It’s a big year for Apple firsts. The company launched the first MacBook Neo, unveiled its first folding iPhone in September, and installed a new CEO for the first time in 15 years. Now comes the Apple HomeView, Apple’s first smart display.
Rivals like Google and Amazon have made countless screen-enabled smart speakers since voice assistants invaded the home a decade ago. But Apple stuck with a smaller smart home ecosystem centered on its HomePod speakers, even removing the iPad as a hub device a few years ago, which forced users to buy an Apple TV or HomePod to get started. Maybe that’s why it hasn’t found much success in the home.
Announced Tuesday at an event in New York City, the 7-inch smart display arrives alongside several other new smart home devices as part of Apple’s bid to revitalize its lagging ecosystem. The HomeView costs $299 and comes in two versions—a speaker base and a wall-mounted display—both priced the same. Preorders are live, with sales kicking off on November 13.
Courtesy of Apple
A Big Apple Watch
The first thing I thought of after seeing the Apple HomeView in action is that it looks like a blown-up Apple Watch. The 7-inch square screen has multiple “faces” you can swipe through, exactly like the smartwatch. You can even customize the face’s colors and add different complications for more glanceable information.
The faces can range from a clock, your favorite photos of friends, family, or pets (you can even use shared albums) to weather updates and, yes, Snoopy animations. Swipe up for the home screen, which is more like an iPhone or iPad, with apps neatly arranged alongside widgets. Except the HomeView doesn’t run iOS or iPadOS—it runs the generically named HomeView software.
It doesn’t have an App Store. Instead, Apple has a curated selection of apps, including FaceTime, Messages, and Safari. A handful of third-party media apps like Spotify are available, and developers can bring over existing CarPlay apps. If your iPhone already has one of these CarPlay apps installed, it can automatically appear on the HomeView after setup. (There are no video streaming apps like YouTube, Netflix, or Disney+, but if those companies choose to make their apps available on the CarPlay framework, they will show up on the HomeView; for now, you’ll have to consume videos by using the Safari browser.)
To get the most out of the HomeView, you need an iPhone with Apple Intelligence support (an iPhone 15 Pro or newer)—you can’t set it up with an iPad. Apple says you can still set it up with an older iPhone and access some of Siri AI’s smarts (like broad world knowledge), but smarter app actions and personal context queries require an iPhone with Apple Intelligence.