Good morning! I’ve been spending my mornings with my kids and Siri on the new Apple HomeView. How’s it been going? Well, more on that below, including our latest feature video, in which I may or may not dress up like the dad in Apple’s ad to prove that real life is NOT an Apple commercial.
Then, Amazon’s Ring indoor home-security drone and some light, totally normal news involving Nvidia’s Jensen Huang. Apparently AI’s biggest problem isn’t technology. It’s humans who can’t keep their GPUs to themselves. Plus, a perfume for your smelly laptop.
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In more than 15 years of reviewing gadgets, I’ve never seriously considered crying over one. Until now.
This has been the season of first-generation Apple products. First came the foldable iPhone Duo. Now, the $299 HomeView. Different gadgets, same story: Apple’s impressive hardware is waiting for its software to catch up.
For the past week, the HomeView has lived at the center of my kitchen, promising to make family life easier. Before we go any further, watch Apple’s HomeView launch ad. I’ll wait.
Welcome back. You’ve now experienced the bizarre world of Apple’s ideal family. I became so obsessed with that ad that I dressed up as Vincent, the dad in the commercial, for my video review. There was an actual scientific-ish reason. You’ll have to watch.
But beneath all that commercial weirdness, Apple lays out three big promises for the HomeView:
Family recognition: a shared device that knows who’s who and serves up the right person’s information
Smart home: a command center for controlling your house
Siri AI: a personal assistant that actually makes your life easier
So I put all three promises to the test in my real, chaotic household. Here’s how it went.
I started New Things to make independent tech journalism. I did NOT start a company to spend my days filling out payroll forms or waking up in a cold sweat wondering if the IRS is mad at me.
But as New Things grows, so does the paperwork. Employees! Contractors! Taxes! Oh my!
That’s why, as a Mercury customer, I’m seriously considering switching to Mercury Payroll. It brings employee and contractor payroll right into the Mercury account I already use. It also supports payroll tax filings, state registrations and those delightful government notices that always seem to arrive at the worst possible time. Hiring across state lines? Mercury Payroll supports all 50 states.
And with Mercury’s AI Command feature, I can even ask it to give my team million-dollar holiday bonuses. (Just kidding, David and Amaya. Apparently, the account has insufficient funds.) Less time chasing paperwork. More time chasing stories and reviewing products.
Mercury Payroll is offered by Mercury Technologies, Inc. Certain services are provided by Central Benefits and Insurance Services LLC, a Mercury affiliate, and by third-party partners, including Check Technologies, Inc. and Check Payments LLC. Mercury is a fintech company, not an FDIC-insured bank. Banking services provided through Choice Financial Group and Column N.A., Members FDIC.
Fun fact: Earlier this year, Yufengzhe Technology launched 33,615 drones into the air at once in the Chinese city of Dujiangyan. The show set three simultaneous world records, creating the largest ever aerial canvas with a series of images—many of which involved pandas. Drone shows…coming to a kitchen near you.
This newsletter was written and curated by Joanna Stern and Adele Lowitz.
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