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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.
“Meet the new heart of your home”. Move over, hearts of the actual people in your home, and the love between them: we’ve got a new gadget.
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 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.
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?
That's..... not a bad idea! Too bad I've exited the Apple ecosystem but if I hadn't I'd probably find plenty of uses for this.
Has anyone successfully jailbroken Amazon Echo and Google Home devices to make them Claude/ChatGPT assistants without any telemetry/dependency on Amazon/Google respectively.
I kind of assumed it would rotate automatically based on where the person is speaking from? isn't that a missed trick? or too hard to get right?
When I read it was multi-user, I got excited, but then realized that it assumes each user already has an iPhone and/or iPad.
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.
Looks nice. I wonder why Apple is so hung up on clear liquid glass - https://www.apple.com/v/apple-homeview/a/images/overview/hig...
When is Apple going to make an airgapped offline computer? They can call it iGap.
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.
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.
If they gave this a battery, removed the base, and allowed apps boy that would be a killer product
I love Apple but I don't love this new device.
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.
Picture frames and dynamic faces? That's way more fluff than I'd expect from Apple.
(Those were the first two features mentioned)
Imagine in your mind, that iPad was not created yet. Only HomeView exists and is in people's homes. Apple introduces the iPad as a great new device and it include the app store! People's minds would be blow away how they could fit all that functionality into such a small device. It would sell like hotcakes.
Now reverse the scenario.
This device feels so late to the game that I’m not sure why Apple is bothering. Amazon entered this market segment 9 and a half years ago.
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.
Cius but by Apple! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cisco_Cius
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.
Maybe i just need a $300 iPad Mini....
I find it weird it's not placed in a home on any image. Does it not fit into any aesthetic or they don't actually know where to place it?
Hm, is it "private" for British citizens? I wonder.
> 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?
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.
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.
HomeView does two things:
- 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.
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.
It would be great if this could also be a thermostat. For $300 you could get rid of Nest (etc) while adding all of these other use cases.
Yes but can my younger children without Apple IDs (or personal devices) also access it / use it?
Did you see the ad they released for this?
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
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.
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.
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".
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.
Watch Apple TV+ on your Apple TV 4K device, connected to your HomePods and controllable via HomeView.
No mention of the RAM size.
Thinking if the RAM is good, this is a great jailbreak target with an A18 chip for only $299.
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.
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.
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.
Although I really like past Apple products, the appearance of this one strikes me as a bit odd.
Note the positioning for this is different: imperfect family, non-pristine home, dirty clothes.
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.
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) ?
Here's their biggest competitor: 3d print a stand, place iphone or ipad on it - greater functionality plus it's mobile! You're welcome.
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.
Quick show of hands: who would use this to help with cooking hands free or FaceTiming people while doing dishes?
I've been quite happy with used Amazon Echo Shows running Lineage.
They offer more or less this, but do so at a fraction of the price and a lot more "hacker-native".
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.