One of the interesting things is that on the specs page it says it supports “Thread”, which is a new wireless protocol championed for home automation tech, as an alternative to zig bee and Zwave. One thing I didn’t see was any mention of if it would support being a “Home Hub”, allowing for remote access to smart home stuff.
I think personally this is one of the biggest details that is being entirely overlooked. In past keynotes Apple has mentioned they are actively working with other companies on the new Project Connected Home Over IP working group[1], which according to the limited marketing material available, seems to indicate will at least partially operate over Thread.
Thread is not exactly new, July 2014[0], and it uses the same base standard as ZigBee (IEEE 802.15.4), just using 6LoWPAN which is a low power personal aera network using IPv6.
