HomeView Needs an iPhone or iPad for Some AI Features - MacRumors
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HomeView Needs an iPhone or iPad for Some AI Features

Despite featuring an A18 chip and built-in Apple Intelligence support, Apple's new HomeView still depends on a paired Apple Intelligence-enabled iPhone or iPad for several features.

homeview siri ai
According to Apple's announcement, Siri requests involving personal context require a paired Apple Intelligence-enabled iPhone or ‌iPad‌ running the latest software, with ‌Siri‌ AI enabled and set to a supported language. These capabilities include retrieving relevant information from Messages and Calendar, as well as taking action across apps using the user's personal context.

HomeView will still offer several ‌Siri‌ AI capabilities to users whose iPhone or ‌iPad‌ does not support ‌Apple Intelligence‌. Apple says these users can ask general-knowledge questions, hold natural conversations with ‌Siri‌, and benefit from improved music discovery. ‌Siri‌ requests on the HomeView can be processed on the device or through Private Cloud Compute.

Customizable ‌Siri‌ voices have more restrictive hardware requirements. Users can only adjust ‌Siri‌'s expressiveness and speaking pace on their paired device, with those preferences then carrying over to HomeView. This requires an iPhone Duo, iPhone 18 Pro, iPhone Air, iPhone 17 Pro, or an ‌iPad‌ with an M4 chip or later and at least 12GB of unified memory. The feature is available in English only.

Some of the HomeView's intelligent camera features also depend on another Apple device. Video summaries and natural language searches of HomeKit Secure Video recordings require setup using an Apple Intelligence-enabled iPhone or ‌iPad‌, along with an eligible iCloud+ subscription.

The HomeView launches on November 13, with both the tabletop and wall-mounted models priced at $299 in the U.S.

Related Roundup: Apple HomeView
Buyer's Guide: HomeView (Buy Now)

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Top Rated Comments

jayducharme Avatar
4 weeks ago
Great. So I'll just save myself $300 and stick with my iPhone.
Score: 26 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Disgruntled Apple Owner Avatar
4 weeks ago
I give up. This is worse than useless.
Score: 17 Votes (Like | Disagree)
4 weeks ago
Disappointing to hear this. Should have full functionality without the requirement of the paired device. HomeView should have got a newer chip.
Score: 12 Votes (Like | Disagree)
4 weeks ago
What on earth is going on with apple. This is a total fail. Rendered useless on launch!

I mounted an ipad on my kitchen wall years ago and it works perfectly as a home hub. Why invent something at basically doesn't work?
Score: 8 Votes (Like | Disagree)
boswald Avatar
4 weeks ago
Well yeah, of course. You didn't really think Apple wants you to leave your precious $1500 phone behind, did you?
Score: 7 Votes (Like | Disagree)
4 weeks ago
As I expected and feared, this device’s hardware is not capable enough, not for me anyways.
Score: 7 Votes (Like | Disagree)
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