By Dan Moren
Apple announces HomeView smart display
As was widely expected, Apple today took the wraps off its “HomePod with a screen”, dubbed the HomeView.
The device features a seven-inch Liquid Retina display with multitouch, at 1088-by-1088 resolution and is powered by an A18 chip. It comes in two different styles: a model intended to sit on a tabletop with a half-dome and small tilt-adjustable arm holding up the display, and one that’s meant to be wall-mounted. The former comes in silver, starlight, rose pink, and space gray options, while the latter has only silver and space gray.
The other main distinction between the two is the addition of more speakers on the tabletop version: a custom down-firing woofer and dual force-cancelling passive radiators. Both, however, nominally support spatial audio with Dolby Atmos. If you opt for the wall-mounted version, you can pick up a wall mount sold separately.
That A18 chip gives the HomeView enough juice to run Siri AI, which is at the heart of the new experience. The HomeView comes with a subset of built-in apps familiar from Apple’s devices, including Calendar, Home, Safari, Music, Messages, Podcasts, Weather, FaceTime, and more. Additional apps can be powered by a connected iPhone, including Apple News and Apple TV, as well as “supported third-party audio and video apps.” Apple says the device will recognize up to six people and gives them each their own home screen, while still allowing some shared features amongst all members of a household, such as music or shared photo albums. A 12MP Center Stage camera allows for FaceTime calls.
In terms of interface, the HomeView is reminiscent of the Apple Watch, with a customizable clock screen and various “faces”, including a Home Modular face that provides access to your commonly used smart home devices.
Apple also showed off a recipe specific mode that can detect recipes in Safari and format them appropriately for the device.
Both versions of the HomeView cost $299 and will be available on November 13. Pre-orders are open today for customers in Australia, Canada, India, New Zealand, the UK, and the U.S. The device is not available in the European Union, due to the lack of Siri AI in that region.
[Dan Moren is the East Coast Bureau Chief of Six Colors, as well as an author, podcaster, and two-time Jeopardy! champion. You can find him on Mastodon at @dmoren@zeppelin.flights or reach him by email at dan@sixcolors.com. His next novel, the sci-fi adventure Eternity's Tomb, will be released in November 2026.]
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