CUPERTINO — Apple has introduced a new device called Apple HomeView, designed to be central to the home and personal to everyone in it. With a 7-inch Liquid Retina display, HomeView brings entertainment, connection, and smart home management together in one place, from playing music and making FaceTime calls to home monitoring and hands-free automations with voice control.
The HomeView is priced at $299 and will be available on November 13 to customers in Australia, Canada, India, New Zealand, the UK, and the U.S.. The device sounds similar to Meta’s Portal device that was launched in 2018 but eventually fizzled out in 2022. It also looks like a small iMac G4 made by Apple from 2002 with its base and tilting screen.
Apple’s HomeView recognizes users by their faces, adapting so they can access their personal content in Messages, FaceTime, Calendar, Reminders, and Find My. HomeView features Siri AI, an entirely new version of Siri that’s profoundly more capable and conversational, with broad world knowledge that powers richer music discovery and onscreen awareness. When paired with an Apple Intelligence-enabled device, it can also draw on a user’s personal context, such as their Calendar, Messages, and relevant information across their apps, to provide more helpful, personalized responses.
Designed to fit in any space, HomeView can be placed on a tabletop as the center of the home or wall-mounted to fit in spaces like the entryway or hallway.
“Apple HomeView is designed to be shared by everyone in the home yet feel completely personal to each user,” said Greg Joswiak, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing. “It recognizes your face to shift from a household screen to your own experience, fills the room with incredible sound, keeps you connected to the people who matter most with FaceTime, and makes it easy to control your smart home. And it’s powered by Apple Intelligence with Siri AI at its core, drawing on personal context from your iPhone to help you find what you need and get more done, all while keeping everyone’s information private and secure.”
