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I can’t believe nobody’s brought this up yet, but the HomeView fundementally exists for one reason: to be a Matter hub for smarthome stuff. No iPad – or any portable Apple device - can be configured as a home hub for managing Matter-protocol devices. There’s no significant advantage to a HomeView over an iPad if you don’t have any Matter devices.

That’s why this device has multi-user support: you’re only supposed to have one of them, which everyone uses. The Apple TV also has good multi-user support, because Apple doesn’t expect you to connect one Apple TV per user to your television.

Yeah all this device proves is they can easily enable user profiles on iPads and iPhones but they choose not to because fuck you give us more money.

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.

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".

I've had a 12" iPad Pro (M1) that I am replacing with the HomeView.

After a couple years of use of trying to use the iPad exactly as you stated here (it's lived 24/7 on my kitchen island, I've realized iPadOS is not that great to use in this way).

I'll be happy to have a "dumbed down" stationary device that serves no purpose but exactly what it's intended for.

That's just me, though; I get why many others may disagree. This is just my experience of actually using it in the way in which I will be replacing it for.

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.

The biggest addition is multiple users supported on a single device - something ipads should have had a while ago.

Not quite, surely. It seems to have a pretty solid speaker, which an iPad can't really compare to. I've also struggled to work out how to get an old iPad to work the way my old decrepit Google Home does: digital photo frame until I interact with it, then it resets back to photo frame by itself. There are plenty of iPad photo frame apps but they're not able to automatically reset device state.

The key here is the software and the device look and feel.

Apple could most likely replicate the software on an old iPad. But I think this would still be popular because of its form factor.

An issue with old iPads is getting OS updates.

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.

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

I’ve been through this thought process many times and I’m not comfortable leaving a device like an iPad permanently connected to AC with a battery that was never designed for that. I can just imagine ending up with a spicy pillow, except now it’s plugged into the wall all the time.

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.

> 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!

I suspect the reason for this is that it’s not a mobile device and can afford to have the camera always on.

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.

3. Have a huge range of 3rd party products and hacks and 3D models to wall mount it or stands for it

you'd be surprised how much of a barrier this is for average consumer

I have an old alexa and a paper calendar we literally write on for our family stuff. And the wall ends up getting written on.

So this is two birds for me

No Apps is such a strange choice, like really anti consumer....

I was going to say the same thing -- we already solve all these use cases in our household now with an old iPad and there is nothing wrong with it.

At least my old iPad turns off and consumes zero energy when off.

With this thing ... it remains to be seen what happens in practice.

> an old ipad

You've just realized they're going to obsolete all those products.

Exactly. I won't buy this, but I might buy "magsafe on a chrome arm, with a bluetooth speaker" from AliExpress in a few weeks.

Yes, it's the family iPad that I would love to have for years!

Good idea for Apple to made old iPads unusable :)

An iPhone is actually also just a small iPad which happens to have a SIM card slot!

Don’t want apps for kids to find their ways into.

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.

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).

Yeah, most people cannot be bothered with (3) honestly

I highly suspect this product will be tombstoned at around the same time as the VR goggles.

It’s really out of touch. I don’t see any benefit over any old tablet.

That's how they say the continuous sound recording works on newest Apple Watch.

Idk, to me it's just one more step in widening of the technological Overton window.

Meanwhile their silicon fab can modify the design so the data is still leaking elsewhere ...

> Secure Exclaves that process the camera and microphone feeds in a secure compartment that cannot be accessed by the operating system or by Apple

So...no voice command? Or, is accessible by operating system or Apple?

That sounds like a bad idea.

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 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.

> that cannot be accessed by the operating system or by Apple

Does any third party periodically verify and audit this claim?

— or —

Do we blindly "just trust Apple, bro"?

Can they be mitm’ed like the Ledger wallet?

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.

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).

At $299 they’ll sell millions of these in no time

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

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.

I wish there were anywhere that adults could talk about interesting stuff intelligently without a thousand stupid and/or I've-already-thought-about-this-and-the-basic-talking-points-aren't-going-to-change-my-mind arguments taking up 99% of the space.

I feel like maybe the answer is browser-integrated LLM plugins tasked with "I don't ever want to see anything having to do with this topic of argument ever again."

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.

It's definitely going to be a hit among people locked in the Apple ecosystem.

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)

This being the top comment posted mere 30 minutes after the article itself tells me the cynicism is not overwhelming.

Product is great, IMHO, but it ties a whole family to one company's complete set of Hardware, Software and Service offerings.

I feel like it may be the kind of product that makes people realize how much they had become owned by one coroporation.

Shrug

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.

People were cynical on here about the Apple Vision Pro as well...

A failure, just like Dropbox!

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?

"No wireless. Less space than a Nomad. Lame."

> 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?).

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.

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.

My life is basically the family in this ad, and I just have a hard time imagining how one of these would make anything better.

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.

> 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.

Homepods have intercom support.

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.

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.

> Music in the kitchen, sure, but I run Plexamp.

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.

Apple Home already has a Walkie-Talkie feature.

"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?

> former intercom

Do you live in a former schoolhouse, or Uma Thurman's place from pulp fiction?

they already provide intercom with the homepods, its not great, but it exists.

home.app already has an intercom feature that can play to all devices in the home.

I don't think this joke works anymore. Siri uses Gemini now.

Hey siri, turn off my tv

"Did you mean your device labeled "tv"?"

Yes Siri ffs that's literally the only device called "tv" I have

"I will answer that for you when you put down the knife"

"Here's what I found on the web for 'Open the pod bay doors.'"

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

I was also really hoping they’d release a completely redesigned Apple home app. The current one is simply not that good.

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.

They want the EU to be the bad guy that prevents citizens to get all the nice stuff they release.

Yeah, it's weird, the AI is the least interesting and least useful part of this product.

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.

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.

> It's interesting that they consider that this product would be unusable without Siri AI.

They might be perfectly useable but not profitable enough

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

The Google Nest Hub is legal in the EU because you can install whatever AI agent you want on it.

https://support.google.com/googlehome/thread/467705013/intro...

This means it’s plainly unusable.

Maybe Apple just doesn't care to put up with the silly EU rules.

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.

Fwiw both Airplay and Google Cast support both modes of operation.

But frankly Apple's developer documentation sucks around this, and unsurprisingly people don't understand what's going on when even developers don't.

$299 is aggressive? Nest Hub is $99.

They’d have to make iPadOS multiuser, which they’ve been avoiding for 16 years, despite constant requests from the user base.

$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.

Funny, I had the opposite reaction to the ad. The whole sequence felt forced, and if these are the best use cases they could come up with (looking up recipes, using findmy, asking for factoids, checking calendars) theres very little reason why someone would opt for this vs just using their phone.

$300 is a compelling price, but I have a hard time imaging this being successful.

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.

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

>Why another screen?

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.

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.

How many people carry their laptop around and put it on their kitchen counter when they cook?

Their video ad wasn't convincing either. It was about a family chatting in the kitchen and using the device in the middle of it.

It seemed incredibly fake to me, and I couldn't identify a single interesting use case.

Because they want to get every single friction out of your life.

It's not designed as a product you need. Neither is iPad or Apple Watch.

This would actually be helpful in the kitchen for following recipes, but the screen is too small.

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.

You may not need it but the fruit factory does need it, if only to sell more fruit machines.

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

> Ask Siri AI to recommend a new coffee shop

that’s why, obviously!</s>

Because they need new customers.

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.

That's exactly why it needs to be Apple. You can lock this thing down to your LAN and firewall everything off and it will still function. Try that with any google device.

Because that would require a lot of RAM for the multi-user switch to work flawlessly. They cheap out and force the processing onto your iPhone. It's a glory square CarPlay screen ..

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.

Seems like a great way to sell you the homeview two times.

I think it does/will? There's an image of it showing the Pluribus image an S1E1 listing. Unless that is acting as a remote for an Apple TV?

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

Finally a device to watch movies in the comfort of my kitchen...

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

Homekit (and the Home iOS app) work just fine with HomeAssistant and most consumer-grade smart home devices (with a focus on Matter).

This device (being a Matter hub) doesn't change any of that.

The fact that they're partnering with select companies on producing sanctioned devices also doesn't change any of that.

Four things for me are enough:

- Photo frame - Calendar view - Home control - Facetime

It's a bonus that the kids can talk to it for LLM answers too.

Where does it say it won't be able to call 911?

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

Most rational. Fight Club might be a better choice if you have children. Give them someone to look up to.

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

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?

Maybe the right way to think about this is more "Alexa + a screen" than "iPad that doesn't move or have a bunch of apps".

Pricing is kind of in between those right?

An iPad isn’t multi-user in that way, and your home automations would break when someone takes it out of the house.

I just bought an iPad Pro in Canada

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!

It's cheaper.

too true...and doesn't that miss out on one of apple's power plays? Their hardware ecosystem (their software ecosystem was touched on a little).

I don’t think that works.

That was actually a rumor at one point, that it would swivel with a motor to face you.

This is my actual use case. My in-laws are the direct customer for this product and will absolutely love it.

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.

Ridiculous concepts..

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 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?

Wait until you see the price of the accessories...

The entry ticket is cheap, then you'll probably pay to extend your system.

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.

It was widely speculated that this wouldn't be a whole event or Livestream. It's similar to how the 16e was released about 1 1/2 years ago

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.

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

what a stupid thing to winge about

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'd love to have that for video calls. No more trying to find a salt shaker to prop my iPhone / iPad on.

That would creep me out if it followed me as I walked around the room.

Yes!

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/

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).

It’s a subconscious skeuomorphic sensory thing. The UI matches the feel of the physical thing with which users are interacting.

I am also guessing this is why early OS X was plasticky like the hardware, and mid-2000s was brushed metal.

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...

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.

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.

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.

Okay... they "entered" it but is it a solved market segment and no one wants something better? What's your point?

That seems like a big missed opportunity for the wall-mounted version. Currently you need to get a separate one from LG or Schneider: https://www.apple.com/shop/home/accessories/apple-home-colle...

The son seems normal if a bit TV-ish. Every ad and tv show now must make the dad a weak, effete, loser, that's par for the course.

Only your iKids, which are based on frontier models and can fully replace your actual kids for conversation and emotional connection without ever leaving a mess behind them you have to ask them 17 times to clean up.

>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.

It's almost certainly 8GB -- the A18 and all A series chips in recent history have the DRAM directly integrated into the package at TSMC

I didn't think of this. Should work though. Maybe get MacOS running. Who knows

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.

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.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IMac_G4#/media/File:Apple_iMac...

Or a $5 phone stand from IKEA:

https://www.ikea.com/us/en/p/bergenes-holder-for-mobile-phon...

Thats a feature, not a bug :)

That needs to be solved?

Is your iPad being held hostage in another building or something?

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.

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

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.

It really seems exactly like it, although at least the portal had the built in camera cover.

Does it need to do something a phone can't?

It's a related device in a different form factor. Some people will buy it, most will not. Just like Apple TV.

That idea has never really been as true about Apple has people love to claim.

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.

Thank you for pointing that out. We’ll bump the domed version by $100 to fix this mistake. /s

(Here is how it works if anyone’s interested: https://weathergraph.app/#faq-forever-for-two )

> 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.

> stick my phone to the magnetic knife holder

Huh, good idea, thanks!

Nope, Apple-apps only for now. If I could run HA I'd be much more interested.

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.

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.

Maybe it won't be on the HomeView. I doubt they are using the exact same app they use on iOS for the main feature of the product.