Just days after Apple delayed its HomePod speaker and personal assistant into 2018, Amazon's low-priced Echo Dot was the company's top seller over Black Friday and Cyber Monday, giving the online retailer an even greater lead over rivals in the home speaker market.
In an update to its webpage on Wednesday, Apple refreshed the design of a mini-site dedicated to iOS 10's Home app and debuted a video showing off some of the smarthome software's best features.
Apple's latest iPhone 7 and 7 Plus are faster, sport significantly better cameras, expand system-wide haptics in iOS 10 with a new solid state Home button and Taptic Engine, introduce Wide Color and other major Retina HD technology improvements without changing their display resolutions, add new water resistance and include updates to system components ranging from RAM to storage to wireless capabilities.
Hands on, real world use of Apple's latest iPhone 7 models provides overwhelming evidence that the company has a clear vision for the future and is marching toward it without much regard for the opinions of its detractors. This "courage of conviction" backs a series of rather radical and somewhat controversial iPhone 7 changes for Apple—already well known for breaking with the past.
Apple's new iPhone 7 models introduce a new solid-state (non-mechanical) Home button which no longer physically depresses but instead is a software-driven sensor. That necessitates a new physical button sequence to hard-reset the device if it stops responding; that happens to be holding the Volume Down and Wake buttons for five seconds.
After users upgrade devices to iOS 10, they won't be able to take full advantage of some new HomeKit-related features on older, third generation Apple TVs.
Apple is getting serious about HomeKit. Two years after introducing the automated home platform on iOS 8, the company this week announced new support for a host of connected appliances, as well as a forthcoming iOS 10 setting that turns iPad into a smart home hub.
Apple introduced a dedicated "Home" iOS app at its Worldwide Developers Conference on Monday, finally introducing a manual control interface for HomeKit accessories to iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch.
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Neil Hughes
AppleInsider Staff
Daniel Eran Dilger
Mike Wuerthele
