Props to Apple for making this. Always cool to see them try stuff. That said:

I watched their video demo with the family getting ready in the morning: there are some interesting ideas here but imo if this doesn't get reasonably full access to the App Store then it's a no-go for me. Like: FaceTime while cooking, sure, but those calls tend to happen on Messenger and Snapchat for us. Music in the kitchen, sure, but I run Plexamp. My kids are always stealing my iPad to run the Toybox 3D printer; this would be a great thing for them to use.

And so on.

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.

> this doesn't get reasonably full access to the App Store then it's a no-go for me

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?).

I suspect this might be the beginning of a new turn for Apple strategy under Ternus: more satellite hardware that’s cheap(ish) compared to the flagship devices & locked down, reliant on your iPhone to do anything useful, pushing you to use exclusively Apple services rather than 3rd party ones. The App Store strategy is a thing of the past.

It makes sense they'd eventually do that. The Apple TV didn't launch with an App Store, and it took 8 years after its first generation to get an App Store! I'd guess Apple sees that most apps wouldn't make sense for the HomeView, and they'll likely restrict what categories of apps can launch on it.

My life is basically the family in this ad, and I just have a hard time imagining how one of these would make anything better.

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.

> if this doesn't get reasonably full access to the App Store then it's a no-go for me

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

Same, all of the apps they demo in the video are not useful in my family - we use a different messenger, different calendar, different video calling app... it's not just about the App Store, if it's supposed to integrate with house things (there was the doorbell camera in the video) it needs to work with "homes" from other vendors, not just HomeKit.

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.

Homepods have intercom support.

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.)

I strongly agree. Lack of support for Plexamp is a dealbreaker for me. At minimum they're going to need to support Spotify or they'll kill the product. I think it will probably need YouTube support as well. There is a worryingly sparse amount of information published about what it will support.

There’s a potential argument that’s brewing how software moat is null, distribution is still hard-to-impossible to crack. A company, could, spin up software very easily by monitoring the requests of the existing clients that have purchased the hardware. Having such teams that push out software would be valuable, as you’d get a complete walled garden experience. Would be hard to pull off though, as your marketing team needs to be insanely good at convincing people that the product itself is valuable.

> Music in the kitchen, sure, but I run Plexamp.

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.

Apple Home already has a Walkie-Talkie feature.

"My kids are always stealing my iPad to run the Toybox 3D printer; this would be a great thing for them to use." Is it? Why not get them a iPad instead?

> former intercom

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

they already provide intercom with the homepods, its not great, but it exists.

home.app already has an intercom feature that can play to all devices in the home.