YHK - yet another hacker news clone

Apple basically made a HomePod mini that is also a Skylight - https://myskylight.com/calendar - and it's even competitively priced.

They could turn off all AI (turn off all of Siri even) and this would be one of the best products in the market.

They might be perfectly useable but not profitable enough

https://support.google.com/googlehome/thread/467705013/intro...

that’s why, obviously!</s>

Make it shiny enough, give people an easy way to rationalise the purchase and they'll buy your shit.

It seemed incredibly fake to me, and I couldn't identify a single interesting use case.

One of the motivations is to have a "master controller and dashboard" for the (smart-) home that's conveniently always attached and connected to the house itself.

Consider that many houses already have wall-mounted control panels in the main hallway or kitchen for the burglar alarm or thermostat. Replace that with an all-in-one smarthome touchscreen that configures the same security system as well as everything else ... HVAC, lights, blinds, door cam video feed, etc.

Examples of that concept from other home automation companies such as Crestron, Savant, Control4, etc:

https://www.google.com/search?q=Crestron+home+touchscreen+ho...

https://www.google.com/search?q=Savant+touchscreen+home&tbm=...

https://www.google.com/search?q=Control4+touchscreen+home&tb...

Apple's product marketing pages for HomeView at the moment don't heavily promote the idea of customized programming for home automations (HomeKit API) to compete with Crestron/Savant but many observers think Apple wants to expand into that space. (https://www.apple.com/home-app/)

A lot of homeowners don't want to be locked in with Crestron/Savant. Yes, Apple is itself also a "walled garden" but it's a more palatable lock-in situation than the ridiculous re-programming fees that Crestron dealers charge for every little change.

https://www.derekseaman.com/2025/11/home-assistant-hacking-y...

https://www.reddit.com/r/homeassistant/comments/1vow96e/amaz...

https://lee-soft.com/replacing-alexa-with-claude/

Otherwise, my Google Nest is going nowhere

Apple doesn't typically have the same incentives. It could turn out to be the perfect timing to fill the vacuum Amazon is leaving.

The "by the way..." nags irritated us so much we got rid of our two Echos and replaced them with a Sonos speaker and a Homepod Mini.

1984 would be if you had to carry a Internet connected camera around with you all the time. Brave new world would be if you had to carry around an entertainment device just to do your banking.

Ridiculous concepts..

In 2004 they produced a device with wireless audio over WiFi, that worked really well. It felt like the future. Then Sonos took over the market, and the rest of the market became flooded with products that didn't really work that well. E.g., in a home people would have a set of audio products to their TV, then a bluetooth boombox somewhere else, then just a laptop with internal speakers somewhere else - and not in a connected system.

Similarly with Home (automation) products, Apple launched their Home offering that seemed interesting and with the promise of an ecosystem. However, again - the market became dominated with e.g., Home Assistant, together with a flood of products and mini-ecosystems that don't really work that well. E.g., Samsung Home etc. And just like the audio market, Apple deliberately let it go.

Apple is one of the few players that can combine world class hardware, great user experience, and now increasingly privacy focused AI. You may not like their hardware, or their software, or think that their AI is not privacy focused. But it's still one of the few companies that can credibly do this.

I'm unsure if what we see is another meh / one-shot product that will be on the shelves with their HomePods. Or if it may be a stronger push into an interesting market where there the technology is far ahead of the products and ecosystems out there. Future will tell.

That's kind of what I want. I bought a Homepod Mini to replace an Echo and it has worked without me thinking about it for many years now.

The Echo was replaced because Amazon kept messing with it. The by-the-way prompts were so irritating. They were trying to solve a discoverability problem that I didn't have. If Amazon had neglected the device, it would probably still be in my kitchen.

Pricing is kind of in between those right?

It was $2800 with tax and a keyboard!

Nothing wrong with iPads They are just expensive

This is $350 in Canada. Literally free compared to everything else Apple sells!

if they just rebuilt the same device newer, better, with all of the old capabilities, I'd probably buy one.

Also, I believe that form factor was tried by both Meta and Google and didn't really click with people - who has so much free space near a power socket... in the kitchen ... in the morning ... lol.

Everyone in our family who sould have access to calendars/facetime/messages/etc. already does. It's overkill for just a smart speaker.

I guess maybe the kids who are too young to have their own device could more easily call their grandparents?

Cool hardware and a surprisingly affordable price, I just don't have a use case for it.

EDIT: The wall mounted version seems like a better form-factor though. Doesn't take up counter/table space at least.

This was one of the stumbling blocks that really put the final nail in Meta's Portal. You could call your friends on messenger or WhatsApp, but no 3rd party story for FaceTime, Zoom, Google... was a real problem for most folks

As much as I like Apple hardware I know unless I'm willing to go full Apple on hardware and services (eg. Apple Music in this example) I'm always going to have a mid experience trying to be on the fence of their walled garden.

Do you live in a former schoolhouse, or Uma Thurman's place from pulp fiction?

From their page:

"Additional apps. HomeView supports compatible third-party audio and video apps from your iPhone for a familiar experience across devices"

This implies that Plexamp could be supported, and possibly Messenger and Snapchat calls, but it's too early to tell.

> My house has a bunch of spots on the wall where an old intercom system used to live: it'd obviously be a budget buster to buy a bunch of these to fit in those slots but even if you did, you'd need Apple to provide an intercom solution (a la the Watch's Walkie-Talkie?) or you're...out of luck.

Apple Home already provides this. It's not a full voice chat, but you can tap a thing and say something and it'll broadcast it to the rest of the house; in my case, that's two HomePods Mini, but it's easy to assume it will include this as well.

If you're just looking to say "Hey kids, dinner's ready" or "We have to leave in 15 minutes" to the entire house then that circumstance is handled already; if you want to have a back-and-forth conversation with someone in another room, though, it doesn't do that (yet?).

What's also crazy is that they can detect fire alarms, will alert your iPhone, and then can pipe both sound and voice to the HomePod. It announces that it's going to do so, so it's not a privacy nightmare.

Pretty cool. I didn't know it existed until it happened. (Thankfully nothing bad.)

The Apple TV is the same price

iPhones and iPads are so expensive these days that this feels like a steal

I’m buying one for my parents and one for my in-laws for Christmas. Easy $300 gift that I know they won’t have.

I’m sure I’m not the only one who will have that idea

My only complaint is that a truly environmentally friendly company (like Apple claims to be!) would make this OS available for old iPads. I'm quite sure they're capable of running it (or at least a stripped down version thereof) and lots of people have old iPad Minis sitting around.

1. No apps. This would be perfect for my kitchen but I like to watch videos, movies, tv shows while I cook. The aspect ratio is not ideal, but the fact it won't support third party apps means that is not an option. Maybe it will support Airplay video and I can cast from my phone?

2. No battery means it is stuck to the wall. They had to work around this limitation in their own (excellent) promo video by drilling a hole in the middle of their kitchen island. The device would have a lot more utility if it could be moved around a lot and then say in a base station like a Sonos Move.

It looks like a nice device at a reasonable price. I looked at the video, but it doesn't solve any problems I have. We ban screens at the dinner table, it's for having attention for each other, not for screens. I never have to ask for a recipe for french toast, it's either in my head, or in cookbook, or written down on paper. The very rare number of cases someone loses their key, we can just look it up with Find My on the phone, it's such an irregular occurrence that it's not a hassle to find it with a phone. For random queries, phones with Siri can already listen, but the voice recognition or LLM fails on too many queries anyway not to be frustrating.

I could see it being useful as an additional control panel for the smart home, but Home Kit and the Home app are still pretty useless for the smart home. It can't even show a temperature graph or trend, let alone do many other things. So I would like a Home Assistant/Homey/whatever display (which would be possible if it supported apps).

I am sure this will sell plenty. It's an Apple device, people will just buy it for that reason, especially if it's not in the Apple Vision Pro price class. Will the get used a lot? Probably by a very small subset of people. Just like Siri doesn't get used a lot beyond setting timers when you are not in an English-speaking country, or even worse, use multiple languages in daily life. I am not in the US and most people I know never use Siri.

Aside from that most people seem to be more interested in digital detox than getting more pervasive tech in their lives.

I feel like it may be the kind of product that makes people realize how much they had become owned by one coroporation.

And, as the word hit usually meant for something positive, I just wish to highlight that being a financial success does not always mean that something is sensible, worthwhile, beneficial considering the overall picture. Usually being pretty is enough.

It is like the Apple XDR display. Cool to have, but useless in the grand scheme of things.

I feel like maybe the answer is browser-integrated LLM plugins tasked with "I don't ever want to see anything having to do with this topic of argument ever again."

"Did you mean your device labeled "tv"?"

Yes Siri ffs that's literally the only device called "tv" I have

I foresee a bunch of cheap but relatively sturdy wall mounts for the desktop version.

Huh, good idea, thanks!

The Home app launched in 2016 (HomeKit in 2014).

The Health app launched in 2014. Both apps meant to work with third party devices/apps and act as a hub of information.

The entry ticket is cheap, then you'll probably pay to extend your system.

Is this going to work like the Apple TV device? On that you have to pick a user when it starts but then when you open an app like Hulu, you have to pick a user there as well. Why doesn't the Apple TV tell Hulu what profile to use?

Worse, if you open Spotify it just starts with the last user that authenticated so I never know who's account I'm vandalizing as I listen to stuff and star songs as favorites.

Unless they've figured out the multi-user stuff, maybe it would be better to just create a famliy devices Apple ID and use that for shared devices?

that said, also what's with the kids being disrespectful, untruthful, dismissive, and patronizing (in that order) to their parents...I bet these kids were a joy to be around as toddlers and will continue to be so as "formed" adults

$300 is a compelling price, but I have a hard time imaging this being successful.

This commercial fell completely flat for me. It's cringe like they're trying to be a sitcom, but all the jokes miss. It's not cool or aspirational. I don't leave thinking I need this new thing in my kitchen.

It manages to show the product’s features but that’s about it.

Idk, to me it's just one more step in widening of the technological Overton window.

The point of a secure enclave is to reduce the attack surface to something you can actually reason about the entire thing.

Sticking more and more in there is asking to defeat the whole purpose.

So...no voice command? Or, is accessible by operating system or Apple?

Does any third party periodically verify and audit this claim?

— or —

Do we blindly "just trust Apple, bro"?

And even if it did work as expected, given the track record of 3 lettres agences, the chance they didn't gag order their way into a back door for this one is also very low.

I find it naïve that after what we learned for the last 20 years people still believe this PR.

I tried multiple ways, contacted their support and they just kept me trying to do the same thing over and over again. For some reason I could not register my device with my development account. Tried multiple SDKs to get it to work, just ran into the same isue.

But frankly Apple's developer documentation sucks around this, and unsurprisingly people don't understand what's going on when even developers don't.

I am also guessing this is why early OS X was plasticky like the hardware, and mid-2000s was brushed metal.

It's a related device in a different form factor. Some people will buy it, most will not. Just like Apple TV.

I feel called out here, I looked at this and thought "I've already built this". I've got a RPi with screen and speakers that displays a Home Assistant dashboard as a smart alarm clock and smart home controller.

Secure Exclaves are special isolated processes that run on the same application processor as the regular OS. They're a very new OS feature and AFAIK Apple has barely talked about them until now.

Exclaves are isolated because Apple made a proprietary CPU extension called Guarded Exception Levels. It lets you separate an ARM exception level out into two privilege levels: guarded and unguarded. The guarded level can have different page permissions from the unguarded level, and switching between the two modes is extremely fast. Apple uses this to lock down iOS: its kernel, XNU, has it's entire virtual memory system hollowed out and replaced with a thing called the Secure Page Table Monitor (SPTM). XNU lives in EL2 (ARM hypervisor) but SPTM lives in GL2 (guarded hypervisor). In this configuration, SPTM is the only thing that can allocate memory, and it controls all memory allocations in the system. This is specifically why jailbreaks have become far harder to make[0]: you basically need to hack SPTM to get anything.

XNU, strangely enough, lives in both EL2 and EL1 (ARM kernel); but Apple also uses GL1 (guarded kernel) for a second, funnier OS called the Secure Kernel (SK). SK has its own exclusive resources and userland. Processes that run under SK cannot be tampered with or monitored by XNU because SPTM isolates them and their kernel from XNU. This is used for isolating any particularly security sensitive thing.

For example, code signing enforcement happens in an Exclave[1]. XNU can't run unsigned processes because it needs SPTM to bless the pages. But SPTM is supposed to be a very small attack surface; there is a long history of using memory safety bugs in the verification code to gain higher levels of privilege, so putting that code in GL2 would be bad. Instead, it gets put in an Exclave, where:

- A compromised XNU cannot tamper with the verifier, because SPTM won't give it write access to the pages.

- A compromised verifier doesn't compromise the whole system, because it's not part of SPTM/GL2.

- A compromised verifier can't interfere with other exclaves, because they're isolated by SK.

The only thing a compromised verifier can do is fail to reject an unsigned program, which would let you run specific unsigned code in EL0. You would not suddenly get kernel mode access from a verifier failure.

Anyway, what makes this relevant for HomeView is that all the microphone data processing can be isolated in an Exclave from the rest of the OS. So if the CIA wants to force your HomeView to listen to you, it needs to either compromise SPTM (very hard), or find a (non-memory-related) logic error in the listener exclave.

[0] This is also morally the same scheme as the Xbox 360 hypervisor that went decades without a softmod

[1] Morally speaking, it's an Exclave; it lives in GL0. But technically the code signing enforcement is in a different SPTM domain from the Secure Kernel, called the "Trusted Execution Monitor" (TXM). I would not be surprised if Apple migrates it over to an Exclave in the future.

Apple is almost certainly making money selling the hardware itself. It’s a completely different business model. They don’t need people to use it a certain way to be a success. They just need people to buy it.

With this thing ... it remains to be seen what happens in practice.

The last base iPad still supported on the current OS must be the 2020 version. There was a blip in the corona years, but since the iPad sales have been declining, so the amount of devices still up to date aren't that many.

Lots of parents want to manage it

This is a new device like a home phone.

Kids can securely call who they are allowed to from a fixed location, not wandering off with a device.

This looks like a modern Google Home Screen, likely matching the market when it seems obvious.

Edit: Typos.

So this is two birds for me

It’s really out of touch. I don’t see any benefit over any old tablet.

It doesn't have to do a lot to be useful. If there are even a couple consistent daily use cases I can see this making sense for some people. Even if just means I don't need to go grab my iPad/iPhone from the couch to set a timer or ask a quick question.

I'm not sure if this is a kitchen device, maybe an edge of the kitchen device, where a desk or landline cordless phone used to be in some homes.

Apple moving into home is one thing, also people being uncertain about apple releasing new product categories is also not new.

Personally it feels like some of the features in this have been researched with the audience who will buy it (homeowners, parents, kids, etc) which are shown in the imaging as well. This can seem a little off because Apple is usually creating something for everyone and not just some.

The main thing about the screen being on a stand is a child can't be too tempted to walk aroudn with it, or touch it (guided access aside).

As you get older you start to realise half of hot takes are a result of living in a different half of the economy which doesn't quite get things like the suburbs are appealing

Basically, people use them for photos, kitchen timers, quick recipe lookups, quick questions, and "can a dog eat the thing I just dropped".

That’s why this device has multi-user support: you’re only supposed to have one of them, which everyone uses. The Apple TV also has good multi-user support, because Apple doesn’t expect you to connect one Apple TV per user to your television.

I suspect the reason for this is that it’s not a mobile device and can afford to have the camera always on.

you'd be surprised how much of a barrier this is for average consumer

You've just realized they're going to obsolete all those products.

After a couple years of use of trying to use the iPad exactly as you stated here (it's lived 24/7 on my kitchen island, I've realized iPadOS is not that great to use in this way).

I'll be happy to have a "dumbed down" stationary device that serves no purpose but exactly what it's intended for.

That's just me, though; I get why many others may disagree. This is just my experience of actually using it in the way in which I will be replacing it for.

Apple could most likely replicate the software on an old iPad. But I think this would still be popular because of its form factor.

Note amazon has a competitor to this that I tried out, the echo show. It's horrible as it just shovels advertisements at you all the time.

That said, at $300 this is a great Christmas gift to some family. Not too expensive, not too suggestive, probably useful, etc.

- be always on (to work as a hub),

- have latest Siri AI on-device,

- support multiple users (without FaceID).

https://support.apple.com/en-us/111795

And the real competition for these are things like the "Tuya WiFi Zigbee 8 inch Smart Home Central Control Knob Screen Zigbee Gateway Voice Switch Multi-function Light Control Panel" (yeah well at least it isn't a Sony code name I guess?)[1]

[1] https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005009736034137.html

So I don't want to rule out that it'll carve out its own niche. But I do think that they probably wanted this to be a $200 device and RAM prices prevented it. If this was cheap enough and customizable enough, it'd be...really nice to have this on the wall in the kids' bedrooms! They'd get a calendar, clock, intercom, access to music. That's actually a pretty compelling value proposition, but $300 is gonna be waaaaay outside of that for most people.

It supports ads. That's much better!

https://www.ikea.com/us/en/p/bergenes-holder-for-mobile-phon...

Currently I have an older iPad on a stand I can move anywhere in my kitchen I want and use Paprika on it for recipes.

No Paprika. No Overcast. No Spotify. No Plex. No Home Assistant. etc...

what a stupid thing to winge about

You'd think there would be an audience for using the TV as a big video phone, but that never happened. One could blame it on consumer trust, but that has never stopped them from adopting all other kinds of questionable things.

Maybe I watched too much sci-fi, but using a big screen to make video calls seems like such a natural extension for a TV.

I wonder how HomeView handles two people looking at the device at the same time. Like, whose profile does it pick? I imagine this is going to be a common scenario - a couple looking at the day's agenda together.

This device (being a Matter hub) doesn't change any of that.

The fact that they're partnering with select companies on producing sanctioned devices also doesn't change any of that.

- Photo frame - Calendar view - Home control - Facetime

It's a bonus that the kids can talk to it for LLM answers too.

> If you use apps that play audio or video and support CarPlay, though, you’re in luck: HomeView supports those apps, and just those apps, via projection from your iPhone. So if you’re a fan of Overcast or Spotify, you’re in luck.