iPhone?
Today I asked Siri a basic question hands free whilst driving and it said “I found these on the web”.
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.
I wonder how good it sounds. I could see my kid using this for Spotify, I current have to keep reminding her to AirPlay her iPad to our old homepods so she isn't always listening to tiny, shrill audio.
I built a generative UI app for Apple TV over the weekend. It lets any agent send notifications, questions and media to any of my Apple TVs. Putting it on this device would be perfect, hopefully they let developers start doing third part apps soon.
The video that purports to depict how this device would be used is not an advertisement as much as a warning of how mad things can get. Any curiosity I had about this product has been eradicated from my mind.
>This is more a thing for hobbyists to build using their RPi's etc. and post as "Show HN".
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.
Amazon chased away users like me because their needs and my needs weren't aligned. All I wanted was a little device that could tell me the weather, play music, set timers, and a few other basic things. They wanted an Amazon store cash register in my kitchen that I would use to buy things.
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.
And Amazon have effectively left it because they couldn't work out a way to turn all those purchases into a stream of shopping purchases on Amazon.com. And in the intervening years they've enshittified those devices by becoming increasingly intrusive with adds and "did you know..." interjections to try and squeeze whatever engagement they can.
Apple doesn't typically have the same incentives. It could turn out to be the perfect timing to fill the vacuum Amazon is leaving.
That's because it's a couple years late due to Siri. Rumor says they've had this ready to go, but weren't going to ship it until they had a Siri that was half functional.
One would assume, they haven't announced (that I can see) which A-chip they put in here but rumors said it would be the A18 (2024 chip). Which seems like it would have to be updated since if this was ready 1-2 years ago they would have designed it with an even older chip (their HomePods have used multiple generation old chips, which, to be fair, is reasonable).
I am unsure what Apple's core differentiator is intended to be for this product. "I wanted an Alexa but it wasn't personal enough" perhaps? It just feels like the fad for replacing the family computer with a kitchen appliance came and went.
It has that "version 1" aesthetic of anything Apple makes. Now that they have shown it to the world, we should all agree that Apple can skip to their version 4 design.
Weird that Amazon was said to have planned to cut back it's hardware development recently (Alexa devices), and here Apple is rolling out a new product in the same space.
Amazon’s goal with Alexa was to sell hardware with effectively no margin (or maybe even as a loss leader) and make it up on increased store purchases. It turned out, all anyone uses them for is to set timers and control lights. No one is doing their shopping via Alexa, so the whole thing was a failure.
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.
I like the idea of this but what can we actually use it for? Doesn't look like it will support Spotify or YouTube? Does it worth with Hive (British Gas smart heating) ?
So weird. A brand new product category, and it gets dropped with the HomePod Mini/Apple TV, aka Apple’s most neglected products (besides the zombified Vision Pro). Apple has a history of being so proud of their new form factors, of wanting to show them with pomp and highlighting every little detail. Not so much here.
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.
So, it's not launching in the EU, again because of DMA rules and Apple not giving access to the same tools to 3rd-party AI companies.
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.
Passing opinion, but I hope this isn't indicating a lean in direction to 90's era Apple now that Tim retired. Too many overpriced skews and non-core products that diluted the brand and led to their market shrinking.
Good luck. AFAIK, there are no reliable jailbreaks for the previous generation of AppleTV 4k devices. This is probably locked down at least as well as that.
Why not just make an iPad dock to use the device you already have? The Pixel Tablet with its magnetic docking station was the perfect form factor for this. Home control tablet when docked, and simply lift it off the dock and take it around the house for whatever.
The thing I find puzzling is that we still don't have cameras on TVs. They tried built-in cameras for a brief time in early 2010 with Skype, but they disappeared soon after again. Facebook Portal TV tried again with an add on, and Sony had an add on too. But it never gained any traction.
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.
As someone who's been in the home automation scene for decades, the only thing that excites me from this release is first party recipe scraping in Safari.
I wonder if this works as a screen mirroring device, so you could mirror your iPad to this device. Wouldn't work very well, but that might be a way to watch media
Let's say you wanted to watch a video while doing a workout or doing the dishes and you wanted to make it follow you around (I can't find anywhere whether or not it has a motor to rotate, but that is what was rumored so I am going off of that info)
I watched their demo video of a family getting ready, and it just makes me feel liek this device is an intrusion into my life. If you take a second to think about each of the use cases they demonstrate, you start to realise they pretty much add nothing to your life. Maybe it'll save you a few seconds in the morning by not having to get the door or find a paper recipe, but all of those things make the activity more enjoyable IMO. I'd wanna watch that kid at the door squirm in real life, not spy on him with a camera. Meh, maybe I'm old fashioned.
apple's usb-c port placement strikes again. the port for the wall-mounted one is apparently in the middle of the back, so you'll have to take it off the wall or risk damaging your usb-c cables by trying to keep them between the device and the wall. if it was just on the bottom (like an iphone or ipad) you could leave it hanging there while plugged in to a nearby outlet
Looks like it's explicitly designed to work with special mounts, so the idea was never that you'd use your own cable and mount it yourself, but rather buy one of these USB-C/hardwired/PoE ones and plug the device into it. From the pictures, I'm guessing these mounts are magnetic.
https://www.apple.com/shop/browse/overlay/apple_homeview/con...
tbh I see this as good way to hide the cable behind the wall. If I have already AC power available , I can mount it directly above it without any hanging cable
Because this would be revealing that king is naked. Just like some of comments note how siri responds to simple requests like "heres what i found on web". This is infuriating especially when you're in opposite corner of the room or are driving. you are the VOICE assistant.
can iphones or ipads already 'recognize up to 6 people' like this thing can??
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.
what a weird product. I'm all in on the Apple ecosystem but this seems like an obvious miss. Presumably the low price point is because its internals are incredibly basic, i mean its just not got a lot to do really has it so doesnt need anything other than probably a bunch of old binned chips.
Smart Home devices feel somewhat antithetical to Apple's Philosophy. Aren't they all about a smoothly integrating, tightly controlled ecosystem? Offering something that connects a potentially large amount of third party devices, protocols and homecooked solutions feels odd for apple.
Could Apple sell this as a cash register for businesses such as cafés, small hotels, and such?
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?
The main thing this makes me feel is "why doesn't the iPad recognise the user by FaceID and give my five year old the appropriate experience and block my apps if this can?"
Isn’t is amazing how Apple’s answer to having five kids is consistently “pick the one to single out”, without having any process at all for making an exception?
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.
> Their Homepod line has been completely neglected
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.
I'm very surprised Apple hasn't done more here. Ever since they introduce the first AirPort Express in 2004, I have continued to be surprised they haven't done more here.
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.
Apple's partnership with LG shows they don't actually care. If they cared, they'd be making the accessories. All the various Apple-blessed 3rd-party hardware over the years has been resoundingly "meh". Also, of all companies when trying to make a case for security and privacy, LG is not who I would have launched this with. Of course, the LG spying/privacy scandal only came out recently and for all we know, the LG hardware has been waiting in the wings along with the HomeView for multiple years, waiting for Siri to be "good enough", so I understand Apple may have already been "locked in".
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".
LLMs/AI has taken my HA usage to another level. It worked great and I loved it pre-LLM but armed with LLMs I can do some amazing automations and tweak them with my voice [0].
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.
I am utterly baffled by the Home app. One of the worst pieces of shit I've ever used. I really have no clue how anyone in the upper echelon of management at Apple haven't torched it by now, it feels like an interns first app and it has never improved at all.
Could not agree more. It's the opposite of a power user app. It's like they built the features (rooms/etc) to support a lot of devices but only tested with like 5 devices. I have 74 light switches alone, it's hell trying to set those up in the Home app.
I already tried having more than one HomePod and ran into constant issues with the wrong one answer. How it is supposed to work having both this and the new acts-like-a-HomePod Apple TV?
I'm honestly tempted to replace the HomePod Mini that lives in my kitchen with one of these. I wouldn't have to stick my phone to the magnetic knife holder to watch videos while I cook.
Clever marketing video with the whole "family" interacting around the device.
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.
Hey look it's the half-basketball iMac without the cool arm which a gadget like this should have
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
They're getting desperate for more user data... and the funny thing is folks will likely line up to buy and install this TeleScreen 84 in their home like they did for the original Alexa... we're all doomed.
For those worred about no apps, they 99.99% likely will have apps(I don't work there but I work enough in the ecosystem), but must be specifically designed to fit that form factor like Apple TV/Vision pro/Apple Watch, with their own shared and exclusive API. Tightly controlled UI/privacy/UX. I'd imagine there is a quick path from going from AppleWatch to this.
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.
How are they pricing both versions the same while charging extra 80$ for the mount for the wall mounted version? I thought it was a pricing error and some needs their head checked either way
“Certain Apple Intelligence features that rely on server-side models are subject to daily usage limits. Expanded access to such features will be available for a fee in the future”
> Siri AI. A personal assistant that helps you find what you need and get more done.1
> 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?
iPhone 13 mini, ios 27.0.1, and Siri turned on the ceiling fan along with the lights when I asked Siri to turn on the bedroom lights. Don’t see any reason to believe Siri claims.
It reminds me of those things that restaurants put on your table that you're supposed to use to play games, or pay with, but just end up spying on you and getting in the way. Like Olive Garden.
i thought the ipad rotates by itself on the gimbal. video was so lame with ppl turning it akwards and device flopping around. wow what piece of garbage.
It’s an iPad mini with an always listening microphone.
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?
Despite the typical snark on HN, I know there are still plenty who are bought in to Apple. Is anyone here using the HomePod and/or using Homekit? I'm mostly on board with the Apple ecosystem, and in my assessment when trying to outfit my home, I couldn't find a reason (maybe the privacy store is better) to choose them over Alexa or Google Home or any of the other options, including DIY.
They're out of ideas, the only thing left for product people there is to fill the gap of devices their competitors also offer. We're at peak "I ONLY BUY APPLE" fandom, so they make devices now for people who think they need Apple everything. Since these fans will always buy it, there is no incentive to make it a well crafted or even original or useful product. Just slap the damn Apple logo on it and use up the money budgeted for the year.
“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.
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!
At the risk of echoing the infamous Dropbox comment...was that ever really considered a technical challenge?
Basically, people use them for photos, kitchen timers, quick recipe lookups, quick questions, and "can a dog eat the thing I just dropped".
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.)
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.
Maybe companies will lean into making the most of whats possible within the apple ecosystem and leave the rest out
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.
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
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.
(Not exactly the same power feed but you know what I mean)
So this is two birds for me
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.
With this thing ... it remains to be seen what happens in practice.
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.
It’s really out of touch. I don’t see any benefit over any old tablet.
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".
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.
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.
There’s some resilience, there.
(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.
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.
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.
So...no voice command? Or, is accessible by operating system or Apple?
Does any third party periodically verify and audit this claim?
— or —
Do we blindly "just trust Apple, bro"?
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.
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!
https://www.timesofisrael.com/apple-buys-israeli-startup-rep...
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.
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.
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.
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 :).
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 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:
Suffice it to say, there are people that will just say whatever is satisfying to them regardless of how good the product actually is. Maybe a better example is the HomePod, which died an agonizing death despite the people who were certain that the smart home was Apple's final frontier.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?).
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 :)
"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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
At $299 this feels like a very niche product with limited functionality.
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.
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…
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.
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>
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?
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.
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 ...
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?
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.
(Those were the first two features mentioned)
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.
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.
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.
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?
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
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.
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.
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?
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.
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
if they just rebuilt the same device newer, better, with all of the old capabilities, I'd probably buy one.
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 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.
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 am also guessing this is why early OS X was plasticky like the hardware, and mid-2000s was brushed metal.
https://www.derekseaman.com/2025/11/home-assistant-hacking-y...
https://www.reddit.com/r/homeassistant/comments/1vow96e/amaz...
https://lee-soft.com/replacing-alexa-with-claude/
Maybe i just need a $300 iPad Mini....
I assume my kids will be able to use it without an iPhone?
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.
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.
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.
- 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.
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.
https://www.ikea.com/us/en/p/bergenes-holder-for-mobile-phon...
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.
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.
Thinking if the RAM is good, this is a great jailbreak target with an A18 chip for only $299.
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.
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.
It's a related device in a different form factor. Some people will buy it, most will not. Just like Apple TV.
But maybe that’s just me?
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.
Sure.
Hard pass
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?
Which is perhaps not the feeling Apple intended.
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.
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
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?
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.