HomeView First Look with Jennifer Tuohy

Welcome and introductions

0:00Welcome to a special episode of Primary Technology. I'm your host, Stephen Robles, joined by my friend and co-host, Jason. How's it going, Jason? It's very good. I'm very excited about this extra episode. This is a fun episode. We have a big debate because for the first time on this show, we have special guest Jennifer Patterson-Tui. Jen, thanks so much for being here. Hello, hello. So excited to be here. Very honored. Yes, and we met at CES earlier this year for the first time, so that was super fun. Yes, at the Carrot event. Yes. And I have the pin. I haven't been to Antarctica, though, yet. Sorry.

0:31Well, you do have our primary tech pin. That's wonderful. And a Carrot is going to come up later in this conversation because we're going to compare that. I have some questions about Apple Home Collection, but Home View, that's the story. You were there at the event in person. You had, I think, a great reel of all the stuff. You got to spend a long time with it. And a lot of creators said that they couldn't actually use the device. Apple kind of used it for them and they could record it. So, Jen, you were there in person. I want to hear from you. Overall impressions. How did you, who did you bribe to get hands-on time with this thing?

1:06How did it go? Just tell me all about it.

Hands on at the Manhattan event

1:08Yeah, yeah. Okay. So, it was a very unique Apple event from what I'm told because it was actually my very first Apple event because, Stephen, in case you didn't know, they haven't done a lot of stuff around Apple Home. It's been a minute. It's been a minute. So, yeah, it was lots of different experiences. So, they had a keynote, which was a video, basically. And then Cecilia, who's one of the product managers on Apple Home, kind of gave a little presentation.

1:39And then they had two apartments set up in the building that were kitted out as full New York City apartments. So, it was the whole floor of this five-story Tribeca townhouse, I think. I didn't count, but there were a lot of floors, at least five. And there were two different apartment areas, and then there was a sort of staged area where most of the videos you probably saw were done,

2:10where it was more the sort of typical hands-on of like an Apple iPhone event where everything's on a plinth and it's all mainly in demo mode. So, you couldn't really do much. You could just see different things, different experiences flying by, which was kind of difficult for videos because you were like, I wanted that, come back. But yes, so there were those different experience rooms. The main room was the apartment that was actually designed by an interior designer. They had the interior designer come out and give a little talk, which was kind of neat because one of my big things about smart home technology

2:47is that much of it has not been designed with the home in mind.

2:54It's often been designed by, and I say this, I've said this many times before, and people can come at me, but by single men in their 20s that live in Silicon Valley in a small apartment. So, it doesn't really have the family in mind or the home space in mind outside of a small apartment. So, you know, it's got better over the years, definitely. And Google has done good stuff here with the sort of fabric wrapped and nice colors. We're seeing more of that. But anyway, I thought it was great that they had it all set up in a really nicely designed apartment.

3:29And this wasn't like steel and brick and glass apartment. It had, like, soft furnishings and, you know, it felt like a more traditional home. Maybe not a normal home because this is still Manhattan and it was a large apartment. But they had all the devices sort of interspersed around the home as you would in your home. And it was very well done because you actually, I sort of walked past things and missed that there was a device there. It wasn't, like, really in your face. So, it was giving you that, this is what it's like in your home experience, which I thought was well done.

4:04And we've seen other companies try and do this. Amazon did it with its Alexa Echo event. But this was an actual home, which I think lent to the experience. We had very limited time in each space. We had very limited time in each space. And there was an Apple representative doing each demo. But I just went in and started swiping. So, you just didn't ask permission. I did not ask permission. No one had said, don't touch. So, yes.

4:36And I just, and he was very obliging. And he kind of jumped in, too, to help when I got messed up. Because there was a lot of swiping. You may have noticed in the video I was constantly doing the up and down. And it was a lot of swiping. But, you know, it's a new UI. So, it's a cross between an iPad and an Apple Watch kind of UI. So, that was a little kind of, took a bit of getting used to. And swiping down activated Siri. So, obviously, you can also activate it with your voice.

5:07But, so then I'd get the little bubble. And it would be stuck there and wouldn't go away. But it didn't type to Siri. So, when you swipe down for Siri, it's not a type to Siri. It's only speaking. It was speaking, yeah. But there is a full keyboard available in some places. Right. Although, I never actually saw that pop up myself. But I did see that in other videos. Yeah. And I only had, the amount of time on that video is how long I had. It's only like two minutes. You had two minutes. It was very short.

5:38But, yeah. Because they were then like, you've got to go to the next bit and see this experience.

Smart home view and camera feeds

5:42So, there were four. So, there was the one that I, the main one you saw. And that was sort of the entryway. And that was the smart home view. So, with different buttons. Like the I'm leaving button, the door lock button. And that's a skin of the Apple Home app. So, you're going in to sort of, if you're leaving the house, you might hit one button. And you had the thermostat control, which is the obvious kind of use case for the wall. And then you go straight into the, that's the home app that you're looking at there. There's the Siri AI bubble.

6:13And then the neat thing was the camera view. And that I was impressed with. It pulled up so fast. And those were live feeds of real cameras. And that is something that smart displays to date have struggled with so much. So, this is what I want to sit on for a second. Because Jason and I talked about this last week. And one of the things that no current Apple device is great at is seeing live camera views. Or even one live camera view just persistently. Like the only good place to do that is on an Apple TV.

6:45And then you can bring up like multiple camera feeds and see them live-ish. Even then I'm not 100% if that's, like if all of them are live. But like on any of your Apple devices, obviously not on a HomePod. You have to, you see a freeze frame and then you have to click in to see it live. So, as far as you know, on the home view, you can have the four camera up view. And they're all live feeds. You can have nine cameras. On this little seven-inch screen. I said, they're going to be really tiny, right? And they're all live.

7:15They're all live. Yeah, that's what they said. And you click in on them and it takes you to the full screen with the same experience you get in the iPhone app where you have other devices nearby that you can click into. So, you could in theory have your video doorbell screen and then your door lock right there that you can turn on and off. Or the porch light that you can turn on and off. So, yeah, it was very much, yeah, those were all live. And up to nine they said you can have on one screen.

7:45So, I know you had very limited time and once we get your full review and everything. But for something like that, is there a timeout on the screen? Does the screen like wake up when it detects that someone's near it so you could see this? Or like, what's that like? So, there was a discrepancy I noticed because I hadn't read all the press releases because this was at 9 a.m. and the press releases dropped at 9 a.m. And I think somewhere it said in a press release that, or at least I read someone had written that it adjusts as you approach, which I did not see.

8:21So, everything was static and as you moved up to it, it stayed that way. So, that home view screen that you saw, when you approached, had the same, I think it was, there's up to six widgets on the one that I saw. And that's what you got, and it didn't change, there you go, not six, I can't count. One, two, three, four, five. No, no, no, well, it's six with the clock. Yeah, and you can have more. I think you can have up to nine. Okay. So, it didn't change, it just looked like that the whole time, and it didn't go away, and it doesn't have a screensaver.

8:56So, you choose whichever face you want. So, this was a face, you could have a photo as a face, you could have the cameras as a face, but you can swipe, so there are multiple faces. So, if you wanted a photo up the whole time, you could then have your home face as your next one and just swipe to get to it. Or you just leave your home face up, so you can just come up and press the button. And that is key, I think. And that's something that no other smart display offers right now, is that ability to just come right up and press a button, and it works straight away, just like a light switch.

9:30Right, and so, I'll let Jason have a question after this, because I'll dominate the whole time. I'm just enjoying the conversation, it's fine. No, no, no, no, no, no. He's still here. No, no, no, no, I just want one other question, and then Jason go next. So, for the home control, you can have up to nine widgets, you're saying, which makes sense. Like, if you have, like, small, medium, and large-sized widgets, and the three across are the small, then you could have nine. Yes. Can you have, and Shane Watley was saying that maybe you could only have one of these. Can you have, like, could I make multiple nine-widget screens?

10:01Yeah. Or does it not seem that way? I did, so he, I think he asked that question, didn't he? Because I think he said he asked, and they said no, but, I don't know, because you can have multiple photo screens. Well, I don't know. Like, if it's, like, an Apple Watch face, where you'd have multiple, but my other question, you might not know this, because we don't have this hand, but is this a, like, personal face? Like, when you have the six profiles, is, like, can I make a face that is just for me, like the nine widgets? No. Or this is a public? All the faces are public, because the profiles don't appear until you get up close.

10:36I see. So, the faces are shared, and the profiles are what you see once you click in. So, when you swipe up from the bottom, you get different apps, and those you would get separately based on your profile. And when you come up close, I think that might be where that confusion came, because when you come up close with your profile, it can switch to your profile. And I don't know what you then get to see. That's what I'm saying. Yeah.

11:06Because, like, if it's the home controls as the… You don't want it to change when you get up there. I don't want it to change. Right, exactly. Like, I don't want it to control. Yeah, yeah, that, yeah, we still don't know. They didn't sort of demo that. The only thing they demoed was switching faces, but then you were already in the face. So, the way they switch faces in the top left of, top right of the screen, there's a little profile icon, and you can click on that to manually switch, or it should automatically switch. But, yeah, there wasn't a lot of, you know, obviously we couldn't demo switching faces ourselves, because we're not on the profiles.

11:39So, yeah, that's all stuff we're going to have to wait until we get our hands on and find out how that all works.

Size, design, and physical build

11:47But my overall view of it, of the home view, was my initial impression was, oh, my goodness, it's tiny. I was expecting it to be much bigger. I was expecting a HomePod with a screen, and what we got was a HomePod Mini with an Apple Watch. A large Apple Watch. And I was like, ah, actually, I quite like that. I like the square screen, and I like the bezels, again, because I feel like it fits better in a home environment.

12:17It looks more like a photo frame, and less like an iPad or a screen. It, you know, it looks more like an Aura, if you're familiar with the Aura photo frame. And I guess they, I feel like they went square maybe to be different, because everyone else is rectangle. But also, I like that it takes much less space. It has a much smaller footprint than even like the Echo Show 5, which is smaller in general.

12:48But that is wider. So for fitting this in to like nooks and crannies and corners on a kitchen counter or a bedside table, I think that size is quite nice. So it's vertically, it's taller than most other smart displays, but width-wise, smaller. I really did not like, and there is a picture of this in my hands-on, the USB-C cable positioning. It sticks out the back like a little rat tail. And I was like, no, no, no, no, this is, this feels so unapply.

13:20Yeah, you can see it there, and then there's another one where you can, where it's silver, that you can see it a lot clearer. It might actually be in my other article. I wrote like seven articles. Sorry. But it sticks out, and you can see in that picture that it's quite high up. I mean, I feel like it should be under, and it should have a little notch that it comes out and is much more elegant. Because also, if you're trying to stick this up in the corner of your kitchen or something, that's an extra, like, two inches it's going to have to stick out. You just got to drill the hole right in the island. In the middle of the island. Just like the video.

13:50Okay, I'm sorry. Well, obviously, it seems like the reason that the cord is where it is is because that bottom part is the ventilation for the subwoofer, right? Yeah, but it's in the ventilation part. It is? Yeah. It's stuck in the middle of all the little grills. Yeah, I don't know what to tell you. It's weird. It doesn't mean anything. It just felt wrong. Remarkably, though, I don't even think that that's the weirdest thing about this device. Yeah, you see that? You can see. It's in the grills. Yeah. That is really strange. Okay. Well, I was thinking as you were describing the experience, I'm like, I was at the WWDC when they did the Vision Pro announcement.

14:23Yeah. We had to go and take our glasses and put them in there and they had to customize because there's so much about that device that is personal to you, right? Well, I was thinking like, wouldn't it have made a lot more sense for them to just let you pair your iPhone to do this whole experience? I realize it's a little different because did you really want your calendar to pop up in front of all these other journalists or whatever? I understand all that, but it does seem like it's a tough thing to really experience without actually experiencing it the way it'd be like picking up an iPhone at the store is fine. You can tap through things, but until you have your mail, people are sending you messages.

14:53It's hard to know what it's going to be like. Yeah. And I've been to that townhouse in Manhattan for like an iPad announcement and the scary fast event with the MacBook Pros and stuff. So I'm trying to picture it like Apple put a lot of effort if they built out different apartments in that building. But the thing I keep trying to figure out is why do you think that Apple is making this device? Like, why does this particular device, they went from zero really smart home cares. I mean, they call the HomePod and the Apple TV a home device, but they're kind of not, right?

15:28They exist in your home. I call them content consumption devices with a side of smart home automation. Yeah. I mean, I was telling Stephen that the only home thing I think about is like our level lock that we have on our front door has to connect to a home Apple TV. Listen, mine still works. I don't care. I'm keeping it because it looks like a lock and my daughter knows how to use it to get in the house. But as soon as I swapped out Apple TVs, I had to like go through this process to reset the whole thing. Apple has not figured this out. And as I was listening to you and Stephen talk, it's like Stephen is like, how do I configure and tinker with this thing?

16:02Yeah. And it feels like Apple is like, you're going to do zero configuration and tinkering with this thing. It's just going to sit on the counter and it will know exactly what to do.

Target audience and purpose

16:11Yeah.

Target audience and purpose

16:12OK, so my question really is, why is Apple making this? Because the people who want it want to do what Stephen wants to do. And the people who Apple thinks would benefit from this, I don't know that they care. So I think it's interesting. That's sort of been the question du jour since this device launched amongst the tech press. I am really interested to see once the sort of mainstream press starts to pick this up, because I really don't think it's designed for the classic Apple tech nerd. It just isn't. It is designed as a family device and it is designed or a household device because, you know, obviously it could work for roommates as well.

16:49But as the video showed, the family is the core demographic that they think this is going to fit. And I have a lot of friends who have families or different ages, stages of life, and they all love devices like the Facebook portal or the Skylight Calendar or the Aura Frames. I mean, there is a big market for some of these tech forward but household centric devices that Apple has not got a skin in the game for.

17:22And this fits that space. This fits something that your Apple-focused family will buy for their house. To show their photos, to show the calendar, for shared interactions. And honestly, the thing that caught me the most about that video was that no one had an iPhone. Everyone was using the device. And as a parent who does not like phones at the dinner table or at the kitchen counter at breakfast, you know, it's always you get like, oh, but mom, we just need to check what, whether my, you know, what time my class is tomorrow, what time my driving lesson is tomorrow.

18:02Let's just pull out the phone. And then one person pulls out the phone and everyone pulls out the phone. Whereas having a central device that you can use that for that is like, we do not need our phones because if there's something you really need to do, we can do it with this. This is actually what smart displays have been good at to date because you can, all the current examples from Amazon and Google, you can ask questions like that too as well. But the differentiator I think here is that this is an extension of your iPhone. So it does give you that more personal element.

18:34I mean, again, both Google's displays and Amazon displays have tried to do that. Google could do that much better than they do. And maybe that's coming. But Amazon struggles because you have to give it all your data, which, whereas this device is just going to have it all. So that's who I think, I really do think this is not designed for you, Stephen. I think you're going to enjoy it. I'm getting three, yes. And it's not, it wasn't designed for all of the, for most of the creators that were there.

19:07The ones that probably use Unify and Home Assistant and everything in the background, they're still going to have fun with it. And they're probably going to find ways to do things on it that it really wasn't designed to do, at least not yet. But it is, I think, and this was my other piece I wrote last week was, I think it's key, it's killer feature is going to be its simplicity, that you don't have to program it, that you don't have to figure out what widgets you want. It just will present the information that you need or want as in your household simply and easily.

19:41But we will see once we get time to play with it. Let me follow up real quick, because we have a, this is going to be painful for you, because I'm not going to say the names of any of these products. Google Nest Hub Max. Yes, we have one of those. She knows, she knows. We have one of them on my, and we have two of the smaller ones. One is in our bedroom and one is in our bathroom, actually, because it doesn't have a camera. Doesn't have a camera. Right, exactly. Although I do remember when they sent me a review unit and they're like, this will track your sleep. I'm like, how are you doing that? But it's like sonar or something. Radar, yeah, solely radar. So, but we have that thing sitting on our counter and it's wonderful.

20:13It just plays photos out of our favorites from Google Photos. Yeah. That's great. The thing no one has ever once asked me to do is, dad, it'd be really nice if I could see my calendar on this. Like no one wants that on that device. Have you tried a Skylight calendar or anything like that? No, I mean, we could, but like it plays Spotify for my wife when she's cleaning the house. It plays timers. We set timers on it because forever you could set multiple timers on that and you couldn't do that on your Apple Watch. Which is just insane to me. Yeah. And it shows photos. And then occasionally our 12-year-old who doesn't have an iPhone will walk up to it and look up like Wikipedia articles, right?

20:48Yeah. It does those things just fine. We don't need it to be personal necessarily. Yeah. And I feel like most of the people who are, and I feel like I'm a little more tech forward than the average person, right? I write about it all the time. But I think like most people are closer to my thought process on this, which is we have a device that works. If I wanted something like this, I probably already have that or an Echo Show or whatever. The audio, it feels like the audience Apple is really going after. It's probably already satisfied with the Skylight Calendar or with one of these devices.

21:18Are you satisfied with your Google Nest Hub Max? It does exactly, except for that I never remember the name of it. It's actually a fantastic speaker. Like it's a very- I know, but it's what, like seven years old? Yeah. And you know what? They're out of stock everywhere. You can't buy them anymore. No, you're right. I'm not arguing. But you know what? It still works. And the fun thing is I can even like shout at it and it will change YouTube TV on our television. Yes, I know. Which is like wonderful. Like it does everything that we need it to do. So my point is simply- There's a lot of these already out there. Well, and for a $300 device that wouldn't let me tinker and configure it more, I'm like,

21:53I mean, it'll probably sound better and it will be Apple, which is all that's great. No, like I like all those things. But it's like, we do all the other things that they demoed on our iPhones just very happily. And then the thing sits over there and plays photos most of the time from our trip to Alaska. Right? Like- Yeah. Well, I mean, but the fact that you like that device and use it is an argument for Apple

Competing with existing smart displays

22:15making one.

Competing with existing smart displays

22:16They just should have made it a few years ago. And you know, the rumors are these have actually been ready for two years sitting in warehouses because it was waiting for Siri AI. And I agree. They should have. And Stephen, I know you agree. They should have released this a long time ago. But I don't think- I was talking to an analyst about this and she was like, I said, is Apple too late to the market? And she said, they can enter the market whenever they want and do well. And I think she's right there.

22:46And also, as much as I like to think every person in the world has smart devices and loves smart home, it is still a niche market. I think the statistics are somewhere like 40% of all internet-connected households has one smart home device. But that one smart home device could be a smart display. It's like a Lutron switch or something. Yeah. The ring camera that came with the house. Oh, yeah, doorbell. That's a doorbell. That's a doorbell. So there's still growth in this space. And I also think there is room for Apple to dislodge Google Nest Hub Maxes or Echo

23:20Shows from people's kitchen counters. Both around privacy, because I think there's a lot of concern around devices that are always listening in your home and which company it comes from is a big issue. That's becoming a bigger issue than it ever was. And the Echo Shows all have ads on them now, which are infuriating. And Google has an opportunity to come in here and say, hey, we're doing this. Here's our version. And it's better. But they haven't. I mean, the last one they did was the Pixel, which is back here binging the Pixel tablet.

23:54I've got one of those right there, actually. Yeah. And that was a great idea. They just abandoned it. This is another issue with the Google stuff. So, yeah, I take I mean, I think I totally understand your point. You what you have works great and you have no need for this, specifically the personal element. And I also do think the personal element, whilst they're pushing it as their differentiator, I'm not sure how useful it will be in practice. I don't see my daughter checking her text message from her secret boyfriend over dinner,

24:25over breakfast. I just don't see that happening. But yeah, I think people are going to buy it. I tested. I did test the Skylight Max, the big one. Yeah. And yeah, I loved that. I thought it was a great device. And that's the kind of that's a mom tech device. Like all the moms I know want something like that. So I'm going to play my own devil's advocate in a second. But we have a Skylight and we love it. It was a sponsorship like a year ago, but we do use it every day. And my kids use it for like chore tracking our calendars on there.

24:58And there's going to be a weird choice that families have to make where this holiday season, if we're going to buy a thing to put on the wall, are we going to choose a Skylight or we can choose a Home View? And the Home View does not do all of this kind of collaborative task stuff. Or like the Skylight is also a picture frame. Like I can send pictures and videos to it. So I still think like Apple has a long way to go in that regard. But you have to pay like 80 bucks a month, a year for the Skylight. It's 80 bucks a year for some features. Like if you want the calendar import stuff, which is really good.

25:28It is really good. And the reward feature, which is honestly what we use the most with our kids, where like they clean the bathroom and they get stars, then they can redeem those stars. That's an $80 a year subscription, which kind of stinks. But the two use cases that I tried to make a valiant effort to defend this on last week's primary tech episode, you know, having a timer that's visual is at least good. I like the way they did that. Yeah, that interface is nice. That's going to cut down on... The Google Nest Max Hub can do that as well, though. I mean, a lot of things can show a timer visually.

25:59But I'm just saying, that'll be a good feature. And it even has little icons and pictures of what you're doing. Yeah, and that is cool. But the one other feature, and I'm curious if you had any experience with this hands-on, is when it comes to recipes, you know, they show this recipe beaming from your phone to the thing. Or you can ask the voice assistant. But a situation that happened just yesterday, my daughter wanted to make overnight oats. And my wife had the recipe in the notes app on her phone. Yeah. I can't believe they don't have the notes app on this. That's just...

26:30Yeah. And that would be an ideal situation where if there was a home view on the counter, then my wife could just like tap her phone to it. And the recipe from her note comes up on the home view. Yeah. And as far as I could tell, it seems like recipes get on this thing one of two ways. You ask the voice assistant for a random French toast recipe, and it will go out to the internet and find one. Well, that was through the text message. So that was text. It said, because they were showing the personal context. So show me the recipe that mom texted me on French toast, is what he said.

27:02Or mom sent me. So, but that was probably a URL. So same thing, still coming from Safari. Right. But it does not seem, as far as you could tell, like if I have, as I'm sure many people do, a bunch of recipes in the notes app of my phone. Yeah. Is there any way to get that onto the home view? Not as of now, no. Because for some reason, no notes app on there. And that does seem like an oversight to me. And there is a lot of interesting aspects about what they decided to include and what they didn't on this.

27:33And I'm sure it will change. I'm sure more things will come. I don't think it's weird. It doesn't have an app store because none of the other smart displays have app stores. This is not something these devices are used as. They're not really, it's not a personal computing device that you sit there and tap through your apps. But I think, yeah, the Safari, they just, I actually asked, it doesn't integrate with Apple News' recipe app section either. It's just Safari. What? Yeah. I know.

28:03I thought that was the whole reason they added recipes to News+. I thought that was the whole, me too. It's right there. You could save the recipes in Apple News. But I said, does it use Apple News recipes? And they said it uses Safari. You know, the whole Apple non-answer. We're not going to say no, but we're going to tell you what we just said.

Recipes, apps, and CarPlay limits

28:22I mean, and it's cool, like in the demo and even in your short, like it shows beaming a web page. And then it shows just full-on Safari on the display. And so the whole recipe is there. And then if you see in that bottom left, bottom right corner is a little icon. And then when you've tapped on that, it switches views. So it's basically a view in Safari that goes from web page to guided cooking. So that's what it's switching. Doesn't Safari have that like on the Mac or iPad right now?

28:53Like if you go to a recipe page? It's like the reader mode in Safari. Yeah. Yeah. I've never tried that. But there may be, yeah, you may have the option to do this on your phone too or on your iPad. You just want to buy an iPad. Like I just went to an almond flour pancake recipe. Yeah. And you can just, you know, if you go into reader mode, there's like a table of contents, I guess. Right. So it's doing, it's basically the same thing. Although the difference is it's adding in the timers. The time, the time. And that's cool.

29:24And that's neat. You just tap it and it'll, it'll do the timer for you. But that seems like a huge miss if like you, the Apple News recipes, which is like a good interface. Like the Apple News Plus recipes is good. Like if it doesn't move to the home view, that's a miss. So the Apple News is another one of the apps that's default on the device, although it's not on the device, it's in the CarPlay projection side of things, which I'm very interested to see how all of this works. We didn't, they didn't show any hands-on demos of the AirPlay, well, the CarPlay, the apps.

29:57It was all the built-in apps. So very limited. But you do have Safari built in. So in theory, you can do anything you like. Did you? Because I also saw the Apple TV app was built in. And no, that's also a. That's a CarPlay app. That's a CarPlay one. So it's, it's default. It's a default app on the device, but it's not built in. It relies on your phone. So hold on. So if my, if a kid wanted to play Toy Story 5, and it was like purchased in Apple TV, so

30:29it was like in the Apple TV app. Yeah, I don't, I'm not sure, I'm not sure if it's the Apple TV, and they didn't, because they didn't demo it, if it's the Apple TV app, or if it's the Apple TV service. Not confusing at all. Which would be different things, correct? So my seven-year-old Apple TV 4K, and you didn't know that. I mean, I'm assuming it's the app. So yes, anything you downloaded, you, you know, if you've, if you own Toy Story, you should be able to play it, but they didn't clarify. So I, I'm not sure. I mean, so anything that works in Apple TV, you can airplay, but I don't see this as a

31:05video consumption device, personally. I really don't feel like that's its purpose. But the only place I see it could be useful for that would be recipes. I mean, you might want to watch a YouTube version of a recipe or a TikTok. That's, my daughter makes, all her cooking is done with TikTok recipes. So I would want that if I could. The video thing, though, I mean, this feels pretty classic Apple. No, the iPad is for that, right? They're not going to make this for $300, replace an iPad mini. They're going to be like, no, if you wanted to give your kid a thing to watch Toy Story

31:375, you have 1600 screens in your house. This isn't going to be one of them, but let me interest you in a, in a nice little iPad. Much more expensive one. Oh my God, my cat just jumped in my window on the second story. Wait, like in real life, your cat right now? He's yelling at me. Do you need to go get him? No, it's, he'll be fine. Oh, okay. Well, I can't get him in. He's on the second story. That's fine. Okay. Well, they always land on their feet, right? That's the, that's the thing. So, so like on the tech spec page for the home view.

32:10Yes. It should, I see now. There you go. Apps available from iPhone. Yeah. But that's, okay, sure. But they've. You know, what does that logo mean? Is that the streaming service or is that the Apple TV access to everything app? I assume that they mean the Apple TV app since it's listed where apps available from the iPhone. Right. So you should be able to get anything that you pipe through Apple TV. The same thing with the music app and the podcast app, like the music app. If you're not subscribed to Apple music, I don't know what you can hear, but there's,

32:41there's the app. So they did say that you'll be able to use like Spotify or any third party audio app that's currently supported by CarPlay. Third party audio and video, although they pointed out there are no video apps currently supported by CarPlay. Which makes sense since, you know, your car is not typically the place that you watch videos. No, but apparently that's something they added at WWDC, the ability to do this. Um, so in theory, like if you're sitting at a soccer match, you could sit and lean back and watch TV. Well, my favorite feature in the Tesla is that you can watch Netflix in the Tesla, but

33:14only when it's in park, only when it's in park. But if it's any indication how long YouTube took to make a vision pro app, they probably will take a few years to make a CarPlay app, I would think. So, although it would be nice, like the YouTube on the home view for recipes for cooking anyway. Yeah, I do feel like YouTube is, but you could, I mean, you could go to Safari and do it, but I can't imagine the experience is going to be great. So this is all stuff we will find out once we get to play with it though.

Apple home collection and accessories

33:41So we'll, we'll, yeah, we'll talk once it's in hand, maybe we could talk again, but I need to get your opinion on the Apple home collection because this was, you've rumored LG Schneider, all this stuff. I was actually just this morning looking for what other HomeKit secure video cameras are available today. And I don't know if you've noticed this, but it seems like there's less and less. Hardly any. Over time. It's like a Cara and that's it. I don't know what, like, and Eve is out there and like, but Toppo used to make a bunch more.

34:12And Yuffie has a, has a few. Yuffie has a few, but it's, it's unfortunate because I was trying to compare like price wise, but if you just, even we take a Cara and Eve and then for door locks, like Schlage and stuff, like Apple home collection, do you feel like it is a compelling collection? Like, would you choose any of the Apple home collection devices over some of the other ones? Because like I can get an Acara video doorbell that's two and a half K home could secure video for $99.

34:45Yeah. Or do I have to pay? Have you seen the look of the Acara doorbell? I have it. I have it. I have it. It's like a giant Mars bar on your front door. Listen, now, wait a minute. Now you could get the. Designed by a 20 year old single guy in Silicon Valley, right? That's what she said. Well, that one's designed in China, but. Okay. Sure. Well, hold on. Because Acara has like a bunch of the video doorbells and one of them. So the difference here is the Apple polish.

35:16And I know people are like, oh, this is, this was made by LG. No, no. This was designed by Apple. They made that very clear. This is the Acara one that I have, by the way, Jen. Is this the one you're talking about? Yes. Doesn't it look like a Mars bar? It's fine. It's fine. It's really chunky. I actually did a review of the three current doorbells that have AI text description recently. And I have all three doorbells on my front door. So they're next to each other. And so there's the Google Nest, the Ring 4K and the Acara. And the Acara. I love Acara stuff.

35:47It's great. But it is, doesn't look good. They do not have the design down. Do you think the Apple Home one looks good? I do. And you know what it doesn't have on it? And what none of their products have on are logos. Logos. I'm like, I hate logos on devices stuck in my home, especially one stuck on my front door. It's not high tech. Like, it's not cutting edge. Oh, my goodness. The cat's back.

36:18We need the home view to get the cat off the thing. It's not, yeah, these aren't like really tech forward devices that do wild and weird things. But they did nail all the basics, I think. And the design is, it's high tech looking, but it's not garish. So I think it will appeal. I do think it's hard to get these devices to look good in homes. So I like the fact that they went with a cohesive look.

36:48So if you buy them all, you kind of have... Sure. And spend $2,000 on me. It's a lot of money. It's a lot. They are expensive. I mean, doorbells, as you said, you can buy for $99 now. So this one is absurdly expensive. It does have two cameras. And I do really like the light, the motion sensing light. Yeah, I think the cohesive look is a selling point. The prices are a little crazy. They're kind of like, well, they're very similar to the Google Nest products, actually. Uh, price-wise.

37:19So you're, and you're also getting, and I did, I kind of did a deep dive into all of this the end of last week. You're getting everything that Apple Home offers, which is actually something that a lot of products haven't adopted. A cara is probably the best at bringing most of the features that Apple Home offers in. But you do have, like, thermostats have Apple Adaptive Temperature, Clean Energy Guidance. Um, the door lock has UWB Hands Free, which only two other door locks offer right now.

37:50Schlage and a cara, yeah. I have them both. So I kind of see them like, almost like reference devices as well. Like, this is what you can get with Apple Home's, the complete experience. But they're very expensive, and they don't, um, I don't think the look is going to appeal to everyone. But also, if you don't like something techie looking at, you don't really have much, many other options. I was disappointed in the door lock that it has such a big, bulky back housing. I'm, why they didn't just do a level-like thing.

38:20Um, you know, level was right there for them. Two, two questions. So on the LG video doorbell specifically, it has the two cameras, one's pointing down, one's pointing out. Does the one pointing out, is it vertical or horizontal in aspect ratio? Oh, um. Did they even show a live video feed for it? They did, um, but they showed it of the package. They didn't show it of a person when I saw a demo. So I'm guessing the top one is landscape.

38:54But it's landscape, and the bottom is vertical, because you're just looking straight down. That's a genuinely new and different feature. Yeah. Because most video doorbells have to go with the tall, ultra-wide view. Yeah, and it gives you that sort of slightly distorted, fisheye-type lens look. And actually, the wide, because most originally doorbells did the wide aspect ratio. Right. And then people, then they realized people want to see the packages on the porch. But yeah, the wide aspect ratio is actually better for security, because you see more,

39:24more of people coming from side to side, and see more of your front door. So yeah, that, the combination is useful. I mean, Eufy had a doorbell that does, that has the two cameras in. But yeah, this, this is a much sleeker looking device. And it has a little mount on the back, so it's actually sticking out from your house. It's not flash on your wall. But $250 is a lot. And it's only $2.5. Okay, so that's the other thing I wanted to say. Jen, this is driving me insane, because we have asked for HomeKit Secure Video higher resolutions

39:59for years.

HomeKit secure video and 4K

40:00Yeah.

HomeKit secure video and 4K

40:01And Apple at WWDC announced 4K HomeKit Secure Video, and then their first foray back into the smart home, they released a $2.5K camera. So do you think maybe this has been in development for two years as well? And they just... Oh, sure. But here's, and here's my other question, if you have any inside knowledge, I don't know, because the Apple 4K HomeKit Secure Video, I've talked to several brands, and all of them say that their current cameras on the market will not support the higher resolution in HomeKit Secure Video, I don't know why this can't just be a feature update, because my

40:33Aqara Video doorbell is $2.5K in the Aqara app. Yeah. And maybe it's a play that they want you to pay for the Aqara subscription and not HomeKit Secure Video, but why no 4K? That's my question. Do you have any idea why no 4K anywhere? So Apple released a new HomeKit Secure Video spec at WWDC. And that is the spec they have to adopt in order to enable the 4K. And I don't know enough about the development process of camera to understand whether that

41:03maybe is something that they just can't retroactively do, or whether they're just, well, this is a new feature we could add and get more people to buy us new cameras, and so we're going to do this going down the road. I would be surprised if it was the latter. I think most companies would want to add value to their existing products, the ones that are in this space, because there's only a couple of them that really offer. But no, I don't know exactly, I don't have any inside knowledge in terms of why Apple

41:34did this. I do think, and I did say this in my piece last week, and this is entirely speculation, but you know the Matter camera spec is basically built on HomeKit Secure Video. It's the same idea. I honestly think these cameras will probably support Matter down the line. They have Thread. They have Thread, and they don't support, because Apple Home doesn't support Matter cameras right now at all. No, because there are a few things in the Matter camera spec that don't line up with HomeKit

42:05Secure Video yet. But I think they're still being developed. So I do think that, and then if there's support for Matter cameras, then obviously you could use these in other ecosystems, and it gives more flexibility, and also means there'll be more cameras that would work with HomeKit in the future. That's true. So I think it's a watch this space thing. But right now, if you want the whole experience, the Apple Home Collection.

42:36I mean, if you're a Silicon Valley family setting up your first home, there you go. You just click buy. I mean, that's what it's for, right? It's all in one. I feel like the packaging is for a very select market. The individual devices, I think I could see the door lock being popular, because it's UWB, which I think is a big selling point. If you haven't tried UWB, Jason, yet, you need to try it. It's good. It is good.

43:07Well, the thing I keep thinking, okay, so I mean, I get it. All the home collection devices look great. And I know Apple had to have something, because if they're going to convince you to buy this as your centerpiece, then there have to be accessories available, right? Right, exactly. And like, I mean, we're like, I think we're actually fairly normal in the sense that like we have some Google stuff, we have some Echos, but literally the only reason we have Echo dots is because we have the LED ones, and those are alarm clocks for our kids. Like we didn't buy them because we're like, hmm, which smart home system should we be in,

43:40right? And then in my office... And you probably got them for 25 bucks, too. Yeah, they're cheaper than AirTags, I was thinking. I bet I got four of them for 100 bucks, right? Yeah. But when I did my office, Steven told me to put in Lutron switches, so I did, so I can control those things. And it doesn't bother me to have three different systems in our house, because we never... Like all the Echos are on kid mode, so they won't shout ads at us all the time, right? Like anyway, but I think for a lot of people, the idea that they're going to start with a home view, and then they're going to spend an extra, whatever you said, $2,000 to buy all

44:14these. If you've already got a ring doorbell, or if you've already got these things, it kind of feels like Apple approached this from like the opposite direction. Like the home device everybody wanted is, please just make a router again. I know. Like just make a router and then go from there. And it seems like they're like, no, no, no. I even wrote that article. I'm like, yes. Please, Apple. They have this entire system. Fix the problems. I'm curious though. Everything about the home view to me feels like the Vision Pro. Like I even, I said that already once.

44:45And it feels... It's not $3,000, Jason. I know, but compared to some of its competitors, it is a lot, right? It is more than what most people are thinking they're going to spend, because you then also have to spend a lot of money on all the things to make it worthwhile. No one's going to put this on the counter just for recipes. Like that's insane, right? Like I'm not wrong. Am I?

45:06There are, I think the two use cases that they pushed it for, which is entertainment and the personal family management side, you can do all of that without smart home devices. But the video doorbell I could see being the biggest reason to, I mean, the video, that's the only thing that Apple doesn't have currently in the home, as we discussed earlier, that you can easily view your video doorbell when someone rings the doorbell through. And the Apple TV works, but then you have to be in the living room where your Apple TV

45:38is or it has to be on. So I think the video doorbell and probably the door lock are the two biggest selling points here. And I agree, if you have a ring doorbell, you're probably not swapping it out for this. If you don't have a video doorbell, though, this might convince you to get one, I think, is Apple's Play. $600 for the display and the video doorbell. The combination, yeah. Well, if you buy this and then you're like, oh, what else can it do? I mean, that's how the Echo took off is people bought these Echo smart speakers and were like,

46:09oh, this is neat. I want to do more. And then they went and bought smart bulbs or then they went and bought a smart thermostat because then they could control it with their voice. Like that was how the Echo became a popular device originally. So, yes, Apple is quite late to this game. But as I said earlier, there's still a large slice of people that have not even stepped into the smart home for various reasons. I think cost is a big one. Not seeing the value, like any benefit, is the leading reason.

46:40And I think here with this device, Apple is trying to say, here, look, here's what you can do. Here's the benefit. I don't know if it's going to be successful. I think I don't think you're wrong, Jason, in the Vision Pro comparison in terms of whether this could potentially be a flop because people just don't understand why they want it or the people who wanted it now don't want it because it's not what they were expecting. And the people they're selling it to, are they going to really understand the value? I mean, this is one of the hardest things about the smart home is trying to explain to

47:12people what the benefits are. I mean, it's my entire job, and I tell you, it's hard. It's good for you that it's difficult because they're going to keep paying you forever. Employed forever, that's it. But I think the price point could be its savior. Yeah. The price point could be its saving grace. It's cheaper than I was expecting. I don't know it's going to stay cheap. So I genuinely think if you're interested, you might want to buy it now while they clear out the warehouse of two years worth that apparently they had because I could see this

47:44getting more expensive. But I think the price point is compelling for families having this little, it's a beautiful photo frame too. I mean, people spend a lot of money on those auras. Those are expensive. It has the exact same features.

Kitchen placement challenges

47:58So the one, my last question, because I know you got to go, I'm trying to figure out where I'm going to put it because we have an island and unlike Apple's video, I'm not going to drill a hole in the granite. People do actually have outlets in their islands. I have to say. Well, I have outlets in the, like in the middle of it though. Yeah, I've seen that. You have like a little thing that comes up with all the outlets on. Yeah. Like the Apple store tables where you like wave your hand. But I like where, because if I put it where the outlets are around the counters, it's

48:28not near the stove where you would want to use it to cook. I know. And if you want to put it, like we have a HomePod mini in the kitchen, but it's on a little shelf, like kind of off to the side and you want to be able to see stuff. Is it white or black? White. I have a white HomePod mini. Is it now off white? Well, it's far enough where it's not, it's still white. My white HomePod is gross. I'm sure it wouldn't, yeah. Because it was in the kitchen and it got all greasy. So I do like that this is aluminum because you can wipe it clean. I think that's something I've really struggled with with kitchen devices. Have you decided where you're going to put it?

48:59Like, do you have you spot it out? I'm putting it next to my stove. I have outlets right next to my stove. That's where I want to do it. But the downside of that, and this is probably to your point, is then the interaction by the rest of the family won't work because they don't come to the stove. Right. So I might have to do like a week by the stove and then a week in my other spot where I put the smart displays, which is on the kitchen counters. But I have a long counter like this with a wall. So it goes, it'll go by the wall. And that's where my kids, the Google Nest Hub Max, they would watch Teen Titans go until

49:34one day it decided to just only play in Spanish. So we had to stop. It's a feature. Sponsored by Duolingo. But yeah, placement's going to be an issue for a lot of people, I think. Like, where is this a good spot that's not going to get knocked off? You know, Stephen, the device I hear that's really good for cooking is the Vision Pro. I'm just kidding. Timers every angle. Don't do that. Jen, I just want to show you one last thing. I was inspired by HomeView and I didn't want to wait. So I vibe coded a new iPad app.

50:04Look at that. That's fantastic. That lets me put a HomeView widget. And live camera view. And you can fit more than nine widgets. You can. And does that just stay or you have to swipe to get to it? No. Well, it's an app. So it'll just stay. But you can also swipe for multiple pages of controls. Okay.

Why not just use an iPad

50:22So now we didn't answer your teaser question. And I have like two more minutes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Why should this not just be an iPad? Jason? You think this should have just been an iPad, right? Well, I don't think I said that specifically. What I think I said was... Everyone on the internet has been saying that. What I think is... Well, although the Pixel tablet with the base stand is actually kind of nice. I have one right there. But like, I just think most of the things you could... They didn't make a compelling case for anything you could do on this other than the HomeKit secure video, which doesn't bother me at all because I don't have any of that. That you couldn't just do on your iPhone or iPad. Yeah. Yeah. And I totally get that argument.

50:54And if you have your needs fully met by those two devices, great. But to me, I think when the iPad came out, that was an argument. It was like, why I can't do anything on this that I can't do on my iPhone other than it's just a slightly bigger screen. So I just, I feel like this device is another interface for interacting with devices and apps. Some apps, limited number of apps that you use on your phone or your iPad, but you don't want to be always pulling your phone out or pulling your iPad out in this setting.

51:29In the kitchen or in your bedroom, not having to have your iPhone in your bedroom. Like some people don't want their iPhones in their bedrooms. This gives you every, most of the basics you might still want without having to have your phone, without access to TikTok, without access to Candy Crush. And then, you know, this is what Apple's all about, right? More screens to do the things you want to do. So it seems like a natural extension to me of something where you've got a screen, you can do everything you already did on other devices, but it's a different interface and it is always plugged in.

52:04Right. It is always accessible and it isn't in a drawer or under the couch. And there's no battery that swells. And there's no battery that's going to die. You know, so it's the always on, always accessible element to it is something that neither of those two devices offer. And I think that is a selling point for this. If that's a use case that you have come across where you're like, oh, I want to change the thermostat and my phone's dead. But, okay, yes, you can get up and go and do it. And it has fast user switching. And it has fast user switching.

52:36It's the only Apple device with it. The multi-user device is obviously, and maybe they'll bring that to the iPad and maybe you'll be able to skin your iPad and into a home view down the line. But the multi-user switching will be definitely feels like a selling point because especially for families that don't necessarily want iPads, you've got a device that's a multi-user device in your home. So, yes, can you do everything on this that you can do on your iPhone and your iPad? I, yeah, you can.

53:08So, I can see, I definitely understand that argument. But I also just feel like this is a screen that people, especially families or a household, will find some use for. But I think it's going to be like most smart displays. You will find one or two things that you use this for. And that's pretty much all you do. Or you won't find a use at all and you'll send it back. So, it's because every home is different and this is the challenge with a smart home, finding use cases that are going to work for you regularly enough for you to want to invest in it.

53:41So, that's going to be whether this thing sinks or swims is if those use cases really do come across once you get them in your home and start playing with it. Well, I'm excited to get three of them. So, Jen, thanks so much for coming. We'll have you back sometime to talk about smart home. Wonderful. Thank you. Great to be here.