Apple's October 13 press releases showed the company still cares about the smart home, but the Home app itself went without a redesign. The Apple TV 4K is overpriced, but the new HomeView is an interesting addition. The most important signal, the author argues, is Apple's direct acknowledgement of a problem with third-party accessories.
The Apple Home Collection explicitly addresses a complaint the author has been raising recently: that third-party accessory makers don't care about the Home app. The author notes that the rumored smart home hub has been reported on since 2021, when rumors first surfaced of a "home hub" from Apple. Those rumors correctly predicted much of the device at the start but struggled to conceptualize the hybrid form, at one point describing a tablet each family member would carry and attach to mounts around the home.
Today's HomeView is more akin to a CarPlay head unit that can sit on a kitchen counter. Its 7-inch display shows clocks similar to Apple Watch faces, widgets like those in StandBy on iPhone, and some Apple apps. Opinions on the device vary among AppleInsider staff, and the author doesn't mind the lack of an App Store. In the author's view, requiring an App Store on every device overcomplicates things for both users and developers. Apps and data should instead be donated by core devices like the iPhone.
For now, Apple limits HomeView to app interfaces built with the CarPlay API, and iPhone widgets are expected later, much as they are donated and displayed on a Mac. That approach lets HomeView focus on displaying content. Still, the author concludes that the future looks bright, even though the Home revamp is only half finished.
Source: AppleInsider · Summarized by HeadlinesBriefing