I waited an extremely long time for home view to come out. I am so disappointed. Cancelled my order. Cannot believe that you can’t use third-party apps. Absolutely ridiculous. Will not order one until it does support third-party apps
[Re-Titled by Moderator]
Original Title: Home view
You are kind of correct, there are some third party app categories allowed, but there is not a separate App Store. The installed apps are seen on the Tech Specs page.
Apple HomeView - Technical Specifications - Apple
You also see on that page it says Supported third-party audio and video apps, from iPhone. Developers of those app categories will have the option to use the same CarPlay framework to display their apps on the Home View.
So you probably made the right decision to see how the developers of the apps you are looking for will respond. It would be perfect for an app like Spotify, which apparently will be supported, but I would not expect to see anything like a Facebook app on there, or if that even makes sense.
There needs to be some differentaion between the devices, it is not just another iPhone/iPad with a different screen size, it needs to serve a completely different purpose. It may not be for you, and that is OK.
You are kind of correct, there are some third party app categories allowed, but there is not a separate App Store. The installed apps are seen on the Tech Specs page.
Apple HomeView - Technical Specifications - Apple
You also see on that page it says Supported third-party audio and video apps, from iPhone. Developers of those app categories will have the option to use the same CarPlay framework to display their apps on the Home View.
So you probably made the right decision to see how the developers of the apps you are looking for will respond. It would be perfect for an app like Spotify, which apparently will be supported, but I would not expect to see anything like a Facebook app on there, or if that even makes sense.
There needs to be some differentaion between the devices, it is not just another iPhone/iPad with a different screen size, it needs to serve a completely different purpose. It may not be for you, and that is OK.
You are not limited to the LG home devices coming later, the devices just need to be HomeKit compatible which has been available for the last 12 years and many third party devices support it. Google and Amazon (Ring) have historically not supported HomeKit for their own reasons. They are not even compatible with each other so you cannot add the Ring camera to the Google Nest Hub either.
For the list of devices compatible with HomeKit, you can look here:
I don't think that's a dealbreaker. As long as the Home app works on the new device the way it does on existing Apple hubs, a HomeKit bridge (Home Assistant, Homebridge or Scrypted) can bring your Nest, Ring and thermostats into the Home view. They show up as normal HomeKit accessories, so you don't have to replace anything. I agree it would be nicer if Apple supported more third-party gear natively, though.
I was looking to use it with my home thermostats, my nest cameras, my ring camera, things like that. I mean, yeah, I would like to buy all Apple items, but right now they using third-party stuff themselves, LG, which I’m not gonna change all the cameras in my house and all the items in my house just to use this thing. Extremely disappointed at Apple because they don’t usually do that, to try to wrangle you into one device to use all their products. It’s not the right way to go. I’m hoping that changes in the future, cause I don’t think it’s gonna sell very well when find out people find out you can only do certain things with it. Way too limited. I mean, they’ve been developing this thing for 3-5 years, and this is what they come up with.
Home View can't support third-party apps
