This week, it's been an absolute rollercoaster in the world of Apple!
The Busiest Week in Apple I Can Remember...
I’ve been doing this a long time, and I can’t remember a week like it. Tuesday was Apple’s “Welcome Home” launch: three new home products, a whole accessory ecosystem, all on pre-order within the hour. Today at 1pm the iPhone Duo went on sale. Two weeks from now, Macs and a new iPad mini. If you’re an Apple customer with a credit card, October is coming for it.
The two halves of this week have left me in completely different moods, so I’m going to treat them separately. Home first, because that’s where the frustration is. Duo second, because that’s where the joy is.
Welcome Home: what Apple actually announced
No keynote this time. Apple dropped press releases and videos at 2pm UK time on Tuesday while journalists got hands-on time in a townhouse in New York. Here’s what came out of it.
HomeView is the smart display we’ve been calling “HomePad” for a year. A 7-inch square touchscreen with an A18 chip, a 12-megapixel FaceTime camera, and Siri AI built in. It recognises up to six people by face and gives each of you your own Home Screen, so when you walk up it shows your calendar and your messages, not your partner’s. It controls your smart home, shows up to nine camera feeds at once, does FaceTime, Music, Podcasts, Reminders, recipes, the lot. Two versions, both £299/$299: a tabletop model with a domed speaker base in silver, starlight, rose pink, or space grey, and a wall-mounted model that’s just the screen, in silver or space grey. The wall version needs a separate mount, and we’ll come back to that. Ships November 13.
Apple TV 4K gets its first refresh since 2022. Same box, new A19 chip, Siri AI, built-in microphones so you can talk to it without the remote, and the ability to pair with up to four HomePods for surround sound. The remote looks identical but now beeps when you ask Siri where it is. ÂŁ299/$299, ships November 13.
HomePod mini 2 is the first update since 2020. Same shape, new S10 chip, a glowing light effect on top called Sound Glow, new colours, and it can now act as a speaker for your Mac. £149/$149, ships October 30. Siri AI is coming to it “in a future software update.” Not at launch. Hold that thought.
The Apple Home Collection is a range of cameras, a doorbell, a smart lock, and thermostats designed with LG and Schneider Electric and sold at Apple. The LG Indoor Cam is ÂŁ179.95, the Video Doorbell ÂŁ229.95, the Outdoor Cam ÂŁ279.95, and the Floodlight Cam ÂŁ349.95. None of it ships until December at the earliest.
That’s the lineup. Now, what I did with it.
I ordered five things on Tuesday. I’ve cancelled three.
Two HomeViews, two Apple TVs, one HomePod mini 2. That was Tuesday afternoon. By this morning, both Apple TVs and the HomePod mini were gone. The HomeViews are still on order, but only just.
I want to be fair here, because I genuinely believe Apple can crack the home eventually. The bones of a good ecosystem are there. But this launch didn’t do enough to win people over (in my opinion), and the longer I sat with it, the more it felt like Apple was inventing reasons for us to spend money rather than showing us how our lives get better. Deferred features. Pricey accessories. Upgrade cases that fall apart if you think about them for five minutes. It all adds up to a launch that asks for a lot of trust and offers surprisingly little in return.
Let me go through them.
HomePod mini 2: the one that annoyed me most
I was never buying this for me. I was buying it for the channel, to test it and tell you about it. And by Friday morning I’d decided I didn’t even want it for that. It feels, bluntly, like a cash grab. A speaker that’ll sit on a shelf and gather dust.
What tipped me over was the Siri AI situation. The entire reason this product exists is to bring the new Siri into your home. And it won’t do that on launch day. Apple’s footnote says “a future software update.” Could be a week. Could be longer. Nobody knows. But after two years of waiting for Siri AI, asking people to buy a device whose headline feature is still a promise is extraordinary. It’s Apple taking goodwill for granted, again, and that well isn’t bottomless. For what it’s worth, the original HomePod mini isn’t getting Siri AI at all, which Apple confirmed on Wednesday after a day of confusion, and when it does arrive on the mini 2, personal requests will need an Apple Intelligence iPhone nearby.
The marketing didn’t help. One demo had four HomePod minis dotted around a living room for surround sound. That’s £600 of speakers. At that price I’m buying a soundbar. Another had two colour-matched minis sitting either side of an iMac, which is a computer whose whole point is that it has good speakers built in. They looked lovely. They also looked like a solution to a problem nobody has.
I haven’t heard it. It might sound wonderful. I’m just not spending £149 to find out.
Apple TV 4K: both cancelled
I’d ordered two to replace the two boxes we’ve already got, from two different generations. And then I asked myself the obvious question: what’s wrong with the ones I have? Nothing. They stream brilliantly. They’re fast. I’ve never once thought “I wish this Apple TV were better.”
So what was I paying £299 each for? Siri AI, basically. And then Apple confirmed that Siri AI is coming to every Apple TV 4K from 2021 onwards via a software update. The one feature I was upgrading for, I’m getting anyway. That left me with a faster chip and the ability to find my remote by asking Siri, which is nice, but it’s not £600 nice. At £150 a box I might have kept one. At £300, no chance.
I’d also hoped for a proper remote redesign after four years. We got the same one with a speaker in it. And the camera that leaked for months didn’t materialise.
My bigger disappointment is what Apple chose to show off. The one thing I actually want from an AI-powered TV box is an answer to “what should we watch tonight?” that actually works across every service I pay for. What we got was existing search categories with a conversational wrapper: family-friendly action films, trending shows, a date-night movie. “Play the show Sam texted me about” is a clever demo. “Where was this filmed?” is a party trick I can already do on my phone. I haven’t used it yet, so maybe it’s better than it looked. But it wasn’t enough to keep two orders alive.
HomeView: two on order, both on probation
This is the one I’m still curious about, and the only one I’m giving a proper chance.
The price was a pleasant surprise. I’d mentally budgeted for £500 or £600 and it came in at £299. The strange knock-on is that it makes the Apple TV look overpriced rather than making HomeView look cheap. Same money for a 7-inch touchscreen computer with a camera and a speaker, or a box that plugs into a TV you already own? One of those is clearly better value.
The wall-mounted pricing, though, is a mess. It costs the same £299 as the tabletop version despite not having the speaker base, and then you need a mount from Schneider on top: £54.95 for USB-C, £69.95 for mains-wired, or £119.95 for the Power over Ethernet one arriving next year. I’d have much rather £299 bought me either version ready to use. Couldn’t dropping the base have paid for the mount?
What I’m hoping for from it: a kitchen device that my wife and I both use without it getting confused about whose stuff it’s showing. FaceTime without pulling out a phone. Recipes that actually work with the recipes we cook from. A glance at shared reminders and the day’s calendar. Music and podcasts while cooking. And in the office, a second unit on my desk for messages, calendar, and FaceTime without interrupting whatever’s on my Mac. I suspect I’ll tap it far more than talk to it.
The thing I genuinely don’t know is whether it’ll earn its place. Apple’s demo family of parents and teenagers all already own phones. Does a shared screen in the kitchen solve a problem, or do I have to train myself to use yet another device? Will it become useful furniture, or another screen gathering dust?
Here’s something I don’t think I’ve ever said in this newsletter: I’ve never returned an Apple product. Not once in all these years. Plenty of people in tech do it as a matter of course. I never have. This time, I’ve got the 14-day return window circled on the calendar. A week of real use should tell me whether these belong in the house. I’m not saying I’ll return them. I’m saying this is the most tentative Apple purchase I’ve ever made.
A few other things worth knowing. The software is built on the CarPlay framework, not iPadOS. There’s no App Store. Audio apps that work in CarPlay should work here, and Apple has said video apps depend on developers building CarPlay versions. That’s either an odd restriction or a sneaky way to get Netflix and YouTube onto CarPlay too. I honestly can’t tell which. It’s not launching in the EU because Siri AI isn’t available there. And I’ve seen a lot of people saying they’re buying one for elderly parents as a dedicated video-calling device, which is a use I hadn’t properly considered and might be the best argument for it.
The LG stuff
The accessories look great. Proper Apple design. But a doorbell lives outside. It gets rained on. It gets dirty. Premium aesthetics don’t mean much when it’s covered in cobwebs, and £229.95 for a doorbell is a lot to pay for looks. I want better cameras in Apple Home, I really do, and I’m interested in where this goes. But this didn’t feel like a value win. It felt like a premium brand charging premium prices for the badge.
And I’ll say it: a privacy-first company partnering with LG, weeks after the reports about what LG’s TVs do with your data, is an odd look. Different division, different products, I know. But perception matters in this category, and Apple knows that better than anyone.
Nothing in the Home Collection ships until December. Some of it slips to 2027. After a build-up this long, launching the hub without the accessories makes the whole thing feel half-finished.
Where I’ve landed
I still believe in this. I want Apple to make the home work and I think they can. But this launch didn’t convince me to replace Apple TVs that are fine, or buy a speaker that’s missing its main feature. The HomeViews get their week. If they’re useful, they stay. If they’re not, they go back. Simple as that.
You Don't Have To Remember Every Feature...
Have you ever watched one of my videos, seen something useful and thought, “I must remember that”? Then, a few weeks later, when you actually need it, you can’t remember where you saw it, let alone which buttons to press.
That’s one of the main reasons I built iPhone Essentials Plus. It gives you somewhere to go when you want help with your iPhone, without having to hunt through videos to find the bit you need.
Inside, you can browse by topic or search for what you want to do. Each lesson includes a video walkthrough, written instructions with screenshots, and a downloadable PDF. So you can watch me demonstrate something, follow the written steps at your own pace, or print the guide and keep it beside you. There’s also Ask PHT, a built-in assistant currently in beta, which helps you find relevant lessons by asking a question in your own words.
And although there are more than 400 lessons, you don’t need to work through them all. Start with something you want help with today. Perhaps a setting you don’t understand, something in Photos you’ve never quite figured out, or a feature you know exists but haven’t tried. Follow the lesson, put it into practice, and come back whenever you need something else.
It’s £95 / US$129 as a one-time payment, with lifetime access and all future additions included. Other currencies are available too. And if you try it and decide it isn’t for you, email me within 30 days for a full refund.
Purchase Links:
iPhone Duo: My Pre-Order Is In, & It Was Horrible...
Right. The good bit.
Pre-orders opened at 1pm today. I’m writing this at quarter past. And I’ve got a night sky 512GB iPhone Duo reserved for collection at my local Apple Store on launch morning, Friday October 23. Exactly what I wanted. I’m genuinely thrilled. And I very nearly didn’t get it.
Our Netgear Orbi Wi-Fi has been rock solid for months. Over the last week or so it’s started getting a bit glitchy, the odd dropout, nothing serious. At 12:55 this afternoon, five minutes before the most anticipated iPhone pre-order in years, it went down completely. We’ve got 4G as a fallback, but 4G where we live is sketchy at the best of times, and this was not the best of times. I sat there watching the router lights for four minutes, which is a very long time when you’ve spent five weeks writing about a phone. It came back at 12:59. Less than a minute later I was in the Apple Store app with my finger hovering over the button. Heart in mouth doesn’t really cover it.
Here’s how the actual order went down, because there’s a lesson in it. My wife and I both hit the button at 1pm on the same (now functioning) Wi-Fi, planning to keep whichever one of us got the better date. I chose store collection. She chose delivery. Both orders went through at the same moment. Mine: launch morning. Hers: first week of November. Same phone, same colour, same storage, same second, two weeks apart. We’ll cancel hers once mine is safely in my hand.
And it turns out the delivery situation is much worse than two weeks for a lot of people. In the half hour since pre-orders opened, I’ve been watching Twitter, and some very serious names in Apple coverage haven’t managed to get one for launch day. Apple Hub, one of the biggest Apple accounts going with over a million followers, posted twenty minutes ago that for the first time ever they’re not getting an iPhone on launch day. Their delivery window is December 15 to 22. That’s two months. For someone who covers Apple for a living. I've even seen a couple of Tech Creators admitting that they have sponsors lined up, expecting a day-one video, and they now won't be able to deliver.
I’ve said this before and I’ll keep saying it: when it comes to the big iPhone launches, delivery is a gamble. If you can physically get yourself to an Apple Store on launch morning, it is night and day easier and more reliable. Check your local store as well as the flagships, because the stock clearly isn’t coming from the same pool. At about 1:08pm, Battersea was the only UK store I could see still showing availability for what I was looking at. Awkward journey. Would have done it without hesitation.
This time next week, all being well, I’ll have it in my hand and I’ll tell you what I think. There’ll be a video of some kind too, though I haven’t decided what shape it takes yet.
Did you try to pre-order today? Did you get the one you wanted? Collection or delivery, and what date? Hit reply and tell me. It’s pre-order day, not launch day, but it already feels like the most exciting Apple product in years.
Round 2: Macs and iPads
If you thought October was done after the home launch and the Duo, Apple has other ideas. Invitations went out this week for a two-day “launch experience” in Los Angeles on October 27 and 28. Same format as Tuesday: press releases and videos online, with content creators and journalists getting hands-on time in person rather than a live-streamed keynote. On the menu, according to Gurman: the first touchscreen MacBook Pro, a redesigned iPad mini with an OLED display, and M6 updates to the 14-inch MacBook Pro and the iMac. Shipping is expected around November 6.
Here’s what we’re expecting and where I stand on each.
The touchscreen MacBook Pro
This is the big one. The first MacBook Pro redesign since 2021, and the first Mac with a touchscreen ever. It’s expected in 14-inch and 16-inch sizes with OLED displays, a Dynamic Island replacing the notch, M5 Pro and M5 Max chips, and a chassis that Bloomberg describes as “significantly lighter” than the current models. Some reports have it approaching MacBook Air weight. If the rumours hold, it’s the most interesting Mac Apple has made in years.
And I’m genuinely on the fence about whether I’ll buy one.
A new design and a touchscreen will be cool. I’m sure it’ll look fantastic. But I have to be honest about how I actually work. I spend almost all my working hours in my office, at the Mac Studio. My current MacBook Pro mostly sits in a bag. It comes out for travel and the odd evening on the sofa, and that’s about it. Buying the most expensive laptop Apple has ever made to replace a laptop I barely use is a hard case to make to myself, let alone to my wife. If this were a year ago, before every Mac went up by hundreds of pounds, I might not be thinking twice. As it is, I’m going to wait for the price and have a proper look at it before deciding anything. Interested, not committed.
The iPad mini
This one’s simpler, because I’ve got a line in the sand.
I love the iPad mini. It’s the Apple product I’d most like to replace right now, because my current one looks dated next to my iPad Pro and I use it constantly. The new one is expected to get an OLED display, the A20 Pro chip from the iPhone 18 Pro, 12GB of RAM, a FaceTime camera moved to the landscape edge, a new speaker system, and water resistance. On paper, that’s the biggest upgrade the mini has ever had.
But there’s one spec that decides it for me. If the OLED panel is ProMotion, 120Hz, I’m buying one on announcement day. If it’s 60Hz, I’m not. OLED or not. It’s a no.
And the rumours are not encouraging. A Korean leaker with a reasonable track record claims the mini will use a 60Hz LTPS OLED panel rather than the LTPO panel that enables ProMotion. If that’s right, it would make the iPad mini the only OLED device in Apple’s lineup without smooth scrolling, which is a baffling choice on a device whose whole appeal is reading and browsing. It’s the least corroborated detail in all of this, and I’d love to be wrong. But I’ve used 60Hz screens after living with 120Hz for years, and I don’t go back. A gorgeous OLED that stutters when you scroll is not an upgrade I’m paying for.
The M6 Macs
The 14-inch MacBook Pro and the 24-inch iMac both get M6 chips, Apple’s first 2nm silicon for the Mac, in their current designs. New colours on the iMac, probably. These are solid, predictable spec bumps, and after a year of price increases I’d expect them to arrive at the higher prices Apple set in June. Nothing to get excited about unless you were already in the market.
What I’ll be watching for
The price of the touchscreen MacBook Pro, obviously. How much lighter it actually is. Whether the touchscreen feels like a genuine addition to macOS or a gimmick Apple added because Windows laptops have had one for a decade. And that iPad mini refresh rate, which is a single line on a spec sheet that decides whether I’m spending £600 or nothing.
Full coverage the week after. By then I’ll also have the Duo in hand, so it’s going to be a long newsletter.
Tip of the Week
A bit of a break from the norm this week, but I covered this in a video, and thought I'd share it here as well. Did you know, Amazon has most likely built a profile of you, as a customer? And you can (potentially) see it, in the Amazon app. (I say 'potentially', as this works for most people, but then randomly doesn't work for some others).
To do this, open the Amazon app, tap your Profile button at the bottom, then choose Account. Tap into Shopping Preferences, then About You.
