Apple's Home Hub Will Have a Widget Gallery With iPhone Widget Support

[k1121j]

I definitely want one but without and App Store it better cost way less then an iPad or ill just keep using an iPad

 

[Genelec8341]

Apple’s secure, easy to configure home video platform should be free? How many other Apple products are you entitled to without paying for them?

Just one product- 5GB of iCloud is free. Can we agree I am entitled to that per Apples own terms?
I could use my one camera under that limit easily, without any inconvenience.
Apple won't allow me to do that. Isn't that clear enough?

 

[Vincent Hanna]

Allowing video capture to only 5GB of storage would lead to 99% of Apple's customers blowing that storage out in three days. It's not worth the support hassle to allow your edge use case.

Now if you want to say that Apple's free iCloud tier should have 10 or 25GB of storage included for everyone, that's different. But that's not the argument you're making.

 

[FilthyMuppetInnuendo]

Of course the AppleTV 4K will still work as home hub. You think Apple would force their loyal customers to buy an new device just to keep their Apple Home working? That would be a disaster.

A funny joke, of course. My iPadOS 16 iPad has lost support for accessing my Home devices through the app because it’s too old, despite Apple explicitly saying 16 was required to start/keep using the new Home architecture in the first place, and having had no changes to Home since then.

No one raised a stink about that.

 

[acader]

The concept image looks like an iPad with a stand.

 

[Genelec8341]

Allowing video capture to only 5GB of storage would lead to 99% of Apple's customers blowing that storage out in three days. It's not worth the support hassle to allow your edge use case.

Now if you want to say that Apple's free iCloud tier should have 10 or 25GB of storage included for everyone, that's different. But that's not the argument you're making.

Apple could have just as easily made a declaration that video recording will be limited, and of course it is but for some like me it doesn't matter.
That doesn't generate revenue though.
Apple could pop up a window that the 5 is exceeded and one needs to buy more here.

I don't need 10 or 25. The argument you made there is your own, for the sake of arguing.

If I have 5 and reach that cap, (I wouldn't) that's my problem. Delete something and make room.
Or buy more iCloud storage.

People do that every day.

Again, I don't need the 10 or 25 or 50 that I will never use.

Your steelman position on this is dubious at best. 99%? Where is the datum on that?

 

[Genelec8341]

A funny joke, of course. My iPadOS 16 iPad has lost support for accessing my Home devices through the app because it’s too old.

No one raised a stink about that.

Yep, my iPad Air 2 has a decent battery and works perfectly but it also doesn't work at all.
It could be put to use for something local but no, I can't point my Apple ID at it.

 

[chuckles235]

The mock up in the image looks like a johnny Ive design — it would fall over the second you touch the screen

 

[OverChris]

how is this working for you? I've been considering a reno where I get rid of the physical light switches and just have everything as a smart light controlled from a iPhone, tablet, etc which I'd love but not sure about potentially buyers if I were to sell later.

Actually pretty good so far. The presence sensor is reliable and as long as the config is good it turns the light on based on the amount of natural light. Have not had the need for a switch since using it.

 

[eifelbube]

Based on what we have seen in rumors so far, I just don’t see the appeal. Looks like functions we can already do with our personal devices, except now we have to get up and go to this device to do them.

Well, let me tell you that it will be tightly integrated with Apple Fitness and you will earn a reward for each trip … 😊

 

[Mr_Ed]

It’s a family calendar, photos, notes, to do list display device for the entire household.

It’s the modern replacement for the hard copy school schedule and hand-written to do list that people pin the to fridge door or kitchen bulletin board.

You are absolutely right that all this digital info is already on everyone’s personal devices, and technically this HomePad screen is redundant, but people still want a centralized location.

And many families have members too young or too old to even have their own devices, or (much more commonly) not tech savvy enough to have correctly configured devices that display all shared calendars in real time, etc.

Real world families will love this thing.

I agree some will want what you describe, particularly households with older residents. I just don’t see any “killer” feature that would spur a lot of demand. Younger users seem to get tech-savvy pretty quickly once they get their own devices.

 

[Vincent Hanna]

It's a family digital photo album on the kitchen counter that rotates vacation pics with cool animations, that then morphs into displaying your kids' soccer schedule, that then plays your latest podcast while you make dinner.

Families will love it.

 

[FilthyMuppetInnuendo]

Allowing video capture to only 5GB of storage would lead to 99% of Apple's customers blowing that storage out in three days. It's not worth the support hassle to allow your edge use case.

But 60% of iCloud customers already pay for more storage. That’s Apple’s own reporting, and it’s also why they will never increase the free tier, no matter how many years pass. People clearly already don’t care about those limits and just pay for things whenever they pop up in front of them. I have… I don’t know how man clients who have done this and then ask me, “Why am I paying for this iCloud thing?” because they never paid any attention at all when they hit the button.

With only five gigabytes for free for the rest of eternity, Apple doesn’t really need to incentivize the higher storage tiers with additional features that only they get. They could quite easily offer all features to the free tier. This would lead a significant proportion of the remaining free tier users running up against the limit very quickly, but they would also think to themselves, “Oh, this is neat stuff. Sure, I’ll drop $12 a year to be able to use it properly.”

I am not one of them, even though I like the idea of some of the upper tier features. But it would work as a marketing strategy. The only question then becomes whether Apple considers even that temporary friction a “violation of the experience,” and thus is reserving features for the higher tiers for no reason other than that.

That reminds me, I can’t remember if I ever found out if HomeKit Secure Video is only required to view cameras when you’re not on the same network, or if you can’t even see them locally without paying. I also can’t remember if Home Assistant was able to bypass this while still feeding the cameras through the Home app. Apple needs to make that more clear for users.

 

[Happy_John]

But 60% of iCloud customers already pay for more storage. That’s Apple’s own reporting, and it’s also why they will never increase the free tier, no matter how many years pass. People clearly already don’t care about those limits and just pay for things whenever they pop up in front of them. I have… I don’t know how man clients who have done this and then ask me, “Why am I paying for this iCloud thing?” because they never paid any attention at all when they hit the button.

With only five gigabytes for free for the rest of eternity, Apple doesn’t really need to incentivize the higher storage tiers with additional features that only they get. They could quite easily offer all features to the free tier. This would lead a significant proportion of the remaining free tier users running up against the limit very quickly, but they would also think to themselves, “Oh, this is neat stuff. Sure, I’ll drop $12 a year to be able to use it properly.”

I am not one of them, even though I like the idea of some of the upper tier features. But it would work as a marketing strategy. The only question then becomes whether Apple considers even that temporary friction a “violation of the experience,” and thus is reserving features for the higher tiers for no reason other than that.

Yes, it seems to be an unnecessary bit of upselling for Apple to set this restriction.

That reminds me, I can’t remember if I ever found out if HomeKit Secure Video is only required to view cameras when you’re not on the same network, or if you can’t even see them locally without paying. I also can’t remember if Home Assistant was able to bypass this while still feeding the cameras through the Home app. Apple needs to make that more clear for users.

This is the part that also seems odd to me. If I am running cameras (I'm not, so this is not something I check first first hadn't) on my local network, there's no technical basis why those cameras should not be able to send the ford to the Home App, and then save the feed on a storage device on the local network. There is no reason to need to use iCloud storage, or any cloud-based storage for this.

While the claim could be made that HomeKit Secure Video could analyse the feed ( for facial recognition / object recognition etc) and this analysis would not be done on the local network, if I just want a raw feed to the Home app and to store the data locally, there doesn't seem to be any technical reason to set limits on the number of cameras based on the iCloud storage plan I subscribe to.

If I don't want to access the feed remotely, and I don't want to do any "off-LAN" analysis of the video feed, I don't understand why there should be any part of this that should be outside the local network.