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Apple rumored to be working on a smart home operating system version
- dangus 1y ago> For example, he expects there to be a hexagonal grid of apps, just like on the Apple Watch. One of the worst UI experiences out there.
- mathiaspoint 1y agoWow Apple watch in the mac form factor. It's like they want to be known for the worst OSes possible.
- ranger_danger 1y ago28 million watch sales may suggest that not everyone shares your opinion.
- glhaynes 1y agoIt'll also be a very different experience on a screen many times as large.
- jsjohnst 1y agoAs someone who has owned every single Apple Watch model/generation and love the hardware, I agree with GP on the terrible UX of the app grid.
- mkbelieve 1y agoI only ever use mine for the face + notifications. The UX is godawful. I'd probably buy an Apple watch that only served to relay OTPs.
- jcelerier 1y agoSince when are sales in any way correlated to quality of the product?
- ranger_danger 1y agoI think since forever... https://frederik.today/blog/quality-vs-sales-affect-conversion-rates https://frederik.today/blog/quality-vs-sales-affect-conversi... https://avenuetalentpartners.com/2017/12/05/quality-always-wins-sales-heres/ https://avenuetalentpartners.com/2017/12/05/quality-always-w... https://www.forbes.com/councils/forbescommunicationscouncil/2025/03/27/product-and-sales-together-for-bigger-wins/ https://www.forbes.com/councils/forbescommunicationscouncil/... Not saying it is a direct 1:1 correlation, but I think it's fair to say there is a correlation. And perhaps your definition of quality differs from others.
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- aaronbrethorst 1y agoApple Watch lets you switch between the unusable hexagonal grid and a list. I’ve been an Apple Watch user for over ten years and switched from the grid to the list as soon as that was an option. Also, thanks for introducing me to the term argumentum ad populum. I didn’t know what that was called before.
- ranger_danger 1y agoIf you're trying to passive-aggressively imply my comment is a logical fallacy, I would counter with another one and say I think that's a false equivalence, as there is scientific data that shows quality of a product (which I am defining in this context as not thinking it is "one of the worst UI experiences") can in fact influence sales. I also qualified my comment with "may suggest" so as to not imply it as some kind of unfounded fact. https://www.enrichment.iocspublisher.org/index.php/enrichment/article/view/2136 https://www.enrichment.iocspublisher.org/index.php/enrichmen... https://www.firstinsight.com/blog/price-vs-quality-what-matters-most-to-consumers https://www.firstinsight.com/blog/price-vs-quality-what-matt... Maybe your definition of quality differs from mine or these people though.
- leptons 1y agoThey sold 28 million? That's only 0.34% of all people, so I'm not sure that's the wild success you think it is.
- dangus 1y agoThis type of comment is so tiring. I didn’t say other people’s perspective wasn’t valid. I’m just offering mine. By the way, by your logic $200 laptops/Chromebooks are better than MacBook Pros, since they sell so much better. McDonald’s is actually better than Michelin starred cuisine, too. Also you’re basically locked into an Apple Watch as the only wearable that can actually do anything so it’s not really a free market of wearables on iOS.
- rpdillon 1y agoThis is a logical fallacy in two dimensions. First, you're conflating one UI option in the product with the entire product. It could be that 28 million users are using the list-based view. Second, you're implying that high sales of a product are correlated with quality. This isn't true: high sales are a result of demand and available options, as well as target audience. In Apple's case, because users don't buy a specific product from Apple, but rather buy into the entire ecosystem, Apple users don't typically have the choices that other users have. So it's perfectly viable that they would want the Apple Music integration and the iMessage integration, but hate the UI of the launcher. Finally, the 'may suggest' phrasing doesn't sound like good faith, but rather a sarcastic quip, which is why I suspect you've been voted down.
- kamma4434 1y agoAgreed. Super frustrating
- RatchetWerks 1y agoI'm in the minority here. I switched from list to hex. The hex allows for me to select X more apps versus scrolling down and looking for it. It was painful at first since I needed to remember what logos mapped to what app.
- veidr 1y agoYMMV. I also hate it (and use the simple, GenX-compatible alphabetically-ordered list) but all my kids and also my wife prefer the weird hex grid — they're just faster with it, it doesn't slow them down the way it does to my 1970s heavy-rock brain ¯\\_(ಠ_ಠ)_/¯
- dangus 1y agoI can see how it is faster since you can see more apps at once but I just hate the scavenger hunt of it. I feel like something normal like a 4x4 grid with multiple customizable pages would have made more sense.
- joshmarinacci 1y agoIn one sense this is logical. A HomePod with a screen and an iOS variant. On the other hand, what is this for? What uses do these smart home devices serve? We are a decade plus into the “smart home” era and most of these things are more trouble than they are worth.
- Mistletoe 1y agoIf I had to guess they are going to try and shoehorn AI into it to get a last gasp on the stock price going up.
- bryanrasmussen 1y agoApple has on a few occasions in the past come in after people have spent a lot of time and energy developing things and making a small market, figuring out how it should actually work, making a nice version 1.0 of how it should actually work, making that market explode 100-fold and taking all the money. That smart homes are more trouble than they are worth currently sounds to me like ripe territory for Apple to poach. However not sure if without Jobs and Ive if they can actually do anything like what they used to.
- paulryanrogers 1y agoWas Johnny Ive really a driver of innovation? Or just trading repairabily for vanity metrics?
- DrBenCarson 1y agoYou tell me, was the iPhone innovative?
- kjkjadksj 1y agoNo it was inevitable
- bryanrasmussen 1y ago
- amelius 1y agoSo is this about the kernel, or just the GUI layer? Or somewhere in between?
- vlovich123 1y agoSomewhere in between. “New os” is them taking the base components of the OS and excluding some, including some new ones, changing the UX and DX, and defining how it fits into their broader ecosystem (in addition to things like adding new hardware support and whatnot).
- easton 1y agoProbably mostly the GUI and some different set of system services / APIs. I think all of the OSes are the same XNU/Darwin base and then diverge dramatically in user space.
- altairprime 1y agoThis is true to the best of our knowledge for their GUI-less OSes running on the HDMI adapter, T2 chips, and display chips as well.
- vlovich123 1y agoThey still package the kernel differently. It’s like Linux - you don’t compile in all the hardware support into one package - just the set of hardware it needs to support. And Apple has generally unified a lot of the HW architecture across their product line but there are always small differences here and there.
- auguzanellato 1y agoThey also have RTKit (a RTOS as the name suggests) for simpler devices such as AirPods, AirTags and some dumber stuff.
- calibas 1y agoI assume another custom version of FreeBSD.
- Klonoar 1y agoI roll my eyes every time someone regurgitates the FreeBSD line. https://wiki.freebsd.org/Myths#FreeBSD_is_Just_macOS_Without_the_Good_Bits https://wiki.freebsd.org/Myths#FreeBSD_is_Just_macOS_Without...
- slashdave 1y agoSo, a new skin counts as "all-new"?
- SG- 1y ago'all-new' meaning based on macOS just like iOS, watchOS, etc...
- jayd16 1y agoAll new meaning yet another App Store target to build for and UX to support.
- bnchrch 1y agoIn the past I used to get excited for any rum or, teaser or upcoming release. However, in this apple era I can’t. Why? Because I can’t count on them to deliver. The M series chips, and air pods have been a smashing success. But the fact that Siri is still behind even pre LLM state of the art is abominable. Apple vision was innovative. But the forward facing display, and titanium parts that bloated weight and cost was a sign of deteriorating design thinking. Their delivery is so inconsistent lately its hard to trust the known what they’re doing with their future.
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- gnerd00 1y agoAI-centric phone-like OS? .. hard pass. California gave rise to so many inspired and marvelous technology in the past, but this always-on Big Brother world built on massive pools of cash.. n-o spells no. I do not understand how people accept these consumer devices.
- codeaether 1y agoIt's such a pity to see how much respect Apple has lost due to its lack of real technological ambition. Just a few years ago, Apple was admired for pushing boundaries—now it feels like history is repeating itself.
- colechristensen 1y agoI think it's more there's nothing left to be done. There have been little refinements but airliners look the same as they did in the 60s and the basics of all of it are just the same as they were 60 years ago as now. Operating systems are the same.
- kjkjadksj 1y agoAirliners look the same because of regulations
- cosmicgadget 1y agoAre you saying there is not technology left?
- colechristensen 1y agoNo. Just when it comes to the user-facing aspects of a computer/phone/tablet operating system, there's nothing left to do besides little tweaks.
- sumedh 1y ago> I think it's more there's nothing left to be done. They could have worked on improving Siri and captured the most of the AI Assistant market but they simply dropped the ball.
- AtlasBarfed 1y agoApple wants you to buy a new phone every year. Home automation needs support for 30 years. IoT won't ever take off without strict regulations on long term support and open standards, including escrowed support.
- kalleboo 1y agoApple has the best track record of anyone for length of OS support on their phones. They're also trying to pivot from hardware purchases to the recurring revenue of "services". If making your home smart gets you to pay monthly for "Apple One" they'd probably be happy to support that for ages.
- hu3 1y agoNot a high bar to clear when your back only competition is Android. They do barely better than most.
- cosmicgadget 1y agoI can't wait to see the list of home automation gadgets it interoperates with. All five of them.
- bretto13 1y agoIt's true that out of box compatibility is still kind of a mess, and Matter has not dramatically improved that, but if you're willing to run an instance of HomeAssistant or Homebridge you can get practically any home automation device to work with Homekit. I don't imagine that will change with the "new" os.
- alehlopeh 1y agoI’m amazed not a single comment here has mentioned tvOS. Even TFA barely mentions it. My Apple TV device acts as my smarthome/home app hub, and tvOS already supports multiple users.
- Zopieux 1y agoOh my god please just stop and install HomeAssistant already.
- vrighter 1y agodeveloping a ui != developing an os.
- drcongo 1y agoHome / Homekit is Apple's ginger step-child. Unloved and ignored every OS update.