Apple’s first smart display is on sale from today. Apple HomeView costs $299 in the United States and £299 in the United Kingdom, and it reaches shops on Friday 13 November in eight markets: the US, UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, India, Singapore and South Africa. Pre-orders opened a month ago, on 13 October, when Apple announced the device alongside a new Apple TV 4K.
HomeView is the product Apple has been rumoured to be building for years: a 7-inch touchscreen on a domed speaker base, designed to sit on a kitchen counter or hang on a wall as the control centre of a home. It is Apple’s answer to Amazon’s Echo Show and Google’s Nest Hub — a category Apple has watched from the sidelines for nearly a decade. Both the tabletop version and the wall-mounted version cost the same $299, though the wall model needs mounting hardware bought separately, starting at $59.95.
What $299 buys
The headline hardware is a 7-inch square Liquid Retina display with a resolution of 1088 × 1088 pixels, powered by Apple’s A18 chip. A 12-megapixel Center Stage camera handles FaceTime calls, four far-field microphones listen for voice commands, and the speaker base is built for room-filling sound with Spatial Audio. Connectivity covers Wi-Fi 6E, Bluetooth 6 and Thread, so it can talk directly to modern smart-home accessories.
The software is the bigger story. HomeView is built around Siri AI, Apple’s rebuilt voice assistant, which the company says debuted in iOS 27. It recognises up to six people in a household by face, giving each one a personalised home screen with their own messages, calendar and music. It can show up to nine security-camera feeds at once, turn a recipe from the web into step-by-step cooking instructions, and broadcast messages around the house through Intercom.
There are limits buyers should know about before queuing. Siri AI is in beta and English-only at launch, and its most personal features need a newer, Apple Intelligence-enabled iPhone or iPad paired to the display. There is no App Store: third-party audio and video apps, including Spotify, reach the screen through CarPlay support from a paired iPhone. And Apple says some server-based AI features have daily usage limits, with expanded access available for a fee in future — though no price has been announced.
The December fix Apple has already promised
Early reviews published on Thursday flagged a problem Apple has already acknowledged. In testing, Siri AI refused to open a garage door or unlock a front door by voice, and at one point told the reviewer it did not have a camera. Apple confirmed to tech journalist Joanna Stern that a software update due in December will fix this, letting recognised household members control security accessories by voice. Until then, those actions work from the on-screen controls but not by voice.
New owners should also expect an update during setup: the device ships with the older HomeView Software 26.5 and prompts an update to version 27.2, which Apple released on 12 November to fix nine security vulnerabilities.
Not for sale in the EU
One market is missing entirely. HomeView is not on sale in the European Union, because Apple says Siri AI is currently unavailable in iOS there. The company says it is working with the EU to find a way forward, but has given no date.
Apple TV 4K launches the same day
HomeView is not launching alone. The fourth-generation Apple TV 4K also goes on sale today, also priced at $299, in the US and 29 other countries and regions. It runs on Apple’s A19 chip, which the company says delivers up to 50% faster CPU performance and twice the graphics performance of the previous model, with 128GB of storage, Wi-Fi 7 and Siri AI built in. It can connect up to four HomePods for surround sound, and has three far-field microphones so Siri can be used hands-free.
The pair closes out what Apple watchers have called one of the company’s busiest hardware runs: the HomePod mini 2 arrived on 30 October, new Macs and iPads on 6 November, and now HomeView and Apple TV 4K on 13 November. With both launches done, no further major Apple hardware is expected for the rest of the year.
For buyers weighing the purchase, the choice is no longer whether Apple makes a smart display — it does, from today, for $299. The choice is whether a 7-inch Apple screen belongs on your counter, or whether a larger Echo Show does the same job better. Our full comparison, Apple HomeView vs Amazon Echo Show, covers the specs and prices in detail.
