Tech News Weekly 459 Transcript
Please be advised that this transcript is AI-generated and may not be word-for-word. Time codes refer to the approximate times in the ad-free version of the show.
Mikah Sargent [00:00:00]:
Coming up on Tech News Weekly, Jennifer Pattison Tuohy of The Verge is here, and Jen was at Apple's Welcome Home event, so we take some time to talk about her hands-on with Home View, with the new, very expensive Apple TV, with the second-party gadgets from LG and Schneider, and so much more. Then a quick little update about how 8 US states have all decided to sue OpenAI. All of that coming up on Tech News Weekly.
Mikah Sargent [00:00:41]:
This is Tech News Weekly, episode 459, with Jennifer Pattison Tuohy and me, Mikah Sargent, recorded Thursday, October 15th, 2026. Apple's smart home reset. Hello and welcome to Tech News Weekly, the show where every week we talk to and about the people making and breaking that tech news. I am your host, Mikah. And I am joined this week by the wonderful, the amazing, the ever-so-talented Jennifer Pattison Tuohy. Welcome, Jen.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:01:14]:
Hello. What a lovely intro that one was. Just keep going.
Mikah Sargent [00:01:18]:
Yeah, I can. You're a rock star, and I am very excited to be talking to you today and also grateful that you're here, given that you have probably just been on a whirlwind tour. Tell us where you were.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:01:34]:
Yeah. Yeah, I just returned home from New York City where I attended, um, Apple's Welcome Home event where they launched a whole bunch of smart home products. So it was like my Christmas and Super Bowl and all of the stuff. Not really Super Bowl because I don't really care about the Super Bowl, but you know what I mean. It was a fun event for me.
Mikah Sargent [00:01:56]:
Absolutely. Yeah, I mean, this is— this was Of course, like I got into Apple before they got into the smart home in a big way, but when they did, it felt like all of my worlds were sort of aligning. And I remember kind of being a little sad at how people reacted to HomeKit in the first place. And me also having to reconcile with the fact that at the time, it really was kind of difficult to use and to find gadgets that actually supported it. And a lot has happened, a lot has changed. A lot has improved. And for Apple to be having a Home event that isn't just, hey, we've got some new HomePods, is pretty, pretty—
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:02:45]:
Unprecedented.
Mikah Sargent [00:02:46]:
Unprecedented. Unprecedented.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:02:48]:
This is, I mean, I didn't dive deep into the annals, but I'm fairly certain this was the first truly smart home dedicated event they'd ever put on. I don't really count a HomePod launch as a smart home event because the HomePod is really an audio device. It's a content consumption device with a side
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:03:10]:
of home automation. Like, it wasn't developed to be a smart home hub. It just worked that way. That's true. This was smart home. They even had a— so this was all held at— in Tribeca at Apple's townhouse there, which I think they've held They've held many events at, or well, it's not technically an event. So this is not like a Cupertino level, like Phil Schiller and John Ternus and get on stage type thing. This wasn't that.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:03:37]:
This was much more intimate, smaller. They had some Apple execs there talking about the products, but it was, it wasn't a big dog and pony show. It was held in a house, which was very fitting. And they had a doormat that had welcome home written on it. So it was all very themed nicely. Beautiful. You would have loved this. I'm trying to think if I have a picture you could pull up, but, uh, Mikah, they had, you know, the Apple Home logo that they showed off last week when they advertised the event that was hand embroidered?
Mikah Sargent [00:04:10]:
Yeah.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:04:11]:
They had a full life-size, well, more than life-size version of that, um, with all the threads pooled at the bottom in all the different colors. It was beautiful. I think there's a video, one of the videos I posted had, has has it in the background. So yeah, they really sort of leaned into the sort of cozy, warm home atmosphere. And they had all the products sort of set up in an actually beautifully interior-designed apartment that you could sort of walk through and play with all the devices. And as well as doing a little presentation and the video, they showed a video which I— if anyone here hasn't watched after you listen to this, go watch. Which even encapsulates Apple's vision of what their newest product that they announced called the Home View is, which is basically this sort of central hub for your home, but not in the smart home sense, even though it is a smart home hub, but in the sort of hub for your family. Like, this is where everyone in the family can go to check their calendar, check their text messages, follow a recipe while they're cooking, play music.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:05:18]:
That's, that's what sort of the concept of this Home View device is, which is their very first smart display and was the showpiece of the event along with a bunch of other stuff.
Mikah Sargent [00:05:29]:
Yes. And there's so much, um, before we continue, I'm, this is just for the livestream to see. I wanted to let you know that the, um, the like technical director machine that we use to show all of this stuff and do everything doesn't have a Verge subscription. So I just want you to know, like pretend as though your articles are being shown because they will I see. Yeah.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:05:56]:
So that's—
Mikah Sargent [00:05:57]:
yeah, it's getting— it's hitting the paywall, I've just been told. So we're not able— because I don't know if you knew this, but I don't show the articles. John does that from his end. And our— that it's like a remote machine somewhere in some cloud. And so anyway, I see.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:06:13]:
No, that makes sense. Yeah. So hopefully you'll have the pic. There's me standing in front of the logo, which is all the old classic Apple colors, but all in huge threads, like, which is a great connection to the smart home because of Thread, but also gives you that kind of, you know, we're moving away from high tech and towards sort of warm and fuzzy, comfortable home environment. And that's what this space really felt like, although really expensive Manhattan apartment style. Yeah.
Mikah Sargent [00:06:45]:
So that's one of the first things that I was kind of curious about before, because we've gotta get into the Home View first. But I wanted to ask, you. Traditionally, to me, it has felt like some of these companies, in particular Apple, because of its premiumness, misses the average consumer. And I remember my former colleague Serenity Caldwell from iMore, who now works at Apple. She was invited to the original HomePod event. And she was talking about the setup there. They did a similar thing in terms of sort of setting up a location. But she was talking about these were these huge, you know, very tall ceilings, and sort of— it did not match what the average person is experiencing.
Mikah Sargent [00:07:36]:
Do you feel like, as you walked into this and you saw the apartment, was it more of a real apartment this time, or was it still kind of that sort of heightened apartment experience?
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:07:49]:
No, I— so, they actually had 2 separate apartments, which was kind of neat. So, they had in 2 different styles. One was a sort of very modern, more Apple-y, I suppose, more maybe San Francisco style. And then the other was much sort of cozier and less imposing. And actually, they had the interior designer there who had designed the space come and give a little talk about how she had been inspired, what kind of look she went for. And she said, my initial reaction was, okay, this is like tech, so I'm gonna do all like sort of, you know, ultra-modern and steel and metal. And then she said, so then I took that and threw it away and went the complete opposite. And it all had beautiful draped curtains and lots of fabrics, and you would have loved it, Mikah.
Mikah Sargent [00:08:41]:
It sounds like it.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:08:42]:
And it was much more maximalist, not that kind of sleek, sort of mid-century modern look. It was more kind of cozy. But yes, Tall ceilings, but they made it feel more cozy and home-like. Because I think, you know, these— and the products don't really fit that space in that sense, because unlike, say, the Google Home products, which I think have always been really good at trying to fit into the space with their more fabric— they were the first company that kind of really went with the fabric look for some of these products. But they did blend in. So— and that was what I found quite impressive about this space is as you walked around it, it didn't feel like you were walking through a tech showroom. It did really feel like a home. And I actually walked past the products and didn't notice them and had to like go back and go, oh, there's one there.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:09:35]:
Because they didn't overstuff them. They put them in the way that it would be in most people's homes. So I was— I give Apple big props for the way they presented it. I think they did a really nice job with this.
Mikah Sargent [00:09:46]:
Nice. So let's get into the— What it was. What it was. Yeah, because we had been here We've been hearing about this from, as I call him, Mark Bloomberg, Mark Gurman of Bloomberg. You're not putting that out there. About the—
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:10:00]:
He should probably officially change his name.
Mikah Sargent [00:10:02]:
I agree. I think he should. Next time I have him on the show, I'll ask him. No, I won't. So I, we've been hearing about this sort of iPad plus HomePod child, and it's finally here. Tell us about the name, if it matched your expectations of what you thought it would be, and, you know, actually getting a chance to go hands-on with it, what that was like.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:10:28]:
Yeah, yeah. Okay, so basically this was an entirely new device category for Apple, the smart display. Obviously if you've been in the smart home space for the last almost decade, I think 2018 was when the first smart display came out. This is a category that's been around, but really only Amazon and Google has done much in this space and a few third-party manufacturers. The device is called the Home View, and this smart display is something that's designed to just stay in your home. So there's no battery, no removable display. This is not an iPad, it is not a laptop, but it is designed to be a screen in your home that gives you like quick access to information, entertainment, FaceTime calls, and of course it's a smart home controller. So it basically, it has a whole has the Apple Home app sort of reskinned and in into this device, which actually did surprise me because we'd had all the rumors but we had never had any real idea of perspective and size.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:11:35]:
We'd heard it was going to be a 7-inch display, but it was only once you see it that you realize, ah, this is so different from what I was expecting. It was much smaller than I was expecting. It doesn't look like the cross between a HomePod And an iPad. It looks like a cross between a HomePod Mini and an Apple Watch.
Mikah Sargent [00:11:51]:
Wow.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:11:52]:
So it's like—
Mikah Sargent [00:11:53]:
That's the quote for this episode right there.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:11:57]:
A giant Apple Watch, but still an Apple Watch, not an iPad. Especially it has big, actually really quite big bezels, which a lot of people hated. I really liked it. Kind of had more of a retro feel for me, which again, I think fits nicely in the home because it's also a photo display. This is something that most smart displays do very well— show your photos— and this does that brilliantly. And with the bezel, it sort of gives more of a, this is a photo frame feel, as opposed to, this is a screen. So yeah, and it has a 7-inch square Liquid Retina display, which I think is Apple's fancy term for LCD. But it also has— it's like a True Tone.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:12:38]:
It's two tones. Oh, yes. So it really did look nice from all angles. that was quite strategically placed so there wasn't an awful lot of glare. But, you know, it's not matte. It's not— you definitely have some glare. So that's something, you know, most photo frame devices like this do sort of suffer from, other than the Google Nest Hubs have solved that one quite well. But there are 2 versions.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:13:02]:
There's a tabletop version and a wall-mounted version. And
Mikah Sargent [00:13:07]:
they're the same price somehow.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:13:09]:
They're the same price. And this is quite controversial because the wall mounts are really expensive. They're so expensive.
Mikah Sargent [00:13:13]:
And then I saw something that said if you don't get the right one, it's possible that the thing won't even launch, uh, because of that. Like, so this was in the Post, uh, Apple's, you know, fine print of, well, it's the same thing at one point, HomePod Minis, um, if you used a different, uh, AC adapter, they wouldn't even turn on. And of course Apple's saying like, well, you know, it's about making sure that the actual amount of power is there and also safety. Yes. Like, I get it. But also, come on, $120-something for the power over Ethernet version?
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:13:49]:
I know. So it's, yeah, $60 for the basic one, the USB-C, and then yeah, $130 for PoE. And it's not just a cable, it is an actual mount. And they, it's designed by, built by Schneider Electric, which is the company that makes all of like your in-home electrical panels. So they know about putting things in walls, but it has magnets in it. That the device snaps to. So you're not screwing the device in, it's magnetically attached. I think this is where the whole MagSafe idea, where all the rumors were that it was going to be MagSafe.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:14:21]:
So it's, it's, it is quite an advanced mount. It's not like a cheapo thing. But it does seem a little tough to swallow that both the tabletop and the wall-mounted model are $300 when the wall-mounted model misses the whole bottom half, which is also a speaker. So you're losing something and paying the same amount and then having to spend more money on the mount. So that is definitely a tough swallow. Although, to be fair, for most people, I think the tabletop model is the one you're going to want unless you're doing like a big remodel or building a new home or something. Um, I just, I feel like the tabletop version is the, the simple And it looks nice. And my favourite thing about the tabletop one is that it is— I'm gonna say it.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:15:10]:
Can I say it the English way or the American way? Aluminium. Ooh.
Mikah Sargent [00:15:14]:
The Americans love the English way, so be my guest. Now, that's something that I wanted to ask you about because—
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:15:21]:
Why is that good?
Mikah Sargent [00:15:23]:
I don't— that's— who knows? But the— there's been some confusion, including my own. I didn't do a good enough job of reading through all of the fine print. And Can you explain where are the speakers in these 2 and do you lose quality by getting the wall-mounted one? How much sort of speaker sound do you lose that way? Yeah, because some people are saying it's just a subwoofer. The bass is just a subwoofer. And yeah, so tell us a little bit about that.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:15:57]:
So there are 2 Oh, I'm not good with, with, um, I'm not good with speaker names. Let me, um, but there are 2, 2, what do you call—
Mikah Sargent [00:16:08]:
Tweeters usually?
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:16:10]:
No, they didn't call it a tweeter. Um, there are 2 in the display itself.
Mikah Sargent [00:16:16]:
Drivers?
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:16:17]:
Um, well, and there were 2 in, 2 in the display itself and then one in the base. Um, and that is— so the base one is for the bass. The bass is in the bass, um, and it does give you, um— but when you buy the wall-mounted one, you're only getting the 2 that are in the tabletop, but they— that are in the display. But they say that the display is actually designed— they've designed it acoustically so that when it is wall-mounted, it will sound better. However, um, I only got to hear the tabletop version. I never— they never played the wall-mounted version, so I will have to tell you. Here we go. Okay, so the, the 2 speaker drivers in the display plus a woofer and 2 force-canceling passive radiators in the base for bass.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:17:16]:
Um, and I, when I heard the tabletop version, um, I would say it's louder than a HomePod Mini but nowhere near a HomePod. So that, to my point earlier, is that this is not a HomePod with an iPad. This is definitely a HomePod mini with a large Apple Watch. And that was an expectation I hadn't had. It was much smaller than I was expecting. So I, you wouldn't buy this for, if you wanted a HomePod for music, buy the HomePod. This is not, and no, and I would say this about any smart display. All of the Echo speakers sound better than the Echo Shows.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:17:55]:
Of the Google Nest speakers sound better than the Nest Hubs, because when you stick a screen in front of a speaker, you are messing with the acoustics. But this does have the 2 speakers in the display, so it had good sound coming out towards you as well as the sound underneath. And it's an AirPlay device, so you can— if you have one of these and say 2 HomePods in your living room, you can AirPlay the sound around. And then it also— the thing, the thing I like actually though about the base being aluminium, um, I— is as much as I like the fabric display bases that we've had, they look beautiful, a year on they don't. I have a white HomePod in my kitchen and it is now off-white, um, because, you know, it gets grease and grime, especially in a kitchen space. And having something you can wipe clean, I think, was a good move by Apple here, even though know some people are sort of like, oh, but it doesn't— it feels too techy. The other nice thing I think they did with this design is you actually really don't see the speaker. The display really kind of covers it.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:19:04]:
It covers it quite fully, but you can tilt the display back and forth. It's on a stainless steel arm. It's kind of a shame you can't tilt it side to side. I think that would be nice. But as Mark Bloomberg has reported— that one's going to catch on.
Mikah Sargent [00:19:23]:
Oh no, he's going to be so mad.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:19:26]:
They are working on the next version of this, which will have an arm to rotate. But the UI of the display is kind of the thing that sort of caught my attention the most because I found I loved the faces. And I know, Mikah, you're a big Apple Watch fan, aren't you? Yeah, I am. So like, you can— they actually call these faces. It's not a home screen or a display. They have faces for your home view. And lots, like, very similar to the Apple Watch. And you can just sort of swipe through and there's all sorts of different fun ones.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:20:00]:
You can customize them. Like, you can really tailor this to make it fit in your, in your space. Mm-hmm. Um, and, but I did find the UI itself, and again, I only had a few minutes with it, felt very much just like a blown-up iPad app or, or iPhone app. Um, so it doesn't have, it didn't really feel very different from using an iPhone, just blown up. And like, there's one, um, image in one of my pictures, in one of my stories where it has has the slider to brighten and dim your lights, and it's the entire screen. Oh, wow. It's like, this is so big.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:20:36]:
But it also makes it easy. And this is really the point of this device, is a really simple interface. You can put widgets on it. The home widget is very sort of, again, simple. You just press buttons, turn things on and off. And the key thing, and I think this is something that most smart displays have struggled with, is that it will just stay on that widget. So if you set this up to be a smart home controller, there's no screensaver, nothing goes away. Oh,
Mikah Sargent [00:21:05]:
good.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:21:05]:
You just walk up and press it. So it's like as easy as pressing a light switch.
Mikah Sargent [00:21:09]:
Yeah. A couple of quick questions to go on that. You talked about sort of the fact that it is there, you can, you know, go up and press it. How much of how Apple demoed it and showed it was voice versus the actual interaction, because I do wonder if that plays a role in how they developed the interface as well, given how much they're trying to push this new Siri.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:21:36]:
Yeah, big voice.
Mikah Sargent [00:21:37]:
And then the second thing I'd like to know is, um, did you get to see examples of the facial recognition switching things between people?
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:21:50]:
Yeah. So the, in terms of the voice, it's, you can swipe down from the top to talk to Siri, or you can just speak, you know, just like you can with a HomePod. And it does, it didn't, it did feel like, yes, you could just talk to it, but it, the, but you can do that to a HomePod. So really the point of this device is to be able to use the interface because I think the idea being that you can talk to it from anywhere in the room, but once you get up close, you wanna press the button. buttons. And the buttons are nice and big. Like I said, maybe too big in some instances. But for anyone in a home to be able to just walk up and be like, oh, okay, I want the lights in here to turn on, here's the button light.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:22:32]:
That— they've kind of solved that interface, which is kind of crazy to me that we haven't solved that to this point beyond an actual light switch. Yeah. I understand that those still work fine. But one of the advantages of smart lights is when you press a button, you can turn all of the lights in a room, from the lamps to the overhead lights, on and off, and different shades and scenes. So you can do so much more with a single press than you can with a light switch. And I think they nailed that. I think they nailed that here, um, with the interface, the widget interface. And again, this feels a lot like an Apple Watch, like widgets on an Apple Watch.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:23:08]:
So I think that as, as a control panel for anyone in the I think will be— I mean, obviously I didn't get to spend a lot of time with it, but my initial impression was that could work really well. The multi-user stuff is really the selling point of this device. It's what makes it different from most of the current products on the market. Whilst both does have the ability on Echo Shows for facial recognition, what Apple is bringing here is that this is actually an extension of your iPhone. So you can use facial recognition to walk up to the device and it will pull up a completely customized display for you, including your text messages, your calendar, anything that you want to show on this device. And it has most of the sort of stock Apple apps. You just swipe up from the bottom and you get access to things like Safari, Messages, Calendar, Music, and then you can use this almost like your iPhone. But as soon as you walk away, it locks, and if anyone else comes up, they can't access your screen.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:24:20]:
And I didn't get to obviously try this personally because I wasn't set up as a user, but they did show some demos of people using Siri AI with personal context. And This is the advantage of this device again, is that you can— the way you can use Siri AI today on your iPhone is ask things like, say, Andrew— I think the demo they gave is, Andrew's coming to the air— coming to me from the airport. Can you tell me how long it's gonna be until he gets here? And that's all you have to say. And it can go into your text messages, your emails, your maps, your location, and figure out who Andrew is, what flight he's coming on, how he's gonna get to you, and what time he's gonna arrive. And the fun little smart home thing they threw on to that was, yes, Andrew's going to be here at, you know, 7:45. And then the lady said, well, can you turn the coffee machine on 15 minutes before he gets here? Oh. And then Siri set up an automation to turn the coffee machine on at 7:30. So, you know, that was sort of showing how you can sort of pull the Siri AI into the smart home.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:25:24]:
But that was kind of it for what Siri AI can do in the smart home. There were no new features or capabilities that they announce for Siri AI, even that now that Siri AI has come to the home. Cool. And that is the big new thing here is that Siri AI finally is available on home devices. Up until this point, you weren't able, if you talk to any of your HomePods right now, you just get old Siri. But unfortunately, you're still gonna get old Siri on your current HomePods. because those are not being updated, the current HomePods. So, but if you get Home View, you will get Siri AI because it is built into this device.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:26:09]:
And the entire sort of operating system is based around Siri AI, which is a big shift. It's a complete shift really for Apple. And the other really interesting part is that there is no App Store. It uses CarPlay.
Mikah Sargent [00:26:25]:
Yeah, that is really weird.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:26:27]:
Yeah. The way it works is it's sort of like, again, an Apple Watch. If you remember, you know, when you load an app onto your iPhone, if it's compatible with your Apple Watch, it can show up on your Apple Watch, right? Automatically, if you set— have that setting. And that's the way this will work. If your app is compatible with CarPlay, it will show up on your home view as long as it is an audio or video app, of which there are none of the latter yet. Apparently, Apple is very open to Netflix and others—
Mikah Sargent [00:27:03]:
Please.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:27:04]:
Coming up with that. But any audio app should automatically show up on here. They obviously didn't demo that. They only demoed it with Apple Music. But in theory, this should mean that, say, Spotify or any of your preferred music providers will work with this. So, and the other thing, and I don't really, haven't really got to the bottom of this, but it sounds like Um, you have to AirPlay from your phone to this device to play, um, Apple TV, um, which is a bit strange. There's some— there's a little bit of weird stuff going on with the UI, and this is the kind of stuff I won't really be able to talk to too specifically until I, until I get to test it. Yeah.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:27:44]:
Um, but it is very dependent on your iPhone. Like, you have to have an iPhone or an iPad to set up and this device to set up and have a profile on this device.
Mikah Sargent [00:27:53]:
Wow. So that's like old school Apple Watch.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:27:56]:
Right. Yes. But anyone can use it even if you don't have an iPad or an iPhone. But if you have, if you want a profile, you have to have an iPhone or an Apple Watch. I mean, an iPhone or an iPad. And if you want the Siri AI features, you have to have an AI capable. The personal context features, you have to have a which is what, 15 Pro or newer? Got it. But the basic Siri AI, so asking questions, that sort of broad world knowledge, as they refer to it, that anyone can use.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:28:32]:
So there is a communal element to the device as well. You can control any smart home devices, even without a profile, other than ones that control security devices. You can play music. So it can be a communal device for the home too. But yes, the big thing is that it's a lot more powerful The home element, the smart home control element, the one thing I wanted to mention is that it also— the one thing I noticed from playing around with it is it was very responsive. But this is a problem I have had with a lot of smart displays. They really lag. This has an A18 processing in it.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:29:07]:
So that's, that's pretty powerful for what is a relatively small device. And you can swipe and choose a home Home View screen, which shows your HomeKit Secure Video cameras. And they pulled up live feeds like with a click and then there they were. It was really fast. That is nice. That was impressive. Because one of the selling points of smart displays is someone rings your doorbell and it will show up on your smart display. And so you don't even have to worry about getting up and going downstairs.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:29:38]:
You can just talk to them. Have you ever just— I just sit there for like I'm like, come on. Yeah, are you gonna do it?
Mikah Sargent [00:29:42]:
Are you gonna do it? Is this ever gonna show?
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:29:44]:
I just have to get upstairs, get up and go downstairs on my own after all. And if this can follow through on the promise of the second someone rings the doorbell, there is the live feed and I can talk to them, that will make it incredibly useful, I think.
Mikah Sargent [00:29:58]:
Absolutely. All right, we're gonna take a quick break and then we will come back with more on the smart home as Jennifer Pattison Tuohy of The Verge was at Apple's Welcome Home event in person and has given us the rundown. So stay tuned for that. All right, that's a fake break, and now we'll come back. All right, we are back from the break, and as I mentioned, joined this week by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy of The Verge. Now, we spent the first part of the show talking about the Home View, a zoom and enhanced Apple Watch tied to a HomePod mini. But Apple surprisingly also announced a bunch of other stuff, both first-party and as people are calling it, second-party. devices.
Mikah Sargent [00:30:46]:
And that starts with a really expensive Apple TV. What's the dealio there? Couldn't bear it.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:30:52]:
When they sent the price, I was like, really? Are
Mikah Sargent [00:30:55]:
you sure? Are you sure?
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:30:56]:
Are you sure? What? What? Are you sure that we didn't— that 9 shouldn't be a 4? I mean, what the—
Mikah Sargent [00:31:02]:
What is that?
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:31:02]:
$299 for the—
Mikah Sargent [00:31:04]:
Same price as the HomeView.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:31:06]:
As the HomeView, right. Which is— I think I'm sorry to harp on about the HomeView, but I was quite impressed with the price.
Mikah Sargent [00:31:14]:
Me too.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:31:15]:
I was expecting it to be a lot more expensive. Um, and I think that's probably because they made this device like 2 years ago. So, um, they probably were able to buy all the RAM and everything back then. And, and it's— yeah. Um, so I think we kind of got— we dodged a bullet there. If you're interested in it, I would probably buy it now because I'm not— I agree. The next one's probably going to be more expensive. Um, but yes, the Apple TV 4K $299, and now the only Apple TV that Apple sells.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:31:44]:
They got rid of the cheaper model that was Wi-Fi only. The upgrades are a— one I was most excited about is it comes with built-in far-field mics. So it is basically a smart speaker, although it doesn't talk back to you. So it can hear you. You can talk to Siri through it to control what you're watching, to ask— it's got Siri AI built in, so you can ask for recommendations. You can ask questions like what you're watching on the screen, like who's— what else has this actor been in? And it should pull up answers for you. It doesn't speak back. It pulls up the answers on the screen in a small little text box.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:32:24]:
You can ask for recommendations. Demo they showed was like, show me some nature documentaries I can watch on Apple TV. And then it pulled up a carousel of those. So, and you can use conversational requests. This is the sort of core part of Siri AI, as you're probably familiar with if you've tried it on the phone, is that you don't have to use use the stilted requests. You can just say, you know, oh, find me some shows, or who's this actor, or what the demo they showed me was, is the football team from Ted Lasso a real football team? Nope. And so things like that just sort of make it more interactive with your Apple TV. You do get Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:33:06]:
So that's the bump up spec-wise. But otherwise, the internals are the same, 128 gig, Um, it also has, uh, so the nice— the thing that Bluetooth 6 enables, I believe, is that you can now use Find My on the remote. Woo! Which I know, so that's like the most exciting thing. Um, because— and the remote is backward compatible, so you can use a remote with any current Apple TV. If you want to go buy the new Siri remote, it will work with your Apple TV. Um, and you can use— so it has a built-in Find My Sound. So you can shout at your TV, hey Siri, where's my remote? And it will sing from the cushions. And then apparently Siri here is chatting to me, sorry.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:33:54]:
And then it also has, it works with the Find My app if you have a newer iPhone because it uses Bluetooth Channel Sounding, not UWB, which was an interesting change.
Mikah Sargent [00:34:05]:
That is a question that I know a lot of people had, if it was UWB or if it was Bluetooth Channel Sounding.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:34:10]:
It's not, it's Bluetooth Channel Sounding. So yeah, that is how they, that's how they've enabled Find My on this, which I think is a feature we're gonna see in more devices because it's a less expensive way of adding precision finding. From my understanding though, UWB is more precise, but for this kind of application, I think that obviously Apple's decided that Bluetooth channel sounding will work well for you.
Mikah Sargent [00:34:39]:
Especially when it's really the speaker more than anything that you need.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:34:42]:
Yeah, the speaker is the real advantage here. Here. And it, yeah, it has a speaker in there and it plays the little Find My sound. And then the other great upgrade, and this is exclusive to this device, um, is that you can pair up to 4 HomePods for true surround sound. If you have 4 HomePods, you can probably afford to buy this because that's a lot of money. But I suppose in the, in the realm of, um, home theater expensive, uh, it's maybe mid-range because you can spend a lot of money on a home theater. Um, and you also pair HomePod Minis, the new HomePod Mini 2. So you can have 2 second-gen HomePods and 2 second-gen HomePod Minis, or you could do 4 HomePod Minis 2s or 4 HomePod second-gens.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:35:31]:
And that's kind of a neat upgrade, I think. I agree. I know people have been wanting something like that, but they didn't update really any of the other sort of audio and visual elements of the Apple TV. And I know a lot of people were upset that there's no HDMI passthrough, which is something I don't really understand, but I know people are unhappy about. Um, and yeah, it's, it's a lot of money for an upgrade that doesn't really seem to have brought a huge change, just a few nice welcome updates. Um, so yeah, I, I don't see people rushing to upgrade to this, but when your old Apple TV So if Apple TV sort of bites the dust, then this is gonna be your only option if you want to continue in the Apple TV world.
Mikah Sargent [00:36:16]:
I was really excited about, because I do and have for some time, I have 2, I know that this won't apply here. I have 2 first-gen Apple HomePods and they are the output for the Apple TV that we have in the living room. And Apple of course did the HDMI eARC thing Even whenever we switch inputs on the television to something else, because we've got like a DVD player, it still plays audio out of the HomePods and it sounds great. And when I'm in the kitchen, we turn on the, the like multi-room sound. So the HomePods in the living room are playing the audio, but also the HomePod mini that's in the kitchen is playing the audio. Yeah. And that's, that's really cool. Again, not something I'd be able to use with the HomePods that I have, but you can pry my HomePod first generation speakers out of my cold dead hands because I love those things.
Mikah Sargent [00:37:20]:
How over-engineered they are. It's fantastic. But I think that it is a neat— I was wondering why it took Apple so long.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:37:29]:
Yeah.
Mikah Sargent [00:37:30]:
And I'm happy now that finally they've done the surround sound thing because we've seen Roku do it. We've seen Sonos do it. Like we've seen lots of—
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:37:39]:
Amazon's done it with, and that there are new Echo speakers. Yeah, it's definitely a space that, well, I mean, Sonos kind of owned it for a while, but now everyone else is sort of moving in here. And it's, I think, I mean, again, home theaters can be a very expensive setup. So comparatively, I can't do the math that quickly in my head, but all of these are like $400. You put that times 5, what is that? Like $2,000?
Mikah Sargent [00:38:06]:
Oh yeah, don't put me on the spot. Yeah, something
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:38:09]:
like that. So yeah. Yeah, that you can spend what, $20 grand on a home theater. So, exactly. Um, and the sound, I can imagine 4 full-size second-gen HomePods would sound pretty good.
Mikah Sargent [00:38:21]:
Uh-huh. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:38:23]:
But you don't have the, well, they did add the new, um, there is that new feature, newish feature in HomePods that makes the audio sound clearer when you're watching a movie through the device.
Mikah Sargent [00:38:35]:
Yes.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:38:35]:
So, because there's no soundbar here, obviously.
Mikah Sargent [00:38:38]:
Enhanced dialogue or something like that.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:38:40]:
Yeah. Be really interested. I think our audio reviewer John Higgins will get to try this out to see if it really can replace, say, buying a Sonos soundbar and a subwoofer and all that kind of stuff. So, um, it would be interesting to see how, how good this will stack up because it's nice to have the functionality that's also a smart speaker. Um, so yeah, and then the Siri AI obviously is built into the Apple TV, so you get that sort of personal context and more conversational Assistant, although interestingly, it's still in beta on the Apple TV 4K and on the HomePod Mini 2, it's not even there yet, which was kind of a surprise and a bit of a shame. So it's been a slow burn for bringing Siri AI to the smart home and we're still not there yet.
Mikah Sargent [00:39:28]:
So that is kind of, you know, the next step here in terms of the event, right? We've got the new, more colorful HomePod Mini 2 with the— HomePod Mini 2. They're less colourful.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:39:41]:
They're less colourful. That's—
Mikah Sargent [00:39:43]:
Oh, that's true. They're less saturated, aren't they?
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:39:45]:
They really are. They're much more pastel. I was, I was sort of torn. I liked the pink. The pink was pretty, but it's really pale pink. And the green is— the green is a little bit more saturation, but compared to like the bright orange and the bright yellow of the previous refresh colours, these were— these felt more subdued, more muted. But they're actually designed to colour match match the existing iMac lineup, which does look really cool. They had the green one there, and it did look nice to have that.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:40:16]:
And they can now pair more persistently to your iMac as speakers. So you've always been able to kind of use them— yeah, that's the audio for your speaker— but it's not been a good experience. Now they can be set as your default speaker, and they will stay connected, which is, I think, a nice. That's the nice upgrade. That would be the main reason to get these. It only works with Macs that have Wi-Fi 6E or higher in those, so don't rush out and buy them if you're rocking an old Mac because they— it won't pair. It uses, it uses that, um, 6E connection. But they say they demoed it, the latency— it says no latency and it won't unpair, which is— I've tried using Siri HomePods as my speakers for my computer, and it gets very annoying and frustrating.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:41:05]:
So that's a nice upgrade. That's really the only reason to get these at the moment, um, because the other feature, which is the other colorful thing, is Sound Glow, which is where it matches the color of the album art you're playing on the top LED lights. And from what I understand, I have to double, double-check this, that feature will come to existing HomePods. And it's just really barely even It's like,
Mikah Sargent [00:41:32]:
what's the point, really?
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:41:33]:
It didn't— yeah, I mean, it was a light— it was a brightly lit room, um, but it was like, it's not a big space that the colors— that the LEDs are, so you're really not seeing a lot. Um, but it's a nice touch, but not worth $150. These got more expensive as well.
Mikah Sargent [00:41:51]:
That is so frustrating.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:41:53]:
$150, and they didn't even upgrade the speaker. It's the same, the same sound that our users know and love was the way they put it. Wow. Um, so yeah, I'm trying to think, was there anything else new? Oh, um, well, Siri AI is coming but not at launch, so in a future update. And they would not clarify what future meant— this year, next year. So, uh, that's really what I'm looking forward to on the Minis is because that's gonna be the least expensive entry point into having Siri AI in your smart home and seeing how well it works. Because using Siri AI on the phone, which is supposedly a way to control your smart home, just doesn't, it doesn't work in the same way as using the HomePods. The HomePods just have a better kind of connection to your smart home devices.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:42:45]:
Mm-hmm. And the way I've experienced it, I find when I talk to Siri AI on my phone about my smart home, it goes and searches the web for me. Yep. It doesn't, yeah. So that, and I'm really interested to sort of try out Siri AI as a smart home controller. And based on everything I've seen so far, it's much more limited compared to say an Alexa Plus or a Google Gemini for Home. It can do chained commands, but it can't do chained commands across devices. So I can ask it to turn on the lights in the bedroom and the living room, but I can't ask it to adjust the thermostat thermostat and lock the door, because those are 2 different device categories.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:43:25]:
So there's nothing new there yet, but hopefully, hopefully something coming. And then I know we've covered all the big products, but they also announced an entire line of smart home accessories.
Mikah Sargent [00:43:38]:
Yeah, let's, let's cover that here last. Just a, just a brief overview of— I mean, because Does this— did this news in this way surprise you or did you, did you kind of go, oh, that makes sense? And then with these products, how Apple-y did they look and feel? There's one part where you sort of like grabbed one of the cameras, I think, to move it. And I could see that nice aluminum surrounding. Aluminum. And I thought—
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:44:15]:
Ooh. ASMR, whatever it's called.
Mikah Sargent [00:44:17]:
What is it called? ASMR. Yeah.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:44:18]:
Aluminium.
Mikah Sargent [00:44:19]:
That's for the club members, Twitch club members, with that. Everybody else, it's gonna be a bleep. No, I'm kidding. It kind of reminded me of the old iSight cameras from Apple. And so it definitely had—
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:44:32]:
Gosh, I don't even remember those.
Mikah Sargent [00:44:34]:
It had tastes of Apple's design in it for sure.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:44:38]:
Yeah. So yes, I was surprised. Very surprised. Very surprised. I guess, but now that I've sort of sat with it and I've actually, I'm working on a piece that I hope will publish tomorrow. I spoke to a couple of Apple execs about all of the products, including the sort of new line. And it makes sense because really the sort of the signature theme of this event was simplicity. This was, these are products that are designed to make the smart home easier, it easier for people to adopt and come into the smart home.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:45:12]:
And I think specifically make it easier for Apple users who don't currently have smart home products to start in the smart home. It is not— none of this is designed for the smart home superuser. It is, you know, I think you might get this for your spouse if you're a smart home superuser because it's a lot easier to interact with than your fancy Home Assistant dashboard. You leave my
Mikah Sargent [00:45:35]:
Home Assistant alone. Just the dashboard alone, it's perfect.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:45:38]:
But you know, you can feed your Home Assistant instance into HomeKit and you can have your scenes on your little widget that everyone else in the house could use. So I think it's a great device for simplifying the smart home. And all of these products that they announced, so they announced just real quick, a door lock, 4 security cameras, 2 thermostats, and then the thermostats each come with room temp— well, you can buy room temperature sensors with them. So the security cameras, obviously, security cameras and door locks and thermostats are like the main products that people buy when they think about starting a smart home, or just single-point solution products like a door lock is a great solution, a video doorbell if you're worried about package theft or if you just want to keep an eye on your door. And I think the design of These, which was an Apple design, Apple was very clear this was a collaboration with LG is the main company that they've partnered with. So almost all of the products they showed off were made by LG. One thermostat was made by Schneider Electric. And they said that we helped design them for the sort of aesthetic that we feel like fits with our product line.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:46:51]:
And there's a lot of silver or aluminium and black. some white. Very simple, sleek looking. Not homey, but also not garish. Like, it just kind of blended in. As I said earlier, when I was walking through the space, I actually missed the thermostat and I didn't see the camera because it was tilted down. The camera can automatically tilt up and down when you leave the house, when you come home. So it— there's— it's simple and designed to sort of blend in.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:47:26]:
And there are— the main kind of selling point here is that these are all really easy to set up and use, will work with the new Home View, but obviously would also work with any other Apple Home Hub. So your HomePod or your Apple TV. You know, the video doorbell, to my point about bringing up a video doorbell feed fast, the idea is someone presses the doorbell and it should pop right up on the Home View and anyone in the house would be able to answer the door. door. Um, doorbell has 2 cameras, one that faces the person and then one that points down for packages, and it has a little light that lights up. And then there's an indoor security camera that I'd mentioned, and then outdoor security camera and an outdoor floodlight security camera. And those have— they kind of have the same sort of tubular design, um, and one black and one silver. And then the door lock is, um, an Alero supported, uh, UWB hands-free lock.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:48:21]:
So it's one of the ones that uses the new HomeKey hands-free unlocking feature that you can just walk up to the door with your phone in your pocket and it will open for you. And that's the other kind of key thing about all of these products is that they are all— they all work with all Apple Home features and directly with the Apple Home app. So you don't need to download any other app. The cameras all work with HomeKit Secure Video, and they all have Thread, even the cameras.
Mikah Sargent [00:48:49]:
Nice.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:48:49]:
Um, even though the cameras use Wi-Fi predominantly, um, they have Thread as a backup connectivity option, which I think is so to keep things online.
Mikah Sargent [00:48:59]:
That's interesting.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:48:59]:
Yeah, I know. Um, and it can even— if you change your Wi-Fi, it will automatically update somehow. I don't quite understand that, but yeah, they've just basically set these up to be simple to use and for you not to have to troubleshoot. We'll see if that pans out.
Mikah Sargent [00:49:15]:
Yeah, exactly. Oh, perfect.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:49:17]:
That's the idea. And then the other neat feature is that you can just take your phone and tap it to the device, even if the device isn't powered on, and it will pair. Um, and they say it's as easy to pair as, say, your AirPods or your HomePod because it's using NFC and Bluetooth directly through the phone. So yeah, that's what they're going for is like smart home 101 in a box.
Mikah Sargent [00:49:44]:
Yeah, I was gonna say that is then now a great thing they can point to when other hardware manufacturers are thinking about making stuff for, it's a case study that's built in almost. So it shows off all of the features that Apple Home has and lets lets others kind of go, oh, I could do that too. 'Cause I have a few works with Apple Home. I can't remember now what they changed it to after it used to be just, you know, HomeKit. HomeKit. That had the NFC tap, but it was never as simple as just actually doing that.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:50:20]:
Didn't just work. No, no. And the, you know, all of these products don't, you can use, especially the thermostats and the door lock, you can use them in any platform because they support Matter. So you're not, these aren't locked into Apple's ecosystem. They just work best with Apple's ecosystem. The cameras are HomeKit Secure Video. So I don't think you could use those on another platform, but I do think you could use them with LG's app. But I don't know that for sure.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:50:50]:
And I'm gonna have to wait to test to try them. But yeah, this isn't really, and it feels like a walled garden because it's designed to be easy to use and set up and work just with perfectly with Apple products, but it doesn't prevent them from working with other products. So if you decided to move on from Apple, you wouldn't have to get a new door lock or— So I think, and they also made it very clear that this is not them moving on from supporting products for Matter or HomeKit. You can obviously still use any Matter-compatible product with Apple Home. They're just trying to give people options that they can say, we know this will work with all of the features that we offer. The smart thermostats work with Apple Home's adaptive heating and cooling system, which not many thermostats support. Yeah. And this is one of the things you've noticed over the years that Apple will come out with these new features like HomeKit Secure Video, which isn't new, but the home, the adaptive heating, adaptive temperature, and clean energy management, And then hardly any other manufacturers will adopt them.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:51:59]:
So I guess as to your point that this is what they're doing, it's like this is the ultimate Apple experience. Everything works here. Other manufacturers can adopt this too. But if you want the product that you know is going to do everything that we say we offer, these are the products that you can get. I was surprised that they didn't come out with any new features on these, like none of nothing here. is sort of really new or innovative. But, you know, in terms of like splashy headlines, like, oh, the first door lock to do this. But it's all solid products that work with Apple Home.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:52:35]:
And if you're in the Apple Home ecosystem, and you've got a lot of money because they're really expensive. But hey, it's Apple, right? That's what you expect. Yeah, thermostats are $200. The door lock is $340. The camera— the doorbell is $250, and the outdoor cameras are $300 and $400, I think.
Mikah Sargent [00:53:02]:
Geez Louise.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:53:03]:
Yeah, they're expensive. And it is interesting because door locks— so outdoor cameras have come down and video doorbells have come down significantly. So I was surprised to see these be so expensive. But I guess it's that Apple tax you're paying, right?
Mikah Sargent [00:53:23]:
Yeah, absolutely.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:53:24]:
What do you think of them, Mikah? I know I've been talking solidly for an hour.
Mikah Sargent [00:53:29]:
Well, I will say a quick little summary of my thoughts and then we will thank you for joining us. So I, all of the stuff that Apple announced in terms of the home products, the second-party stuff. I'm excited to, again, have these products out there that have all of the features in them. I think that's great. I also think that for people who can afford that Apple tax, these will be great options in terms of having that it just works functionality. As I said sort of before, I hope that what it does is also encourages other device manufacturers to adopt all of the technologies that Apple provides so that it can, you know, that we can sort of count on them regardless of what it is. That would be, that would be nice. It is, it's good that there are kind of those main categories completed.
Mikah Sargent [00:54:33]:
I did want from the, I was kind of hoping that the Apple TV would double as a router in the home. I kind of wanted Apple to get back into the— I wrote a whole article I'm
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:54:46]:
skeptical
Mikah Sargent [00:54:47]:
about that.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:54:48]:
And it should have local AI, which these days—
Mikah Sargent [00:54:50]:
Local AI and Thread. It would be your Thread. Like, it'd have all the stuff that it needed to have on it. And that would just be, would be really nice. And then you could, of course, manage it from the Home app. And so kind of eating into Amazon's eero game, frankly. Yeah. Because that's, I use eero and it's great.
Mikah Sargent [00:55:10]:
It's worked for me for a long time. And so I'm happy with it. I switched from an Airport Extreme, uh, back in the day.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:55:18]:
You'd like to switch back.
Mikah Sargent [00:55:19]:
And I wouldn't mind switching back. Yeah. Uh, especially with some of the security features that Apple had. And of course, Eero originally supported, I don't, you probably remember, rest in peace, practically the, um, the, I can't even remember what it's called now, but it was like a secure router thing for your HomeKit accessories.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:55:38]:
Yes. The home. Yeah. That was a, and I think you can, it's still a—
Mikah Sargent [00:55:42]:
Older Eeros still work.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:55:44]:
Yes.
Mikah Sargent [00:55:44]:
But newer ones, which I've moved on from Wi-Fi 4 or whatever. They don't support it anymore. And yeah, it's hard to find a router these days that does. So I was kind of hoping for that to come back just because it was a handy feature that right now it's difficult to cordon off those devices and still maintain HomeKit connectivity if you're doing it that way. So yeah.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:56:11]:
What do you think of the Home View though?
Mikah Sargent [00:56:13]:
I bought it immediately.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:56:14]:
You did?
Mikah Sargent [00:56:15]:
Okay, which color?
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:56:15]:
We didn't mention the 4 colors, which really look the same. I'm not gonna lie.
Mikah Sargent [00:56:19]:
I just went with the Space Gray 'cause it was the darkest one and I plan to put it in the kitchen. And so I'm hoping that it will show the less, the least of,
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:56:27]:
you know. Less grease and grime.
Mikah Sargent [00:56:28]:
Exactly. But I'm really excited about it. I've got the one that, you know, actually sits on a table and can move. I, this, I just, I think these smart displays are really cool, But I have used a whole bunch of different ones. And the bigger issue is the— not for me, but for my significant other, the privacy implications that are involved. And there's a little bit more trust in this house for Apple than other products. And so we already have HomePods and stuff like that.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:57:06]:
And this, we didn't mention this, but the LG thing, I know people got quite upset about. But one of the advantages of all of these products, including the cameras and everything from LG, is that they only work— you can set them up entirely in Apple and nothing goes through LG servers. Everything is just local or in iCloud. So that was the thing Apple was really pushing, is that they have— you have complete control over the data that any of these devices generates. And the Home View itself has a secure enclave, which is why it has the A18 chip. So any facial or voice recognition processing is all stored locally and processed locally on the device. So if you're— if privacy is a concern, that's one of Apple's selling points here. Again, we'll have to see how well it all works.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:57:57]:
But yeah, I think the Home View, that's the market it will probably hit, is people that, you know, are concerned about the always listening smart displays, but like the convenience and use of them. And also, um, that don't have ads on them.
Mikah Sargent [00:58:11]:
Yeah, yeah, exactly. All those ads.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:58:15]:
I'm glad you got one. So was it like an immediate buy or did you have any hesitation?
Mikah Sargent [00:58:19]:
I knew, well, I did have a little, I, I had, I knew that I was going to get, well, I was pretty sure that, and this is to be clear, because people listening will be like, oh, is this another Purchase that Twit made because I do have that to call on usually for different products. Not in this case. Like I went for it. Yeah, I went for it. I did have when I woke up and I saw that it was there, I waited because I thought, "Well, let me read some more about it first." And then the fact that it came at a price that was under what I was expecting, plus you know waiting so long for this to be an option, and the fact that I knew it would be. beneficial not just for me, but also for my significant other, because he does use the Home app to control our smart home stuff. And so this is just another option that's there. Right, yeah.
Mikah Sargent [00:59:13]:
That meant that it wasn't going to just be something used by me, but would be beneficial to the household. Whereas the other stuff has not been. It's just been kind of me testing it, using it, you know. So that and having another kind of photo display available is nice as well because we make great use of the digital photo frame stuff. So yeah, I, it was a near insta-buy for me and certainly enough to where I was like, I'm not, just in case a bunch of people are buying these, I'm gonna get one quick so that it doesn't. So it was within a couple of hours of me waking up that I had hit buy on this. And yeah, I'm looking forward to it coming. I'm not planning on getting any new HomePods.
Mikah Sargent [00:59:58]:
I, I used to be an always buy the new Apple TV guy. Um, and then I would just— You have to really think about this one. But yeah, this one I said, never mind. No, sorry. Yeah, it's just, it's, I think it's way too pricey and we already don't use our voice to talk to our Apple TV, uh, pretty much ever, except when we're specifically in a search field and are trying to quickly name the title of something. Outside of that, it's Yeah, yeah. You know what I mean? So yeah, I just had no interest in that.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [01:00:30]:
Are you a big cook? Do you cook?
Mikah Sargent [01:00:32]:
I, I am, yes. I, I very much do.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [01:00:34]:
So we didn't mention this, but my killer feature for the Home View is the recipe transfer feature. So you can take a recipe on your iPhone, tap it to the Home View, and it automatically populates and then turns it into a guided cooking recipe, um, with like being able to press buttons to set timers for every step as you go along. It was fantastic. I'm really excited about that because the cooking is the main thing I use smart displays for in my kitchen. It's like using for guided recipes, or I used to balance my iPad on the side of the stove and like hope that I didn't, didn't get it wet while I was— or splash it with grease. So yeah, I think this is a really neat feature. Um, and it's just, yeah, it just takes the Safari link and translates it on the screen into like a proper guided cooking experience.
Mikah Sargent [01:01:23]:
I thought that was really cool and very, very clever. Yeah. I have to ask you, because as we kind of hinted at or alluded to earlier, you said, you know, it feels like maybe Apple had this product ready to go for a while and we're just waiting on Siri AI. And that has also been the rumor. Yeah. Given that, I would think, would think that the software would feel more fully baked at this point than it does. It almost feels like tacked on, but it could also be that this is like the fact that it's sort of CarPlay. I thought, what are we doing there? Like, why is there not HomeView OS or something like that? I know.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [01:02:11]:
It was interesting. Yeah. Well, they ended up And I asked what the operating system was and they call it HomeView software, which is, you know, like HomePod software. So nothing, nothing new there yet. You're right, it does the CarPlay thing. I mean, the CarPlay thing's kind of interesting because this device is an extension of your iPhone, as I mentioned. Mm-hmm. So it's basically using the data that comes from your phone just in the same way when you get in your car, your CarPlay is using the data from your phone.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [01:02:37]:
But what I'm interested in to see once I get to test it is how much that actually works once you're not someone with a phone. Right. Because it is supposed to be a communal device and not everyone that uses it should have to have a phone. So that's going to be the friction I'm most interested in sort of testing once I get one. It's like, how much can you do without a phone? Because for a communal device in a home, potentially for someone that doesn't have an iPhone, if there's one person in your home that is an Android user, you want them to be able to get some use out So it'll be interesting to see how that all works. So yeah, there's lots, lots to test. I'm excited that you're gonna have one too. We can do a joint review.
Mikah Sargent [01:03:17]:
Yes, I'm very much looking forward to getting to talk to you about it once it's in hand. And yeah, I mean, it's very exciting, Apple's sort of eye on the smart home in this way. I hope it continues and we'll have to see. Jennifer Pattison tweets, It is always a pleasure to get to chat with you. Our audience loves you as well and appreciate the work that you do. If people would like to follow along with your great work, where are the places they should go to do so?
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [01:03:49]:
Yeah, just catch me at theverge.com. You can follow all my articles there. There's a little follow button and please subscribe. Yes. And then I'm also on Threads @jp2e and the Smart Home Mama, um, uh, at Blue Sky. So yeah, find me there. And, um, always happy to be here. It's so much fun to get to chat with you, and I'm excited.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [01:04:12]:
I'll come back once I've reviewed it or got one on hand and we can talk some more. Well, I'll be back next month, which is probably about when it comes out, right?
Mikah Sargent [01:04:19]:
Yeah, I think so. It is. Yeah, yeah, perfect timing. It's like we planned it. Yes. All right, thank you.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [01:04:26]:
All right, bye-bye.
Mikah Sargent [01:04:28]:
Bye. Alrighty folks, I've got a quick little story of the week for you, more news update that I want to share, and then we'll say goodbye for the day. So thank you, Jen, again for joining us and giving us that rundown on being at the event and getting to try out these products. And also, as always, thank you for your smart home enthusiasm. So for a few years now, the legal pressure on AI chatbots, and frankly, just the pressure in general, we've been putting the pressure on them here on the show, show has mostly come from individual families and, of course, private lawyers. This week, well, that changed in a big way because 8 US states filed lawsuits against OpenAI. And now each of it— each of these lawsuits stand on their own and they are in their own state courts, but they arrived together and they all are using the same core argument about how ChatGPT is built, and of course, the people that it's hurting. Dara Kerr, Blake Montgomery at The Guardian, and Diana Novak-Jones at Reuters both covered the filings.
Mikah Sargent [01:05:40]:
So we'll have links in the show notes for that. And between the 2 reports, there's quite a bit here, which I was kind of surprised at how much they were able to pull from these lawsuits. The states aren't only asking for money. One of the things they want is for the courts to order is that— well, let me try this again because it's a little bit complex in terms of what the lawsuit is after. So on top of money, which of course is part of it, is beyond just an order surrounding kids and chatbots. And it's about about really making sure that these tools are safe for not just kids, but for everyone. So OpenAI, of course, has responded to this. Let's talk kind of a little bit about what the states are alleging, what they want, and then we can discuss a little bit about— well, talk a little bit about what OpenAI has to say in return.
Mikah Sargent [01:06:48]:
So the core The main claim surrounding this is, of course, about ChatGPT being built to be, quote, overly agreeable and feign human compassion. This is an issue that the states say is part of a way for the bot to earn users' trust. But because of that, it reinforces— it could reinforce delusions. It could encourage dangerous behavior and assist users in planning violence like mass shootings. shootings. Now, that means that if this, you know, allegation is true, the states say OpenAI is accused of willful, dangerous, reckless, and unlawful conduct. Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird said OpenAI is hurting kids and they are lying to Iowans. OpenAI claims ChatGPT is safe while it's giving dangerous medical advice, encouraging people to hurt others, and coaching people to commit suicide, all while pretending to be their fake friend.
Mikah Sargent [01:07:51]:
And this is what's a little bit different from what we've seen in terms of government and big tech, because this is about consumer protection. That's what they're using sort of as the legal hook. The states are arguing that OpenAI misled the public into believing that ChatGPT is safe and that the company puts safety first. What they want, along with with, you know, the protection of children who use the platform is the states want a court to stop OpenAI from developing AI models that can improve upon themselves. So this is kind of what's been in the news lately, what's been in the cycle lately, conversations around self-improving models that are training future models, that are making future models more powerful. And they want the halting of this training until, quote, the models are in line with human values. So state judges are being requested to put limits on frontier AI research, and they're doing that through the vehicle of a consumer protection case. Now, OpenAI has responded.
Mikah Sargent [01:09:15]:
OpenAI says, let's see, Drew Puziteri told The Guardian that the company had strengthened its safeguards after those episodes, those, you know, the hacking and the escapes, and said it would continue sharing information about the extensive steps we've taken in response to incidents of misalignment. and says that OpenAI has, quote, built industry-leading age-specific protections into our product that many other AI products lack. It says, while no system can be perfect, we'll continue to work with experts to inform our work and build additional safeguards, such as the parental controls, break reminders, and age-appropriate model protections that exist today. Those states that have sued: Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, West Virginia, Arkansas, Arizona, Idaho, and Montana. 8, each filed independently in its own state court. But of course, a coordinated action, not just one lawsuit that is multistate. And Reuters describes it as bipartisan. Reuters calls it the most significant coordinated state action against an AI company.
Mikah Sargent [01:10:22]:
And of course, notes that Florida's attorney general did file the first state suit in June. It's in both ways, these consumer protection violations and then orders forcing changes to how the training happens. I have to believe that this is going to keep growing as more states hop on board. And of course, while this is going on, we have the OpenAI IPO that continues to be a conversation. There are plenty of legal challenges while OpenAI is looking to prepare for a public listing. So keep your eyes peeled, as I will be doing as well, on more states likely to join in with these 8 that have chosen to bring a case against OpenAI in, in, in the, again, the vehicle of consumer protection. Folks, that is going to bring us to the end of this episode of Tech News Weekly. I want to thank you all so much for joining us this week.
Mikah Sargent [01:11:30]:
It's a pleasure to get to bring the show to you And I will be back again next week with another episode. If you'd like to follow me online, I'm @mikasargent on many a social media network, or you can head to chihuahua.coffee. That's C-H-I-H-U-A-H-U-A..coffee. I recently redesigned it. Thank you to those of you who've reached out with your wonderful thoughts on the new design. I'm really happy with it. If you would like to check out my other shows on the network, you know now about Hands-On AI, also Hands-On Tech, which we will be doing this Sunday, this show. And what am I forgetting? iOS Today, which I do with Rosemary Orchard and publishes on Thursdays.
Mikah Sargent [01:12:15]:
I don't think I'm forgetting anything. I do a lot of shows, okay? Thank you so much for tuning in. I'll catch you again next week. Oh, in fact, you'll be seeing a lot of me over the coming weeks as you, likely know, Leo is about to be on vacation, so I'll be covering some of the shows there as well. Uh, so I'll see you all next week. Bye-bye.
