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Do they all play music? Yes.

So it comes down to sound quality yes?

Would you really want Siris voice reading the news to you? Yikes.
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I think the most legit complaint of the Cook era at Apple is the missing ‘why’ from product launches. We get the what and how but not the why. It’s easy to understand why the Echo and Google Home exist. But why does HomePod exist? Is it to drive more Apple Music subs and therefore increase Apple’s services revenues? Is Apple going to position it as the hub of their home automation efforts? Just saying it’s a speaker with breakthrough sound quality or whatever marketing superlatives they’re using doesn’t tell us why the product exists. Maybe it’s as simple as Apple execs thinking they need to play in the smart speaker space and know Siri isn’t good enough yet so they shifted the focus to high quality audio with some smarts. But that doesn’t seem like a big market to me.

Nailed it. Always the why question and you'll get better tech.
 
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The HomePod is as much an Apple Watch accessory as it is an iPhone accessory.

The way I see it, the HomePod, like the Apple Watch, will play towards Apple’s future wearables ecosystem.

It only seems like an overpriced speaker with a gimped digital assistant at the moment.
Ok well let’s bookmark this and come back in a few years. Anyway I still think Apple sucks at the ‘why’ part of the equation. Tim, Phil and Jony are good as giving us the what and how but the why is a bit lacking. With HomePod the why seems to be existing smart speakers don’t have great sound. But is that why someone is buying an Echo? If Apple was able to match the smarts out of the gate then maybe the messaging would work as Apple’s pitch could be we have all the smarts as the competition but ours has better sound. Honestly I think it will be easier for Amazon and Google to produce better sound (which Google apparently is doing with the Home Max) than Apple to turn Siri into the best voice UI on the market.
 
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It will be interesting to see how it plays out between Google/Amazon vs Apple. I guess it depends on your needs.

I have an Echo right now and I love how I can control my lights, thermostat, oven, Neato vacuum, home security system and Harmony hub with it. I fully expect the Homepod to sound much, much better than the Echo - as it should for the price difference. The Echo sounds about what you expect for the price. But I never listen to music on it as I have a nice home theater system so I guess I'm not the target market, unless my devices all supported Homekit (which I don't think they all do). I am also skeptical about any claims Apple makes about high quality audio after listening to Beats headphones. You can buy much better sounding headphones for the price you pay for Beats - yes I know that is subjective.
[doublepost=1516798208][/doublepost]Beats are absolute garbage. Any audiophile knows that. Over marketed trash.
 
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Does this speaker make any sense for someone with minimal interest in streaming music? I have a collection of MP3 files backed up in Google Play Music and on my hard drive. If I import those files to iTunes, I'll need to sync them with my phone and then AirPlay them to the HomePod? Right now I can use my Google Play saved MP3 files on my Sonos and play my 1 TuneIn radio station that I like. I'm not seeing how HomePod makes my life any easier or more user friendly?
 
I tried a Sonos at a friends place:

1. I had difficulty to connect with my iPhone.
2. It was impossible to play the songs I wanted from my Apple music, soundcloud worked tho.
3. Ok the sound is nice but I'm convinced I'm not going to hear the difference with HomePod contrary to 90% of you who are obviously audiophiles

If they get 1 & 2, I'm in once it's sold in EU.
 
I am always amazed by American's love for music which made many Apple products successful.
I think that will make Home Pod successful due to Apple's eco system and Siri might not be a deciding factor.
 
I think the most legit complaint of the Cook era at Apple is the missing ‘why’ from product launches. We get the what and how but not the why. It’s easy to understand why the Echo and Google Home exist. But why does HomePod exist? Is it to drive more Apple Music subs and therefore increase Apple’s services revenues? Is Apple going to position it as the hub of their home automation efforts? Just saying it’s a speaker with breakthrough sound quality or whatever marketing superlatives they’re using doesn’t tell us why the product exists. Maybe it’s as simple as Apple execs thinking they need to play in the smart speaker space and know Siri isn’t good enough yet so they shifted the focus to high quality audio with some smarts. But that doesn’t seem like a big market to me.
Drop the mic ! You won the internet today
 
Cook also said a quality, "very immersive audio experience" was one thing missing from the smart speaker market, which Apple is aiming to fix. "Music deserves that kind of quality as opposed to some kind of squeaky sound," he said.

Interesting comment with Apple Music streaming at 256kbps whereas Spotify streams at 320Kbps. Neither are full CD quality, but Apple's is bottom of the barrel, hardly the high quality Cook believe music deserves. Then we get into the fact you need two HomePods to faithfully reproduce the stereo sound the artist intended... unless it's a mono recording. (Not that that will be possible when HomePod launches).
 
Well, here's my question, speaking as someone who's going to nab the HomePod at the earliest opportunity.

Is there any streaming system that isn't five-thumbed inept when it comes to classical? One where you're not constantly hopping from one random movement from one work to another random movement from some other work (and inevitably landing on Pachelbel's Canon in D and "Nachtmusik" every hour on the hour, as Spotify does)?

I tried Apple Music when it first came out, because I'm an optimist. I'm no longer an optimist when it comes to streaming services and classical. The basic problem is that track/album/artist isn't adequate to describe a classical track -- there's no obvious place to put the most important piece, the name of the composer, so everybody has their own ad hoc solution, and CDDB data is like a roulette wheel, and streaming services are great at telling you that you're listening to "First Movement, Allegro" without being able to tell you it's the first movement of *what* by *who*.

If you're not into classical, imagine that streaming services only knew about track and album, and there was no slot for artist, and you'll get a hint of what I'm up against.

Because I've got a reasonable collection with its metadata neurotically sanitized, the Apple ecosystem turns out to be a workable platform. (I even bought one of the 128GB iPods for use at work a few months ago when they cut the price, making me perhaps the last person in civilization to actually buy an iPod.)

To get into truly gory detail, I was also a pretty happy Apple Match customer, although their music identification software apparently leans very heavily on the first minute or so of a track, which means that it often failed on tracks that begin quietly, which works murder on a classical collection, and it meant a lot of uploading. But then Apple Music came along with its crap metadata and its inability to override or turn off their crap metadata, and that was the end of that. It simply demolished the option.

I'm going to order a HomePod as soon as I can, because it gives me a HomeKit hub, which I don't currently have, and as a quality AirPlay speaker, I can stream to it from my dedicated music server, controlled with the Remote application on my iPhone or iPad. This is a feasible approach, as long as (a) you spend eons editing your track metadata for consistency, and (b) you aren't logged into Apple Music and its ruinously inconsistent metadata.

Siri isn't a part of this choice at all, incidentally. I don't use it. It might be fun to try via HomePod, but I'm not expecting much luck.
 
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I feel like this product is not promising riding on a Siri platform as it currently is unless Apple has something incredible coming up. Siri can’t even understand semi complex things..

My two cents.
Siri has been hot garbage since the start. It is currently slightly less smelly garbage than it used to be, but it is still garbage.

Siri doesn't respond when invoked, and it mis-transcribes everything. The only thing it can do without making an error is set timers.

Alexa isn't perfect - sometimes it doesn't accomplish what I had hoped it would. But I have literally *never* had Alexa mis-hear what I asked it to do.
 
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Oh I understand exactly what he was implying. It ain't what you wrote. That was a clear "cuz Apple, so better... cuz profit" meme level implication.

Even if he was implying what you wrote, the logic wouldn't hold up under scrutiny, because the same company that has more research, more capital, and better access to components is also responsible for Siri and the "oops we painted ourself into a thermal corner and can't get out of it so we will just not upgrade our computer AND not say anything about it until customer climb in our bung" Mac Pro. I don't say that to slag on Apple. I say that to point out the theory doesn't work and there's no way humanly possible to discern what you wrote by looking at what was quoted.

Yawn, so you desperately want it to mean something else? It was clear what he was saying, brother. HomePod will be a killer product like AirPods, deal with it.

Name another company using anonymous batching or actually trying to maintain privacy!
 
Am I the only one that thinks it's crazy to put all these home microphone/camera devices in multiple rooms of your house?!
I agree, but apparently we're in a shrinking minority. Odd that some of the people who avoid Google and Microsoft services and products due to privacy concerns (valid concerns IMO) have no problem with installing spying devices in their home. It's probably because they "trust" Apple. Apple is becoming the Big Brother they parodied in their classic Superbowl ad.
 
Siri, and Apple music is the weakest link in this chain. Apple is late to this party and still doesn't get the market. A speaker is PART of the product. The AI assistant is the other and Siri is years behind the competition. Apple needs to play catch up in the Siri department. A good speaker at hundreds of dollars more than the competition won't save this product.
 
I think the most legit complaint of the Cook era at Apple is the missing ‘why’ from product launches...

Exactly. I don't understand where HomePod really fits in the connected home equation. Its too expensive to innervate your home. (where the echo dot and the little google products fit in) In the premium audio segment, it is going to face some real competition from established players that offer a lot more options, and are decently well into the apple ecosystem. A poster in here mentioned bluesound, B&O, bowers, etc. These are all on the airport 2 partner list, so they are going to do everything the HomePod can do from a music playback perspective...

..except home pod has Siri. But Siri, compared to Alexa, feels a decade behind. Alexa is everywhere, its open source and can find itself into all sorts of little things in your home to add to its ability to hear and understand you. Alexa understands complex things, and has access to a lot more ecosystems to pull what you are asking for (whether it be buying something on amazon, music, etc)

None of this stuff is fully baked from any company, but this feels like its a product a few too many years behind.
 
I am always amazed by American's love for music which made many Apple products successful.
I think that will make Home Pod successful due to Apple's eco system and Siri might not be a deciding factor.

The difference is those other products were unique. HomePod isn't particular novel and it's key Siri music features are exclusive to Apple Music. My own love for music, and probably being a child of the 80s, make the idea of renting music an anathema. I still buy CDs, rip them as FLAC for the home and use a Mac mini as a music server connected to my receiver via optical. I have zero interest in Apple Music. I haven't even been interested in the free trial. And I have a house full of Apple products -- multiple Macs, multiple iPads, multiple ATVs, AW, iPhone, almost the whole show.

Maybe if HomePod worked with iTunes, not just Apple Music, it would peek my interest. But as it ships, it's a one trick pony. It doesn't have full SiriKit capabilities, it doesn't work with iTunes. It's not for me...yet. We'll see how it improves over time.
 
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EVERY reviewer who heard them both said the Homepod was a much better sounding speaker. Kind of important for the premium speaker market don't you think? It also has technical capabilities that Sonos doesn't come close to since it Sonos has nothing like the A8 processor. Other than all that, you post is accurate.
Uneven comparison. The Sonos speaker being compared was Sonos' oldest.
 
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Maybe if HomePod worked with iTunes, not just Apple Music, it would peek my interest. But as it ships, it's a one trick pony. It doesn't have full SiriKit capabilities, it doesn't work with iTunes. It's not for me...yet. We'll see how it improves over time.

It will work as an AirPlay speaker. I think it's unlikely for Siri to call up music from your iTunes collection rather than only Apple Music, unless there's a way to get Siri to signal your (and my) music server. Even then, I kinda wonder how Siri would handle the name Dvořák or Janáček. Hopes not very high on that one.
 
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Ok well let’s bookmark this and come back in a few years. Anyway I still think Apple sucks at the ‘why’ part of the equation. Tim, Phil and Jony are good as giving us the what and how but the why is a bit lacking. With HomePod the why seems to be existing smart speakers don’t have great sound. But is that why someone is buying an Echo? If Apple was able to match the smarts out of the gate then maybe the messaging would work as Apple’s pitch could be we have all the smarts as the competition but ours has better sound. Honestly I think it will be easier for Amazon and Google to produce better sound (which Google apparently is doing with the Home Max) than Apple to turn Siri into the best voice UI on the market.

Historically Apple initial releases are “lacking” a bit, or more than a bit. The common misconception is they are “waiting to perfect” the feature. In actuality they always withhold enough to ensure you upgrade to v2, v3, v4 etc........ It’s part of the price to be in the Garden. ;)
 
Streaming services: Sonos supports 50, HomePod 1

What am I missing?
Does A Sonos speaker support 50 services directly from an internet connection, or must the Sonos app running on a device send audio to the speaker? If number 2, HomePod will work with all streaming services exactly the same way.
 
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Does A Sonos speaker support 50 services directly from an internet connection, or does the Sonos app running on a device send audio to the speaker? if number 2, HomePod will work exactly the same way.
Sonos support is direct from the internet. Number 2 is generally an unreliable way to stream.

Also, Sonos supports a private wireless network only for Sonos products when you attach one of the devices to your router.

Sorry, but Sonos does more things while all the while being easier and better. Apple will no doubt sell a ton of these, but until they sell a soundbar, a 5.1 setup, nail true multiroom, and get support for more speaker services without relying on iPhone, it's not close to the Sonos offering.
 
But it doesn't sync with apple products. All about the ecosystem. Sound wise it remains to be seen how it compares

Sure it does, bring up the app or the desktop interface and it's at your fingertips. Homepod doesn't have multi room support (yet) so what are you trying to say?
 
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