Apple gets home-y

I live in a rickety old house in San Francisco that’s got more drafts than the NFL.

Some of the electrical wiring is older than my grandparents, and there are literally no studs in one load-bearing wall. I’m mystified how it’s still standing, especially in an earthquake zone. The fearsome San Andreas Fault passes just a few short miles from here.

Nonetheless, I love it, and it’s been a great place to raise our kids.

I’d love to bring it into the 21st century with some good old smart-home additions. We already have a smart-ish front door lock (it’s got a keypad, but is unconnected), and I just picked up some Kasa smartplugs to monitor our energy usage (which is off the charts, thanks to said drafts).

Being a quintessential dad, I’m interested in lights that turn themselves off to stop me shouting at the kids: Turn those darn lights off!

But there’s no way I’m shelling out in today’s fragmented smart-home market. The Matter standard is a great step toward making devices work together better, but it’s all still way too fragmented.

Plus, after working in tech for decades, I’ve come to realize that every new product is a headache in waiting. Something always goes wrong, and I’ve little patience for hours of maddening googling and troubleshooting.

That’s why I’m really looking forward to whatever Apple is cooking up in the home-hub space. There are dueling rumors that Apple is working on:

1. Some kind of wall-mounted iPad.

2. A HomePod with an attached screen.

3. A HomePod with a robot arm.

4. Possibly all three!

Whatever it is, the good news is that one of these products — the HomePod + screen — appears to be on track to be unveiled later this year. Apple’s not perfect, but it is better than most other tech companies at delivering stuff that “just works.”

Also in today’s newsletter:

• Ironically, possibly the best show on TV is on a streaming platform no one watches. Here’s our recap/review of the Severance season 2 opener.

• Good for Apple for streaming the upcoming FireAid benefit concert, but the lineup of stars looks positively dreadful. Apologies for passing harsh judgment on a worthy cause, but Dave Matthews? John Mayer? Sting? At least the organizers booked Earth, Wind & Fire … although the band’s name is basically a description of what caused the disaster.

• We hands-on review a pair of low-cost earbuds that look a lot like the premium Beats Fit Pro. They cost much less, but do they deliver where it counts?

• We have an exclusive sale on this great 8-in-1 keychain charging cable that even supports 100W high-power charging of MacBooks and similar devices. It’s a steal at just $20.

— Leander Kahney, EIC.

^{A message from the Cult of Mac Deals team}

^{A message from the Cult of Mac Deals team}

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Results from yesterday’s poll: Will you be watching Severance’s season two premiere?

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