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Apple Announced the HomePod Mini Four Years Ago Today
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maybe a Siri that actually can do things besides tell me “heres What I found on the web for…”
if new hardware is necessary for that, so be it.
my guess is apple has no idea how to improve Siri or they would have done it over the past decade plus.
iPads are not stationary devices, if you take them outside of the home it could disrupt your smart home configurations if devices are depending on the iPad as the hub.
They train Siri on a simple name like Dean, before they try Sean, Seán, Shaun, Shawn, Shawne, or Shon.
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Mixed bag for me. Form factor perfect, Sound for site is okay when you have a stereo pair, but far from Sonos and other speakers (B&O A1, e.g.). Textile very very hard to keep clean. Siri/Home is total hit-and-miss. Sometimes you can use it perfectly, sometimes it doesn‘t find tracks or is unable to turn of lights, even if the same command on iPhone works instantly. Next Gen with better sound, better Siri and option to go cable-less with internal battery would be cool.
Also, the HomePod-System urgently needs a subwoofer. Probably too late for me, switched to Sonos two years back, but I still think a 5.1 with HomePods, Minis and a Sub would be a superb idea.
Also, the HomePod-System urgently needs a subwoofer. Probably too late for me, switched to Sonos two years back, but I still think a 5.1 with HomePods, Minis and a Sub would be a superb idea.
The omission of any way to feed audio into them that isn't part of the apple ecosystem is why I don't have any. I like the concept, but if I can't use it for something after Apple stops supporting it, it's a hard pass from me.
I do agree with that, but they REALLY need to add other interfaces to it. Bluetooth pairing so I can use it as a bog standard Bluetooth speaker, and even have AUX in with the ability to use Siri for basic input switching commands while offline(or you know tapping on the top to do it or something). I am not interested in a speaker that just becomes e-waste the moment apple decides to stop supporting it. I agree overall, but I would really like to see Apple address these issues.
Great little speakers, decent price, but still some very bad misses: they should have Bluetooth and other means of 'offline' connectivity, they also can't combine with large speakers for 'surround', and, most importantly Siri is beyond painful to use. Will we be able to use these 'old' speakers with the new non-stupid AI Siri? If not, that's a big, big problem.
I don’t ask it questions. I just asked it to turn lights on and off. It would hmm and spin and eventually tell me my lights aren’t responding. Meanwhile the lights work fine in the Hue app, Home on the phone, and Siri on the phone. It didn’t do this every time, but often enough to make it annoying, and it was noticeably slower when it did work.
After I got tired of it I put a basic Echo in the exact same spot and it has never failed to turn the lights on and off.
HomePod mini may be the pinnacle of Bad Siri. Even on my 13 Pro without Apple Intelligence, Siri is noticeably quicker on 18. The 18 update for the HPM changed exactly nothing.
I have them in most rooms of my house. Happy with them, they replaced a large sound bar on our TV. Improvements for the next gen (or this one if they can accomplish them with software updates):
Siri needs to be better. Let it run on my iPhone, then speak through the HomePod. Let me queue up multiple tasks in one sentence (I frequently turn off the TV and the lights with Siri, but have to request them separately).
Playing to more than 2-3 of them at once from your iPhone or Mac is flaky. They should be aware of which rooms have people in them and have a mode where they play music based on proximity, so your music or podcast can follow you around the house as you do chores.
Removable power cable. It can't be that hard to just put a USB-C input in there, then they'd be much more portable since you can easily move them around wherever you've got a USB-C charger in the house.
Siri needs to be better. Let it run on my iPhone, then speak through the HomePod. Let me queue up multiple tasks in one sentence (I frequently turn off the TV and the lights with Siri, but have to request them separately).
Playing to more than 2-3 of them at once from your iPhone or Mac is flaky. They should be aware of which rooms have people in them and have a mode where they play music based on proximity, so your music or podcast can follow you around the house as you do chores.
Removable power cable. It can't be that hard to just put a USB-C input in there, then they'd be much more portable since you can easily move them around wherever you've got a USB-C charger in the house.
WiiM dropping airplay support was a big disappointment. That said, I'm reasonably happy with the ability to play audio from my various Macs to any speaker in the house
So true though. I would replace all my Echos with these if they were even half as useful. The "skills" are like the Apple App store compared to a Blackberry app store. It's just not even close.
its the same answer as 'why cant it run MacOS'
the more practical answer is that you really want something wired (as in networking AND power) to perform said task well. obviously the ipad could be wired just the same, but for those who dont understand the concept, it would be a pretty frustrating experience.
I have a pair, but haven't used them for anything in many months. They tended to start playing music without any kind of interaction from me, and the first few times that happened were very confusing indeed. They are on a shelf, and will likely stay there.
We purchased 2 for our garden room , mixed the colours to match the decor . Definitely better sound as a stereo pair also the humidity and temperature sensors are great . As others have mentioned sometimes it can have connection issues but having said that we also have an Alexa Echo Flex in situ and while that works very well , it too can have the odd connection issue .
Thank you for trying but …
How do you “choose my homepod” ? (I am on ipad OS 16.7 on an older ipad).
Ok. I tried from my new iPhone and the RHS button allowed me to choose the homepod.
However I tried that for 6 months and it is flakey. It relies on your iPhone/iPad connecting up to the wi-fi router and then back down again ( my router is upstairs). Those two 6 metre wifi connections break. It is not a short bluetooth connection. If I walk away with my iphone the connection breaks for others listening at the home pod. If I do other things on the phone, the connection breaks.
Using Siri on the Homepod gets “I am sorry but that station is not in your Apple music library”. And trying to add it to AML does not work.
I think Apple used “TuneIn” app on the homepod, and possibly that is what broke.
It needs to be a single wi-fi connection, from the homepod. And this is how it worked when introduced. Here, that is actually breaking consumer protection law “not working as advertised”.
Keep an eye out for iOS 18.3. That is when the new Siri with an LLM brain transplant comes out.
Ah, good point. I wasn’t paying close attention to the thread. Apple has yet to clarify how they are going to handle AI on their “lesser” devices. I’d like it if they could hand-off to your phone to handle that.
It’s literally the title of the thread come on