Smart home news APPLE HOME
Apple’s new Shortcuts app will
mean better and more complex
Siri automations.screen is made less prominent. Certain devices
will also compress more information into a
smaller space, giving you access to a host more
metrics on a single screen – no longer will Home
present the motion-sensing, light-sensing and
temperature-sensing components of the Hue
Motion Sensor as different devices, for example,
though you’ll still be able to tap into those
features individually if it suits. You’ll find extra
icons included in iOS13’s Home app, too,
meaning devices like water sensors are now
more easily identifiable.
Then there’s AirPlay 2, and one of the
features we’re most excited to try: you can now
include your AirPlay 2 devices as part of Scenes
and Automations. That’s huge. Telling Siri to set
the mood and having your favourite playlist
come on as the lights dim, or using some
blaring heavy metal as an alert when your
motion sensor is triggered? Awesome, although
that second option might get annoying fast. You
can exploit controls like playing and pausing,
but also include volume changes and a
mysterious ‘Don’t change what’s playing’
command, which is sure to come in useful but
not in an immediately obvious way. This isn’t
saved for just the HomePod, either: the new
controls should be applicable to everything
AirPlay 2 enabled, all the way from smart
speakers to the new generation of smart TVs.
Platform game
No word yet on whether these capabilities will
make their way to Apple’s macOS Home app,
though given that it’s essentially a port of the
iPad version, and considering that Apple has (as
of WWDC) made its cross-compatibility Project
Catalyst tech available for developers working
in macOS Mojave, there’s a fair chance it will.
We’re also willing to speculate that Project
Catalyst will bring a host of smart home control
to your desktop in addition to that offered by
the Home app; there’s no fundamental reason
that the individual mobile apps that most
hardware offers can’t be ported to your
desktop, so you’ll be able to get high-level
device control (and indeed monitor your
non-HomeKit cameras) from your Mac.
So yes, perhaps HomeKit didn’t have the
loudest showing at WWDC, but it’s hard to
argue that Apple’s roadmap doesn’t have big
things in store for your smart devices. And it’s
not just Apple directly; new manufacturer
partnerships mean more devices, and the
new capabilities of both HomeKit and AirPlay
2 make them more attractive platforms for
manufacturers. It’s a positive feedback loop.macformat.com @macformat SEPTEMBER 2019 | MACFORMAT | 75You’ll be able to pass audio to
your HomePod, or pass it back
to your phone: it’s the perfect
use off Apple’s Handoff tech.Welcome home
The HomePod’s evolution has
been, at least thus far, a little
slow – apart from adding
searching for songs by their
lyrics, making multiple timers,
and the ability to make and
receive phone calls, not much
has been added to the smart
speaker since it first launched.
But that’s set to change:
amongst its many upgrades,
iOS 13 is due to make the
HomePod a whole lot smarter.
First up, it’ll join Google’s
smart speakers in being able to
recognise exactly who’s talking
to it, and customising its output
based on that. So ask it what’scoming up on your calendar,
and it’ll tell you your events- but if a family member asks
the same thing, it’ll pull from
their calendar instead. The
feature also looks set to extend
to personalised music libraries
and reminders, too.
Then there’s a really big one:
Handoff. Start a tune playing on
your phone, bring it close to the
HomePod, and the music should
seamlessly transition to the
smart speaker. You can also
‘hand off’ a phone call or
podcast – and hand it straight
back to the phone if you need
to continue it back on there.