Honestly? That would be awesome. I already have security cameras set up like that (although not wireless) - just home devices that do things for me and report back to a central server in my home. That server can connect to the internet (when I want it to), grab new firmware for the cameras, then disconnect and send out the firmware.
That's pretty much all I want from home automation as well. I see the value in being able to say "Alexa, turn down the lights" and having AWS do the voice recognition - but given that I can't trust services to stay more than a few years, I'm not going to invest in it.
Well, IoT never was a customer term, it was an industry term. And just because something keeps working without the internet doesn't mean it cannot benefit from connectivity.
Most things in your home don't need to know that much about things outside your home, or could have a well-defined standard API for getting that information from any source. If you could write wrapper scripts for obtaining weather information or traffic information, for instance, then you could have a self-contained system that required no monthly fees unless you opted to pay for high quality information, etc. but still gained all of the benefits of outside information, is high security, and would probably end up working even better. You could have default information endpoints for ease of setup, but why not make it all customizable? A good company with customer needs in view would be fully capable of making such a system.
In office buildings, devices already talk to each other using a network, so you don't have miles of cables from each switch to light or window-blind. In cars too, with CAN Bus.
Apple sells Apple Home Hub, I wonder if that's their "central control system" so that the Apple Home devices can be a bit dumber, but also it means there's a central firewall and system that can look for updates.
Also if you can install the "cloud-end" on your own device, when the company goes Nest, it means you can at least run an old version to keep your "IoT" gadget running, and it'll be running on the (hopefully) firewalled local hub.
Apple doesn't sell a "home hub" product. But their smart speaker (HomePod), TV set top box (Apple TV) and tablets (iPad) can all function as a gateway for HomeKit devices to be securely controlled from outside the LAN without the devices themselves having to be very smart or secure.
IIRC, there was AirPort, which was / is a wireless router that had options for things like storing device backups or similar.
Totally feasible to make a killer wireless AP that's Apple branded and connects better to the ecosystem, but that doesn't seem to be the direction Apple is going.
Yep, they had a range of WiFi routers, including one with a built-in harddisk for backups. They stopped updating them before they launched HomeKit though, so it never supported that.
It's a shame they stopped investing in them and missing the whole mesh Wi-Fi development. Also in this age where they're touting "privacy first" and iTunes is on the endangered list, not supporting iOS device backups over a LAN is a huge deficiency.