Apple's new HomeView offers clear benefits, but it is immediately held back by one major limitation: users cannot install any apps at all. The device could be a perfect kitchen companion, yet it cannot run the tools people actually want, such as Paprika 3 for cooking or OmniFocus alongside Fantastical for scheduling.
The gap stands out because Apple has built app ecosystems for the Mac, iPhone and Apple Watch. The HomeView is a new form factor with a new screen size, much like the iPhone Duo, and Apple has worked to adapt iOS and encourage developers to adapt as well. With the HomeView, users are stuck with Apple's stock apps, and possibly not even those, so the device currently looks more like a holder for app widgets than a true smart display.
The author, who cooks nightly with Paprika 3 on a 13-inch iPad Pro, sees the HomeView as a natural fit for a kitchen wall. It could replace an old wooden calendar and show personal calendars for everyone in the house, and its clock would be more accurate than a phone timer. However, switching from OmniFocus to Apple Reminders would be a compromise, and the author would need to trust that recent syncing problems between Fantastical and Apple Calendar were resolved.
The device also depends heavily on the improved Siri AI, which has been rumored as the reason for its delay. That dependence is both a strength and a weakness, since the HomeView offers little beyond voice-driven features. For now, the author concludes that an old iPad mounted on a wall is the better option.
Source: AppleInsider · Summarized by HeadlinesBriefing