None of the above takes away from the unbelievable sound quality of the HomePod. Apple wasn’t about to produce another run of the mill Bluetooth speaker.
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Apple Discontinues Full-Sized HomePod to Focus on HomePod Mini
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Maybe they plan to add it soon to the mini. Maybe it was a last-stand attempt to see if they could goose sales by differentiating it from the lower cost devices. who knows. It’s a silly thing to get hung up on. And it’s certainly stupid to say “apple is dumb because they are going to stop selling a device that isn’t selling well, even though they just added a feature to it.”
Apple adding features to devices that are end-of-lifed is something we should encourage, not discourage.
Why not? They even added AirPlay 2 to the discontinued AirPort Express.
I guess would that development was already advanced. I also don't think Apple would inform their development teams in advance. Wouldn't be surprised if their development team only learned of the discontinuation at the same time as Macrumors / their official PR communication.
Aw. This one makes me sad. I bought one, and I was just waiting on the budget to stereo pair it, but I guess it'll never happen now. I get that it doesn't seem well, but how much trouble would it be to keep it around? Blah. I hope they have something comparable on the near horizon. This speaker is pretty awesome. 
So Apple failed to make a big speaker in the market work, I can see flourishing success in their upcoming self-driving cars venture!
What makes you stop using the current one forever? My understanding speakers don't die like the rest of the electronics and live a long long long time.
What makes you stop using the current one forever? My understanding speakers don't die like the rest of the electronics and live a long long long time.
And I just bought one in November. Apple better have a way to automatically connect the Mini's to Apple TV and make it convenient because I took my Minis back before I got the original mainly because I wanted to hook it up to the ATV and it felt like a lot of work to do, while the Original hooked up automatically.
why would I buy a smart speaker and then stream to it over AirPlay from another device? I want the HomePod handling the music. That’s the entire point of it. If I just wanted to use airplay I’d buy a sonos or use my airport express.
Maybe the reason people keep saying there’s no equaliser on the HomePod is because there’s no equaliser on the HomePod? as you explain yourself, there’s an equaliser on music.app on the phone. That’s totally different and irrelevant.
Yup... I think the people over in that forum trying to convince themselves that “they aren’t really that heavy“ kind of know it themselves already...
bingo..
Once we get down to them just being airplay speakers, the options are many and often quite a bit better in terms of overall package and offering
Apple has and continues to wander aimlessly in the speaker arena. They bought Beats speakers. Did not add Siri. How many years did it take them to fully integrate Beats headphones? And as noted many times, Apple TV, wonders around trying to find a place that justifies the price. I own one HomePod. Very nice speaker I may regret buying. Apples response, we are focusing our resources on the HomePod Mini. In the TV and speaker arena we would like you to start focusing. History says you were never focused.
"Apple will provide HomePod customers with software updates and service and support through Apple Care."
That's a relief. When I first saw they were discontinuing it I was worried they would stop updating it too. As long as the updates keep coming, me and my 5 HomePods will be happy.
That's a relief. When I first saw they were discontinuing it I was worried they would stop updating it too. As long as the updates keep coming, me and my 5 HomePods will be happy.
I saw this coming when they started allowing other speaker systems such as Sonos to install Airplay 2. Which I still don’t understand why Apple hasn’t bought SONOS outright yet…
Well there we go. Happy I chose a Sonos One last June, as i have Airplay, different platform options, and many virtual assistant options as well, for a much more reasonable price.
It's not irrelevant at all. People can access an equaliser if it's really that important to them. But no, they'd rather just whine about it.
I seriously doubt that. We will see with Apple Silicon, but it really wouldn't add to Apple's cost if the case and motherboard design are already done. Supports maximum 1.5 TB of RAM does not add to the RAM slots or increase the case at all.
All the apps on our TVs just suck. The YouTube, Netflix, etc apps are far superior on Apple TV compared to the built in ones on our TV.There was an iMore story about this in 2019.
But since Apple hasn't released a new Apple TV box since 2017, the data is still relevant. And likely even more skewed at this point
Apple was 2nd to last and likely far in dead last by now with no new hardware. $179+ is too expensive for a set-top box; it was before and especially now when you can Airplay to your TV purchased in the past few years, or $99 4k Roku box (and others out there). And they're a much better streaming service box.
I have never seen anyone use the Apple TV for apps or games in real life. It seems more like a pipe dream plan than reality.
They may "not do the low end," but they need to here. Or go the way of their routers and seemingly now Homepod (which they did for the Homepod which will live on in the Mini).
A sub $50 4k stick and ditch this all-in-one set-top box dream. Maybe a $99 4k box too. it simply isn't working and makes the hardware not worth it for most, as the data shows. The point is to get as many people on their streaming service now with the hardware; not hardware profit from a one-time purchase.
It's also back to that unless you own all Apple products Airplay just isn't the best thing. Stuff like a Chromecast will work with almost any device- laptop, iPhone, Android, Mac, anything.
We should be happy they have not!
It looks to me like they would completely mismanage the whole product line and cancel it eventually
You don’t seem to get it. That only works for airplay to the device.
A lot of people want the HomePod to be, as advertised, a stand alone solution....and for that there is no EQ
How many of you who are criticizing Apple for discontinuing Homepod supported Apple when they discontinued things that other people liked but you didn’t care about?
I suspect they will do a re-design in a year or two and call it "the new homepod".