HomeView
October 20, 2026 at 11:48 AM by Dr. Drang
Given that I typically take a wait-and-see attitude when Apple introduces a new product, I was surprised to find myself ordering a HomeView within a day of its announcement. I was even more surprised when lots of otherwise pro-Apple people—this guy, for example—were skeptical about its value.
Why is this? Well, one reason could be that I don’t already have a HomePod in my kitchen, which makes me behind the times. I’ve been thinking I should get one (or two), but Siri’s deficiencies have kept me back. Also, I like the idea of a status board but didn’t want to dedicate an iPad to that. The recently improved Siri and the HomeView’s touchscreen kill those two birds with one $300 stone.
And I think I have a good place for it in my kitchen. Not on the center island. The two likely spots for it on the island are corners that are already taken:
- The corner that currently has a shallow wooden bowl that my dad turned and that I finished after his death. It’s where I put fruit and vegetables that don’t need refrigeration and is currently holding an avocado that should be ripe tomorrow.
- The corner that has a vase I keep filled with flowers from Trader Joe’s. That’s where Janet put flowers, and it isn’t going to change.
Another obvious place would be the kitchen desk. Many years ago, we had a laptop computer on the desk, so it has a history of similar use. But the desk isn’t in a great spot for the HomeView—a little too far away from the island to look at it while I’m preparing a meal, and maybe a little too far away from the kitchen table to use as a status board.
But there is a perfect spot at the end of one of the counters. It’s near both the kitchen table and the island. I’ll need to rotate it, depending on where I am, but the annoying family in the video showed that that was no problem. And there’s an outlet right there, so the power cord can be stored neatly.
The counter isn’t a good spot for a FaceTime call, but it’ll be easy to move the HomeView over to the kitchen table when I use it for that.
So by being behind the times for several years, I’m now in the perfect position to be on the cutting edge. With a product that’s been sitting on the shelf for a year or so.