Jason Snell’s HomeView Review

Jason Snell:

The hardware is solid and coherent, the screen a pleasure to touch and tilt. In terms of software, though, the HomeView feels like a peculiar amalgam of numerous other Apple products. Its main interface makes it look a bit like an overgrown Apple Watch, complete with customizable “faces” that sometimes resemble actual Apple Watch faces and other times resemble the iPhone’s StandBy mode. Its apps sometimes feel like they’ve escaped from the iPhone or iPad, but at other times they feel more like they’re right off of an Apple TV. And still other “apps” resemble what you might see in your car, since Apple is also using CarPlay to project interfaces from apps running on your iPhone.

Given the fact that this product’s tech stack feels like it was created in a blender, it’s remarkable that it holds together as well as it does — but there are still places where the seams show.

I’ve been testing a review unit HomeView for a bit over a week, but haven’t had much time to devote to it. So in a lot of ways my HomeView experience thus far has been much more like that of a casual user than an expert. I plugged it in, set it up, got my wife and son to do what they needed to do to become recognized fellow-family-member users, and then we all collectively have had a week of “Well, now what?”

What Snell writes above succinctly and sharply describes my take: the hardware is top-notch but the software is like bits of iOS, WatchOS, tvOS, and CarPlay cut up and assembled into a ransom letter. The software lacks cohesion and vision and polish. If you open a web page you can select text, with the iOS touch interface, but there is nothing you can do with a text selection. You can’t copy it or share it. So why can you even make a selection? That’s the least of HomeView’s software problems, but perhaps most emblematic of its “created in a blender” state.

★ Saturday, 14 November 2026