Apple’s newly announced HomeView is the company’s first dedicated smart display, a 7-inch Liquid Retina device intended to serve as a shared household screen that still feels personal to each user. Announced on October 13, 2026, as part of Apple’s “Welcome home” push into the smart home category, it is available in tabletop and wall-mounted versions at $299 each. Preorders are open, with availability beginning November 13th.
The tabletop model pairs the square screen with a domed speaker base connected by a stainless steel tilting hinge, while the wall-mounted version uses purpose-built mounts (including options for hardwiring or Power over Ethernet). Both run on an A18 chip and come in colors including silver, starlight, rose pink, and space gray. The display supports True Tone and can dim as low as 0.3 nits. A 12-megapixel Center Stage camera and multi-microphone array enable facial recognition for up to six household members, FaceTime calls, and voice identification. Facial recognition data stays on the device. Audio includes full-range drivers in the screen, with the base model adding a down-firing woofer and passive radiators.
HomeView does not run iOS or iPadOS and has no App Store. Instead, it uses its own software with customizable “faces” that users can swipe through, similar to an Apple Watch. These can show clocks, shared photo albums, weather, Snoopy animations, smart home controls, or up to nine live camera feeds. Swiping up reveals a home screen of apps and widgets. The device recognizes faces (when the user’s iPhone is on the same Wi-Fi and recently unlocked) to switch from a shared household view to personal content, app arrangements, and widgets. It also supports voice recognition and Handoff from a nearby iPhone.
Apple’s tech specs list these 15 built-in apps:
• Alarms
• Calendar
• FaceTime
• Find My
• Home
• Intercom
• Messages
• Music
• Podcasts
• Reminders
• Safari
• Settings
• Timers
• Weather
• World Clock
Additional content comes from a paired iPhone. Supported items include:
• Apple Music Classical
• Apple News
• Apple TV
• Audiobooks
• Spotify (and other supported third-party audio and video apps)
Video and audio can also play through Safari. Full Siri AI features, including personal context drawn from the paired iPhone (such as playing songs mentioned in Messages or scheduling actions based on estimated arrival), require an Apple Intelligence-capable iPhone (iPhone 15 Pro or later). Older devices can set up the HomeView with more limited Siri capabilities.
The latest Apple Developer Program License Agreement formalizes how third-party content reaches the device. Section 6.4 addresses CarPlay and Apple HomeView. It states that an iOS application’s widget may be made available on both CarPlay and Apple HomeView, with developers responsible for ensuring widgets are functional and suitable (particularly for CarPlay driving contexts, using tools like disfavoredLocations where needed). Apple can disfavor unsuitable widgets. Separately, if an app includes a CarPlay entitlement in a category Apple identifies in its documentation, the company may provide access to that application on HomeView while it runs on a paired iOS device. Apple’s CarPlay developer materials add that CarPlay audio and video apps work on HomeView without requiring modifications to the app. Widgets from iOS apps that already support CarPlay (available more broadly than just audio and video categories) can therefore appear as well, unless developers opt out.
This approach lets HomeView offer media and glanceable information from the user’s existing iPhone apps without a native App Store or new app builds in many cases. It emphasizes privacy through on-device processing for recognition features and requires the nearby, recently unlocked iPhone for sensitive personal content. The device also acts as a smart home hub for controlling accessories, viewing cameras, and handling automations, with multiroom audio support alongside HomePods or other HomeViews.
MacDailyNews Take: HomeView represents Apple’s late entry into the smart display market already occupied by devices from Amazon and Google. Its design leans on tight iPhone integration, Watch-style faces, household personalization via the camera, the revamped Siri AI, adn emphasized user privacy. Availability begins in select countries including the US, UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, India, Singapore, and South Africa; it is not offered currently in the EU.
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Carplay apps. Gee. In a home on a stationary device.
Where are the video apps? Why is the home screen restricted to what Apple chooses?
A stationary home device needs iPad type apps, video apps, etc. The homescreen should be decided by me not apple.
I hope Ternus get’s apple back to realizing I OWN my devices and should be able to do with them as I please.