Apple's new $299 HomeView might be the first smart display in years that makes me want to put one back in my kitchen. Which is saying something, considering I once had multiple Amazon Echo Shows around my home before eventually giving up on them altogether.

I was initially a big believer in the Echo Show. I loved the idea of having recipes, music, photos and smart home controls available without constantly reaching for my phone. But the longer I lived with them, the more I realized how much work I was doing to make these supposedly convenient devices useful.

Want to follow a recipe? I found myself working around Amazon's suggested options rather than easily opening one I'd already saved on my phone. Want to turn the screen into a digital photo frame? That meant managing another app just to display my favorite pictures.

Add in the increasingly intrusive ads, and my Echo Shows eventually went from helpful household gadgets to screens I didn't particularly want to look at. It wasn't long before I sent them off to my storage unit.

But after seeing Apple's new HomeView in action on a bedroom nightstand, mounted on a wall and, most practically for me, on a kitchen counter, I started reconsidering whether I'd actually given up on smart displays altogether.

Unlike my Echo Shows, HomeView seems designed to work with the things I'm already doing on my iPhone, rather than asking me to figure out another way to do them.

Usually, when I'm following a recipe, I've already decided what I'm making.

Source link