Apple’s New Home App for iOS 10 – Enjoy Total Control Over Apps and Connected Devices
Apple has just come up with a new app called Home for iOS 10. It will work as the single place to control all the home products for the device. The home app in the iOS 10 basically meant to control all the HomeKit products that ever since the launch grew to a few dozen numbers. Obviously, a single place to control all the home products would offer a lot of ease and value to the user experience.
Though the new Home app does not deliver a breakthrough experience but at least it seems to e thoroughly equipped to perform all of the tasks expected from it. Besides allowing easy access to various screens and sections, it helps to manage connected devices and other interfaces. Just to turn on a connected home gadget you do not need to search for the respective app, you can do everything from the home app.
The Look and Feel of the new Home App
As soon as you open up the new app, the home screen will show all your favorite scenes and accessories. By selecting the scenes you can further toggle each of them on and off. By selecting the accessories you can turn each of them on or off just by tapping on them. With just tapping longer on them or with 3D Touch on the iPhone 6s and 6 a full-screen controller will be opened up. You can slide up and down the brightness and through color buttons can incorporate different hues as per preference. In the Rooms tab, you can easily organize the accessories by putting them into different rooms.
Key Features of Home App
The new Home app is packed with an array of superb features allowing more control over the entire app ecosystem and device settings. Here below we provide some of the key features of Home app.
Automation
If you have a fourth generation Apple TV or the recent iPad version the automation tab can really come to your aid. When with all these Apple devices you set up the hub, the Home app takes control of it better. Automation allows total and in-depth control of the home gadgets and device ecosystem. For instance, just by tapping on a tab you can turn on the lights with geofencing technology.
An iPad Control Hub
The new Home app is not only available on iPad, but this device plays a bigger role to unleash the power of the app. While earlier users to need an Apple TV to work like a hub and connect different accessories without a Wi-Fi network. Now, with the latest iPad using iOS 10 and connected to the network can perform as a hub.
Control Center Support
There is a dedicated Control Center panel that will allow toggling a scene or device in the quickest possible time. Besides the Home app and Siri, the new pane has been added to the Control Center and this addition would make it easier to access different scenes and accessories without always requiring to talk to Siri or open up the Home app.
Apple Watch Ready
Finally, even this new app allows taking total control over all your connected devices through the Apple Watch. The new Home app has been made available for the Apple Watch with latest watch OS 3.0. So, thanks to this app, the smartwatch can play as a remote control for diverse smart home devices and scenes. From controlling brightness to turning on lights to quickly opening an app on a different device, all can be done through commands of the Apple Watch.
Bottom Line
Let us conclude with a little bit of personal experience. Well, as far as the first week of experience as a user is concerned, I am really happy with the output. Though I still consider Siri to be the most awesome interaction feature of the Apple ecosystem of devices, this new app will play a significant role in allowing smart interactions at home.
Rajiv Patil is the founder & Managing Director of Nimblechapps, an innovative iPhone app development company. He takes a keen interest in topics related to mobile app development and mobile game development and often like to share his knowledge through informative posts on leading blogging sites.