You Can Always Go Home ⭐

Today, Apple announced a major do-over for its smart home platform, with new HomeView smart speakers and other hardware. But this is a rare area in which Apple seems to be copying Google instead of the reverse by half-assing and ignoring this market over the past several years. Why would we trust them now?

I will give Apple a little credit in that Apple Home is superior to Google Home as an ecosystem. But that's a low bar: Google has been flailing wildly as it tries to evolve its smart home ecosystem into something more cohesive in the Gemini era, and while I'm sure it will get there eventually, we've been saying that for years.

Regardless, the problems with Apple Home are many, the most obvious being that it's a one-way, dead-end street and can only be accessed from Apple devices. Google Home, for all its faults, is available on Android and other Google-based devices, of course, but also on Apple's. But this is yet another instance in which our reliance on Big Tech ecosystems is perhaps misguided. I wrote that while eyeing Home Assistant, a Little Tech smart home ecosystem, and thinking about how the industry-wide adoption of Matter, Thread, and other smart home standards should make switching easier when needed.

But that's for the future. Maybe. Today, Apple Home is already more stable and reliable than Google Home. Both apps are basically dashboards for whatever smart home devices they can interact with, but Apple Home is subjectively cleaner-looking and better organized. And now Apple Home is getting, what? Better? I guess. It's getting some attention, at least, if belatedly.

Infamously, the HomeView smart display was delayed by a year because Apple couldn't figure out how to make sense of Siri AI before it gave up, partnered with Google, and finally released the results in its '27 OS platform upgrades back in September. It's not exactly what I was hoping for--there's a tabletop version and one you hang on the wall, but both have small (and square) 7-inch displays--and the related HomePod Mini and Apple TV refreshes are so minor that they're uneventful. Also, where's the full-sized HomePod refresh that's even more desperately needed? Or a sound bar for home theater setups?

Then again, maybe we're better off without too many Apple speakers. I've been using HomePods here in Pennsylvania (with the larger version) and in Mexico City (with two Minis) since mid-2024, driven in part by my visceral reaction to Sonosgate but also by the pragmatic belief that these speakers would provide a seamless experience with the Apple TV 4K I use in both locations. But this is both true and untrue, as it turns out. HomePods are difficult to set up and configure, and if I hadn't had access to a Mac, my HomePod Minis would have never worked. And the HomePods we have here in PA have had connectivity issues all this past week, with my Apple TV going to mute as they disappear. It's almost like they knew a new Apple TV was coming and were trying to...