HomeView
Spoot: Spotted Early keeps HomeView in one place: 3 stories so far. The section currently leads with “Apple's HomeView is a chimera of nostalgia, and that's exactly the point”, “Apple finally built a smart home hub, and it brought some friends”, and “John Ternus is making Apple weird again and twelve new designs prove it”. The iMac G4's floating display was always the best thing Apple ever put on a desk, and HomeView finally brings that energy to the wall. Spoot: Spotted Early New things, caught while they're still new and a little weird. Spoot finds fresh gadgets, clever inventions, crowdfunding campaigns,… The list below is every HomeView story on Spoot: Spotted Early, newest first.
Apple's HomeView is a chimera of nostalgia, and that's exactly the point
The iMac G4's floating display was always the best thing Apple ever put on a desk, and HomeView finally brings that energy to the wall. A 7-inch smart display that borrows the iPad's touchscreen, the Apple Watch's familiar faces, and a HomePod's speaker base? That's a chimera worth taking seriously. It's nostalgic, sure, but nostalgia isn't a flaw when the original design was this good. The real question is whether it earns its spot as the center of the connected home, or just becomes another screen demanding attention. I'm gently skeptical, but also already checking where it fits. If you want the full picture of Apple's smart home push, our piece on how John Ternus is making Apple weird again pairs nicely with this one. Stay spooty.
Apple finally built a smart home hub, and it brought some friends
Apple finally built a smart home hub, and it brought some friends. The HomeView is Apple's first smart display, and it arrives with a 7-inch squircle design that looks like a gargantuan smart speaker grew a face. It costs $299 and preorders are open, which is nice because Apple has been threatening to make a smart display for years and years without ever actually doing it. The HomePod Mini 2 also finally exists after nearly six years, coming in at $149 with preorders open and a Friday launch date. Spoot already has a tab open on that one. The whole "Welcome Home" event dropped a slate of new smart home and security accessories too, built with trusted third-party manufacturers. It is the most serious hardware push Apple Home has seen in a long time.
John Ternus is making Apple weird again and twelve new designs prove it
John Ternus is making Apple weird again, and twelve new designs prove it. Fifteen years of polished arrivals, of showing up late with the best snacks, gone. Under Ternus, Apple has shipped twelve new designs in six weeks, and they don't feel like committee decisions. They feel like someone finally asked what if the thing had a hinge that made you stop, or a material that shouldn't work but does. I love it. This is the Apple that used to burrow into your curiosity and stay there. It helps that the new Citroën 2CV concept is doing something similar on wheels, reinventing a classic as a tiny electric roll-top, weird and wonderful. Ternus isn't polishing a legacy; he's prying it open.