How it works

How Homeling recommends things

Ask Homeling for a rain jacket, a hotel or somewhere for dinner, and it looks around and tells you what fits. Here's how it decides, and what it never does.

The short version

Homeling picks what fits what you asked for, on its merits.
The part of Homeling that chooses doesn't know which stores pay a commission, and a paid link never changes the order.
Every paid link says “Paid link”, and you can turn them off.
Homeling never shops because of your email, never turns a gap in your closet into a sales pitch, and never buys anything for you.

It starts with what you asked for

When you ask Homeling to find something to buy, it searches the web. When you ask for a place, like a café or a hardware store, it looks it up in Apple Maps: near a place you name, or near you if you've turned on “Use my area for nearby places” in Settings.

Then it reads what it found and picks the best matches for what you asked: what each thing is for, what it costs, and how well it's reviewed.

Paid links come after the choice

Some stores pay a small commission when someone buys through a link from Homeling. That never decides what you see:

The part of Homeling that picks sees each result's name, store, price, reviews and a short description. It doesn't see which stores pay, how much, or any tracking code in a link.
Results from stores with paid links are only ever added after the ordinary search results, never ahead of them.
Homeling shows its picks in the order it chose them. Only then does it check whether any of those picks can have a paid link, and labels the ones that do.

A chat with Homeling. Asked for a packable rain jacket under $150, it searches, explains its three picks, and shows one of them, from an example store, with a Paid link label and the line: Homeling may earn a commission from paid links. It never changes what we recommend. — Three picks in the order Homeling chose them. Only the first comes from a store with a paid link, so only it gets the label. (The stores are examples.)

Every paid link is labelled

A link that can earn Homeling a commission always says Paid link, and the suggestions it comes with end with this line: “Homeling may earn a commission from paid links. It never changes what we recommend.” If the store has its own disclosure, Homeling shows that too.

Homeling doesn't slip paid links into its own words. A paid link only ever appears as a labelled button, and the link itself is only made when you click it.

You're in charge

Nothing opens by itself. A paid link opens in your own browser, and only when you click it.
The same picks either way. Clicking a paid link, or not, never changes what Homeling suggests next time.
Turn them off. Paid links aren't live yet. Before they are, Settings will have a switch that turns them off; Homeling then recommends exactly the same things, just without paid links.

What Homeling never does

Shop because of your email. If a conversation involves your email, Homeling won't look for things to buy unless you ask it to shop.
Turn your closet into a sales pitch. If an outfit suggestion notices something missing, Homeling mentions it and won't go looking for one to buy unless you ask.
Add paid links to work it does overnight. Paid links only appear in a conversation with you.
Buy anything for you. Homeling stops at the checkout. Paying is always you, in your own browser.

How paid links work explains what happens when you click one, what the store learns and what Homeling earns.