As my colleague Zac Hall noted yesterday, Apple’s home strategy is a mess. This really guarantees a conversation about what the company wants to accomplish in customers’ homes. Since Apple TV and HomePod are in strange states, it occurred to me that it would be valuable to imagine how the two product lines could come together. Enter HomePod TV …
Smart home screens have become an important component of the history of the smart home. Whether it’s the Google Nest Hub or the Amazon Echo Show, Apple’s main competitors have found that they can sell more expensive home speakers by adding a display.
Apple already has all the main things they need to create an incredible smart display for HomeKit. It starts with the same 10.2 ″ Retina panel as the $ 329 iPad. It’s more affordable and certainly nowhere near as beautiful as the iPad Pro’s screen, but it’s still good. And since you won’t be looking at it for long periods at close range, it’s not really a necessity to have the absolute best screen. Mount this monitor on a smaller iMac-style foot with adjustable angles and you’ll have a perfect smart home monitor.
Clock faces and screen savers
When a smart display is not in use, it must show a nice watch and / or pertinent information of your choice. Apple already knows how to make beautiful watches. They could extend the same watch faces that make the Apple Watch such a beautiful watch for a bigger screen. Some of the complications can also increase, such as fitness rings.
Just like the Apple Watch, you can tap and hold to change the watch face. This is much easier than the solutions that today’s smart monitors use. Usually you have to go through the settings.
The screen savers on tvOS are a truly loved part of the platform and they would create impressive digital clock backgrounds. Whether panoramic over a city at night or over a few cliffs during the day, the screen can show you beautiful scenery whenever you want.
tvOS on smaller monitors
tvOS is an important part of that story. HomePod and HomePod mini already run tvOS variants with support for HomeKit. Apple could take the existing tvOS interface and optimize it for smaller monitors. There are some important changes that I would make to improve the experience. Most of these changes revolve around the need for touch input.
Just swipe up on the clock to reveal your apps below it, with each row featuring four apps. Instead of the images shown on Apple TV, the watch would stay there with the ability to slide horizontally between different looks, such as weather and calendar.
TvOS would need some new applications to complete the smart display. The first is a new Home app. Currently tvOS has HomeKit controls in the new control center. But a dedicated application would be very important in a product like this. He would have to show big buttons and have easy-to-play toggles.
When it comes to smart monitors, audio is extremely important. You can, of course, use Siri to play any video or audio you want. The same great music apps and podcasts would come from Apple TV. You can see the beautiful album cover, as well as the lyrics. All apps available on tvOS can also be downloaded from the App Store on HomePod TV. Each service would already be ready to start on the first day.
The iPad Pro has incredible quad speakers. Because of the aluminum base and the lack of battery, a ton of extra space opens up. These same amazing speakers on the 12.9 ″ iPad Pro could theoretically fit inside a smaller device and still deliver the same thunderous sound.
You can also pair HomePod TV with HomePod minis to create an even better surround audio experience in any space.
Facetime and TrueDepth profiles
They would also be great for Facetime and Facetime audio calls. The camera above the screen would gain the same LED currently on MacBooks to indicate when the camera and / or microphone are on. Better yet, if they included a TrueDepth camera module, HomePod TV could tell which member of the family is using the device and show different profiles. TvOS already has infrastructure for several profiles.
Conclusion
This product would absolutely be a highly premium device. It would probably be more expensive than the original HomePod. But customers would better understand the value they are getting from a display device, even at a higher price.
There are so many different things that could be done with a product like this from Apple. It can function as a small Sidecar display on your desk. With Apple Arcade games, it can be a small mounted gaming tablet that can be paired with a controller. The possibilities are endless.
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