Fall 2026 will be remembered as a time with a lot of new stuff from Apple. Siri AI has completely changed Siri, and while this first version is far from perfect, I’m frequently amazed by how useful it is. As Andrew Chow of Time notes, Apple’s goal is to build a “modest but personalized and privacy-preserving form of AI that will actually help ordinary people as opposed to merely dazzling Silicon Valley’s ‘lunatic fringe,’ as Greg Joswiak, senior vice president of worldwide marketing, puts it.” Meanwhile, pre-orders for the iPhone Duo started earlier this morning. A few days ago, Apple announced the Apple HomeView, a new type of home device that will either be exactly what your home is missing or completely unnecessary because, as Stephen Hackett of 512 Pixels noted, some people will insist you can already do all of that on your iPhone. While I think that Siri AI is a win for Apple and its customers, the jury is still out on the iPhone Duo and the HomeView. Nevertheless, I have to give Apple credit for trying something new. And now, the news of note from the past week:
- Andrew O’Hara of AppleInsider got a chance to try out the HomeView at Apple’s event in New York this week, and he is so impressed that he plans to buy three of them: one for his kitchen, one for his bedside, and one for his office.
- Jennifer Pattison Tuohy of The Verge is impressed by the elegant simplicity of the HomeView. She also notes that because it can give you useful information without you needing to check an iPhone, it may help you avoid those situations when one parent checks an iPhone for something and then, the next thing you know, every kid sees that as permission to use their iPhone at the dinner table as well. Yes, I’ve been there.
- Juli Clover of MacRumors notes some of the HomeView features that you might have missed, such as the adaptable interface that changes what is on the screen based on how close you are to it.
- Anurag Chawake of Cult of Mac explains how the HomeView shows recipes in a new way.
- Stephen Hackett of 512 Pixels notes how the new HomeView uses many familiar Apple ideas.
- Julian Chokkattu of Wired calls the HomeView “a giant Apple Watch for the home.”
- Wesley Hilliard of AppleInsider predicts that third parties will release HomeView accessories that will make the device portable: the same thing that we have seen with the HomePod mini.
- Companies have been making small kitchen electronic devices for a long time. For example, as a Palm user over 20 years ago, I was intrigued by the short-lived 3Com Audrey in 2000. And of course, devices like the Amazon Echo have been around more recently. Kate Kozuch of Tom’s Guide notes two reasons that Apple’s HomeView may be the first device in this category to finally get it right. First, it works with the content that you already have instead of forcing you to find something within a device’s own ecosystem. Second, the HomeView doesn’t show promotional content, which many people hate about Amazon’s products.
- Keeping a HomeView in a kitchen makes good sense to me, but I can also see how it might get some abuse in that room. William Gallagher of AppleInsider notes that without AppleCare, a repair costs $279—basically the cost of a new device. But with AppleCare, the repair charge is a flat rate of $39.
- I liked the video Apple released to show how a HomeView can be used in a kitchen, but Allison Johnson of The Verge believes you have to be a parent to really appreciate the commercial. She may be right.
- Hartley Charlton of MacRumors notes that the HomeView includes temperature and humidity sensors.
- Charlton also compares the new HomePod mini 2 to the prior model, which was introduced six years ago. Charlton notes numerous technical improvements, but acknowledges that support for Siri AI is the most important change. I’m still waiting to learn how Siri AI works when you have a mix of old and new models in your home.
- Apple used to use a Broadcom network chip to provide Wi-Fi and other networking features for the iPhone. In 2025, Apple instead started using a new chip it designed called the N1. It supports the latest standards for Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and Thread. Because it uses Bluetooth 6, it supports Bluetooth channel sounding to find other devices that support the standard with precise tracking. (Before the N1, Apple used a separate UWB chip for that tracking.) One of Apple’s announcements this week was a new Apple TV remote that you can find using Find My. But instead of working with UWB for precision tracking, it only works with the N1. Stevie Bonifield of The Verge reports that this means you can use just about any iPhone to track this remote with hints like “far” or “near,” but if you want precision tracking—details like how many feet away the remote is—you’ll need to use an iPhone Duo, iPhone Air, or iPhone 17 or later (because those are the models that have an N1 chip).
- Andrew Orr of AppleInsider notes that Siri AI is coming to Apple TV 4K models dating back to 2021.
- I’m not a fan of horror movies, but I won’t be able to resist at least starting to watch a new immersive horror film in immersive video for the Apple Vision Pro called Remnants. I’m sure that horror is even scarier when it is that much more lifelike. Apple shared a video showing people screaming as they experienced the movie. (As a reminder, here is the list that I keep up to date of all of Apple’s immersive content.)
- Glenn Fleishman of Six Colors explains how, in iOS 27, you can share your location with someone else for a custom period of time that you choose, up to 30 days.
- I enjoyed the Apple TV show Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed, so I was pleased to see this report from Ryan Christoffel of 9to5Mac that Apple has renewed the show for a second season.
- And finally, if you want to see an Apple promotional video for the HomeView that follows a more traditional style than the video I referenced above, then this video is for you: