{"id":8909,"date":"2026-10-17T20:26:41","date_gmt":"2026-10-17T20:26:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/silvybrand.com\/?p=8909"},"modified":"2026-10-17T20:26:41","modified_gmt":"2026-10-17T20:26:41","slug":"apple-homeview-recipe-formatting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/silvybrand.com\/?p=8909","title":{"rendered":"Apple\u2019s HomeView is just the latest threat to online recipe writers"},"content":{"rendered":"


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When Apple revealed the HomeView<\/a> to the world, it did so with an unusual ad<\/a> for the company: Instead of pristine, polished tech in immaculate rooms, it\u2019s a three-minute look at the messy, frantic morning routine of a family of five. Apple\u2019s new smart display sits in the center of the chaos on the kitchen table, helping the family check their calendars, send messages, and pull up a French toast recipe in seconds, with simple, step-by-step instructions.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The HomeView is just the latest in a long line of websites, browser extensions, and smart home gadgets with the same promise: that it can take an online recipe and strip it down to the essentials. Instead of scrolling a lengthy webpage that might range from helpful cooking instructions to seemingly irrelevant personal anecdotes, with the recipe itself way down at the bottom, you simply get ingredient lists, cooking instructions, and timers, all navigable hands-free with voice controls and Siri AI. No distractions, no unnecessary text, and no need to deal with a touchscreen while you\u2019re wrist-deep in a chicken carcass. The appeal is obvious.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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There\u2019s only one group of people likely to object: the food writers who created those recipes in the first place. I would know, since I\u2019m one of them \u2014 I have my own food newsletter<\/a> where I occasionally publish recipes, so I have a little skin in the game. The problem is that converting a recipe into easy-to-follow instructions in Apple\u2019s own format also strips it of its context, including the ads and affiliate links that many recipe writers rely on for their income. Recipes may often be free to read, but they\u2019re not free to create, and solutions like Apple\u2019s remove the main ways websites and writers recoup those costs. \u201cTools that just extract the recipe,\u201d Eater<\/em> senior reporter Bettina Makalintal says, \u201cbreak apart that unspoken social contract with recipe developers and audiences.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"Apple<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Apple pitches the HomeView as a hands-free cooking assistant.<\/em><\/figcaption>Image: Apple<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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The online recipe landscape is a diverse place. Behemoths like Allrecipes and NYT Cooking host tens of thousands of recipes each, some from professional chefs and others from home cooks. Countless dedicated food publications run original recipe content, and thousands of independent chefs produce their own, across blogs, newsletters, YouTube accounts, and TikTok pages. While much of the writing on a recipe page may get on budding cooks\u2019 nerves \u2014 we\u2019ve all heard the jokes<\/a> about being forced to read someone\u2019s grandma\u2019s life story before getting to their cookie recipe \u2014 it\u2019s there for a reason. For one thing, it\u2019s usually the only part of a recipe that a writer can copyright \u2014 the rest is regarded as mere instructions. But that extra writing is also there because before it worked so hard to strip the text out, Big Tech insisted on it. \u201cRecipe writers needed to pad out the text in a certain way so that their recipes would have a chance of coming up in a Google search,\u201d Makalintal explains.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The good news for recipe writers is that Apple\u2019s approach guarantees at least one visit to their original web page. To load a recipe onto the HomeView screen you have to first open it either on your iPhone or through Safari on the HomeView itself, ensuring you\u2019ll see its ads at least once. That\u2019s welcome, but for website owners it\u2019s still a lot less valuable than the repeated ad impressions that come from someone scrolling down the page and staying on it while they cook.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cNearly every food blog has a \u2018jump to recipe\u2019 button right up at the top, so you don\u2019t actually have to scroll. So if you\u2019re still out here complaining about these essays, you\u2019re just an asshole.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2014 Jaya Saxena<\/cite><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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It\u2019s not just bad for the writers, either \u2014 readers and home cooks may be missing out too. \u201cThe additional information around recipes can sometimes be really helpful when it comes to troubleshooting problems that could come up while cooking or addressing things like ingredient swaps,\u201d says Makalintal. Apple\u2019s simplified steps may make some recipes easier to follow, but others might become harder without crucial context included elsewhere on the page.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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And as common as gripes about recipe intros are, they\u2019ve long been easy to skip if you really insist. \u201cNearly every food blog has a \u2018jump to recipe\u2019 button right up at the top, so you don\u2019t actually have to scroll,\u201d says Jaya Saxena, one of the founder-owners of the food website Ravenous<\/em>. \u201cSo if you\u2019re still out here complaining about these essays, you\u2019re just an asshole.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"Amazon\u2019s<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Amazon\u2019s Echo Show devices have long had similar recipe features, but powered by partner publishers.<\/em><\/figcaption>Photo by Dan Seifert \/ The Verge<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Apple is far from the first company to attempt to streamline online recipes. In 2021 startup Recipeasly promised<\/a> to \u201cfix\u201d online recipes by removing the ads and \u201clife stories.\u201d It barely lasted a weekend before online backlash forced its founders to take it offline. Bigger tech companies have been able to plow through that resistance. Amazon\u2019s Echo Show displays offer similar hands-free cooking features to the HomeView\u2019s, though only with partner sites like Allrecipes or Epicurious. Google\u2019s Nest Hubs used to as well, though Google ultimately removed the step-by-step recipe feature from its Nest Hubs in 2024, along with other \u201cunderutilized\u201d features<\/a>. Apple\u2019s approach, which it says will work with any online recipe that uses Google\u2019s search-friendly recipe formatting, is unique among the current smart home hubs. Perhaps most egregious of all, Google Search now uses Gemini AI<\/a> to amalgamate online recipes, presenting a streamlined version right on the search page, saving users from ever needing to click through to the original sources at all.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Saxena says that for established writers, this is \u201cmore like a continuation of the threats they\u2019ve already seen.\u201d Unless Apple sells vast quantities of HomeView displays, its recipe function is still likely to be used by far fewer people than Google\u2019s AI search recipes, let alone recipes from other AI assistants and tools, which are also more egregious in how they take advantage of online content. \u201cI would put the threat level below AI summaries,\u201d says Makalintal, because their \u201copaque\u201d sourcing \u201creally is erasing labor.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Some major recipe platforms might be able to reduce the impact by getting on board. While the HomeView doesn\u2019t have its own app store, it does support casting apps to the screen using the same tech as CarPlay. That means big apps like Allrecipes or NYT Cooking will have the option of presenting content on the HomeView on their own terms. Independent writers are unlikely to be able to do the same. For them, the choice remains as it has for some time: Stick it out with ever-diminishing Google traffic and ad revenue; take on more sponsored content and paid-for recipes with big brands; or move to a paywall or newsletter business model.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Smaller recipe developers are turning to Substack, says Makalintal, where it\u2019s easy to lock recipes behind a paywall. I\u2019m one of them \u2014 on my newsletter I restrict my recipes to paid subscribers, a reflection of the fact that they\u2019re the most time-consuming articles I publish. I\u2019ve asked Apple how the HomeView recipe tool will handle paywalled recipes, but at the time of publishing haven\u2019t gotten an answer. But the move en masse to newsletter platforms \u201chas led to some subscription fatigue among home cooks,\u201d Makalintal says, and few cooks will start a paid subscription to access a single recipe, suggesting it\u2019s not likely to support the whole industry.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Some version of paid-for content may be the only answer going forward, though, for creators both big and small. Tech companies like Apple will have to grapple with how their tools work when access to free content gets trickier, and the rest of us may have to get used to paying for recipes again.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cA good, creative recipe that has been tested to ensure it really works takes time and effort and money,\u201d Saxena says. \u201cIt is a real skill to communicate how something is made when you\u2019re not physically with that person, and buying all the ingredients needed to test things multiple times is expensive. People should probably be more comfortable paying for that.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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