Apple’s redesigned Home app makes it easier to control all your smart home accessories — on all your Apple devices. It’s secure and protects your personal data. And with HomePod or Apple TV set up as the ultimate home hub, the new Home app unlocks the full potential of your smart home. Apple’s Home app In iOS 17, coming this fall, the Home app adds the ability for users to view up to 30 days of activity history across door locks, garage doors, alarm systems, and contact sensors. Additionally, two popular HomeKit lock features — tap to unlock and PIN codes — are now available for Matter-compatible locks, providing even more ways to connect the home. Wes Davis for The…

Illustration by Samar Haddad for The Verge My smart home journey began, like so many others, with a poorly placed light switch. My partner and I had just bought our first house, and the switch that illuminated the kitchen was in the laundry room all the way on the other side, meaning we had to wander through darkness to get to it. I hated that light switch. So what to do? Well, I could spend a bunch of money I didn’t have to hire someone to move it, try to do it myself and accidentally burn my house down with a bad wiring job, or take the plunge on a smart home. I took the path of least resistance (that’s…

The Sonos Roam is just one of many potential gifts on sale in the run-up to Father’s Day. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge Father’s Day is swiftly approaching — and you know what that means. Everyone from The Home Depot to Amazon is hosting a Father’s Day sale in the run-up to the holiday this weekend, and some retailers are even offering better deals than those we saw during Memorial Day. What’s more, a number of those discounts apply to items that will make for great gifts, allowing you to snag a Sonos Roam, the latest AirPods Pro, or Google’s 4K-ready Chromecast at a fraction of the cost. As always, we’ve scoured the web and rounded up…

Macworld The Apple Vision Pro has been here for only a week (disclaimer: not actually here at all) and the general reactions seem to be a mix of awe, desire, fear, and sadness. Let’s see what we can unpack. Apple seems to believe that it has found a way to solve the isolation problem presented by every headset product to date. The Macalope thinks it’s a fine solution for the headset wearer. It’s less of a solution for people who have to interact with that person, however. As a mythical creature who has been guilty of claiming to be paying perfect attention to a conversation while playing a video game–in the past, of course, surely this hasn’t happened while playing…

Macworld The Apple Vision Pro has been here for only a week (disclaimer: not actually here at all) and the general reactions seem to be a mix of awe, desire, fear, and sadness. Let’s see what we can unpack. Apple seems to believe that it has found a way to solve the isolation problem presented by every headset product to date. The Macalope thinks it’s a fine solution for the headset wearer. It’s less of a solution for people who have to interact with that person, however. As a mythical creature who has been guilty of claiming to be paying perfect attention to a conversation while playing a video game–in the past, of course, surely this hasn’t happened while playing…

Macworld Welcome to our weekly Apple Breakfast column, which includes all the Apple news you missed last week in a handy bite-sized roundup. We call it Apple Breakfast because we think it goes great with a Monday morning cup of coffee or tea, but it’s cool if you want to give it a read during lunch or dinner hours too. The long wait When Apple announced the first iPhone in 2007, there was a five-month wait before the product became available in stores. When the company unveiled the first Apple Watch in 2014, we had to wait seven months to see what the big deal was. But the Vision Pro headset, unveiled last week, is likely to be nine or…