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Apple Discontinues Full-Sized HomePod to Focus on HomePod Mini

Oh, this bums me out. We finally dealt with the bugs getting it to work consistently with the Apple TV and now they pull the rug out, and the mini can not do what the full-size products do. Not even close. We were actually digging the Dolby Atmos feature.

We have four HomePods and two minis so yeah… we're invested, and now have to look at eventually replacing the entire sound system for the TV.

I know it makes sense for the bottom line but for God’s sale, they have more money than God. This suggests to me that the product doesn’t have a champion in power at the company.
 
FasterQuieter said:
It’s shortsighted. As a home music system, Apple are now much less compelling. Why would you buy into Apple for music if you believe the only option is tiny baseless speakers? They don’t even offer a standalone AirPlay receiver. You have to buy 9-year-old Airport Express’s or Apple TVs. I think it’s a terrible move.
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I agree that only having one small speaker isn’t going to do much if Apple wants to seriously get into the home audio market, but as much as the original HomePod may have sounded great, at that price it just wasn’t what the market wanted at the time. Now that they have a product that people are actually buying I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see Apple look for ways to expand on that. I expect we’ll see something at a $199 price point in the nit too distant future, and possibly something to tackle the home theatre audio market (sound bar with integrated Apple TV?)
 
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pixeltech said:
We have four HomePods and two minis so yeah… we're invested, and now have to look at eventually replacing the entire sound system for the TV.
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From Apple's statement: "Apple will provide HomePod customers with software updates and service and support through Apple Care."

So my question would be... why draw that conclusion? Unless you were hoping to add 2 more and Apple were going to eventually have a full-on 5.1 setup?
 
ouimetnick said:
Once the initial demand of the AirPods Max has been met, who knows how well that product will sell. The HomePod sold great for the first several months as all the fanboys ran out and bought one. I bought my first one in May 2020 on sale for $199... It seems that they are having a hard time meeting demand for the APM, but that could be because they aren't able to crank out the same amount of APM as they do with regular AirPods.

I haven't heard of any regular people running out to buy the AirPods Max, just the Apple fans that would buy anything and curious audiophiles. I'll buy them once the demand has been met and they go on sale. :)
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i could see the airpods max meeting a similar fate.

just like you can get a really good sounding pair of speakers for the price of two homepods, you can get a really good sounding pair of headphones for the price of the airpods max. the only thing the apple ones have going for them in either case is the apple brand, so once all the people that must have apple everything have bought them there’s nowhere else to go

i would almost say there’s no point in them making these sorts of products where they have nothing really to offer, but obviously there’s profit for them to make so why leave money on the table. they can make them for a brief time, take the cash and abandon
 
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The 3rd generation Apple TV is still supported. I plugged mine in to see how it works and it's pretty slow and terrible to use. I guess with it's optical audio out, it still can be used as an AirPlay audio receiver or to mirror a computer, iPad, iPhone screen. They updated it's software (iOS 8!!) back in March 2020 or so JUST to keep it working with Apple TV+
Basically the only incentive for supporting it this long is because they can make money off of Apple TV+

Hopefully the HomePod will still be able to connect to Apple's severs 5 years from now.
3rd gen Apple TV March 2012-October 2016. Still supported internet connectivity wise 5 years after discontinuation (YouTube and several other 3rd party apps don't work though)
 
Naraxus said:
No **** the HomePod's sales have been lackluster. That was painfully obvious to anyone not sipping Apple-Koolaid. It was WAAAAYYYYYYYY too expensive for what you got and what the competition offered.
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The following is indeed why.
zorinlynx said:
I always found the Homepod lacking for the price. I may have actually purchased one if it had Bluetooth audio support and a line-in, so it would be more versatile.

But as it was, only supporting AirPlay, it felt like a very niche product that I couldn't use with all my hardware. It was a waste because I know they had really good sound.

So I'm not surprised they didn't sell too well. A lot of us here on MR are "all in" on Apple, but most people are not. They might have a Samsung TV they want to be able to use their nice speaker with, or have an Android-using friend want to play music when visiting. I think not having more input options hurt the product.
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macsareveryintreasting said:
If they put Dolby Atmos in the HomePod Mini, the price will increase a lot.
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I think, it's a lack of hardware capability. The HomePod mini doesn't have the speaker array, namely seven horn-loaded tweeters with custom amplifiers, only a full-range driver.

One more thing... Sadly, the complaints about Siri are valid. The virtual assistant has changed over the years but really hasn't improved overall. (I say that not as an advocate of Google Assistant or Alexa either.)
 
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The HomePods are now discontinued, yet they have better speakers with louder sound…

If the jailbreak community find a way to crack it, they might be able to find ways to improve it on its shortfalls in ways Apple has given up on. For example, homebrew apps, alternative/improved voice assistants, or perhaps a way to use it with non-Apple Bluetooth devices (if it has Bluetooth hardware, I'm not sure if the original HomePod actually contains a Bluetooth chipset).

This is why we need the jailbreak community 😁
 
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Based on their actions - the discontinuation of the HomePod biggie and the lack of care given to the Apple TV - it appears that Apple believes that the Apple TV+ service can succeed without a strong hardware play in the living room (at the least, audio hardware). With the investments they’ve made building a wide range of personal wireless audio devices across the AirPods and Beats product lines, it appears that Apple believes that the future of media consumption is personal, not shared; that we’ll be watching media on our individual iOS devices versus on a large screen television with a supported audio system. Or, perhaps they believe that media will continue to be consumed in the living room, but that they simply don’t want to be a part of that audio experience. I just can’t imagine this scenario to be true…that they’re willing to disregard an important part of the media experience. Their efforts in spacial audio in the Airpods line leads me to believe that they view media consumption as personal and mobile, not shared and centralized in the home.
 
Hope someone can take create a way to allow for bluetooth streaming since once Apple stops supporting it and server side changes prevent it from accessing Apple Music, it's going to be AirPlay only.. Hopefully that doesn't happen for a long time, but Apple sometimes abandons software support quicker than we'd like.
 
Apple never gave this thing a proper chance. It’s a failed product design. Had they included Bluetooth and AUX, allowed other streaming services from the start, added API’s for third party apps and even other smart assistants, this thing would have been far more popular.

Amazon would have been first in line to add Alexa to it. But at least Apple would have had a HomeKit hub in every household.

This failure feels like they’re pulling back from the Smart Home space. What’s left is an outdated ATV and a mini speaker I cannot trust to be discontinued as well down the line.
 
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While the ball is now in Spotify’s court to add HomePod support, I’d like to know why it took 3 years for them to add 3rd party streaming services support to the HomePod. Why did they decide 3 years later to do it?

Why didn’t they have support for 3rd party music services from the get-go? I’m guessing they wanted to force people to use Apple Music, but that’s a lot of wasted engineering, and manufacturing resources just to sell an Apple Music only speaker.

It should have had support for Pandora, Spotify, Apple Music and others from day 1!

Also utilize the Bluetooth hardware for more versatility. Sonos is supporting WiFi and Bluetooth with their little new speaker.
 
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SirAnthonyHopkins said:
Your argument is ridiculous and I don’t get why you’re picking this fight. It’s not about how easy/difficult it is to do, it’s about wanting to use an expensive product to its fullest.

You seem to be accepting that wanting an EQ is valid, but also arguing that it shouldn’t be built-in to the device’s software, for what reason?
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I said nothing of the sort, dear. Other people were whining about not being able to access an equaliser. I merely told them how to access one. If it's really that important to them, why not use the workaround rather than just complaining all the time? And you're the one who called the workaround "awkward", raising the whole issue of how easy/difficult it was. And you also picked the fight. You replied to my original post first – remember? You seem to have a very short memory.
 
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ouimetnick said:
While the ball is now in Spotify’s court to add HomePod support, I’d like to know why it took 3 years for them to add 3rd party streaming services support to the HomePod. Why did they decide 3 years later to do it?

Why didn’t they have support for 3rd party music services from the get-go? I’m guessing they wanted to force people to use Apple Music, but that’s a lot of wasted engineering, and manufacturing resources just to sell an Apple Music only speaker.

It should have had support for Pandora, Spotify, Apple Music and others from day 1!

Also utilize the Bluetooth hardware for more versatility. Sonos is supporting WiFi and Bluetooth with their little new speaker.
Click to expand...
I think you’ve highlighted some of the key reasons HomePod hasn’t reached as many people. For one it was £299 and when you consider Amazon and Google offer hardware much cheaper, I really don’t know whether Apple intended this to be niche or mass market? Forcing people to use Apple Music was stupid but typical Apple if I’m honest. Nearly everybody I know has an Amazon account and even more so in the last year Prime subscriptions have increased ten fold. Stopping people logging in to other music subscriptions on HomePod is ridiculous and if it really took 3 years for this to be allowed then that is amusing.

I think another negative is Siri. It’s ok, but not as good as Alexa for reliably answering requests. My iPhone and Apple Watch are nowhere near as good for this compared to the Echo I have in my kitchen. Where the HomePod wins is sound quality but that’s not enough on its own.
 
Jony Ive and Co. said:
What is wrong with Apple's new strategy of discontinuing products but still selling them while stocks last now.

This continuing to sell even after discontinuation starting with iMac Pro and HomePod is just ridiculous
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What do you expect them to do with the remaining stock then????

My Mother in law has an iPad (which will be around six years old now) and it still works fine, gets the occasional software update, and the apps she uses still are compatible and are still updated for her model of iPad. This is a lengthy life for a product, and support for it. Not a lot of other companies would support their products for this long.

So I really can't see the issue of buying a product that is getting discontinued as it's not going to be dead or useless as soon as Apple have sold all the remaining stock of it.
 
What? This is an absolute bonkers move from Apple. Normally I understand their discontinuation of products, but this makes absolutely no sense.
 
hagar said:
Apple never gave this thing a proper chance. It’s a failed product design. Had they included Bluetooth and AUX, allowed other streaming services from the start, added API’s for third party apps and even other smart assistants, this thing would have been far more popular.

Amazon would have been first in line to add Alexa to it. But at least Apple would have had a HomeKit hub in every household.

This failure feels like they’re pulling back from the Smart Home space. What’s left is an outdated ATV and a mini speaker I cannot trust to be discontinued as well down the line.
Click to expand...
I don’t think lowing other assistants on there is a good idea. The echo only works with Alexa and the google home devices only work with the google assistant. There are third party devices that support multiple voice assistants, but they are made by third parties. Google and Amazon didn’t make first party hardware that support other assistants.

Allowing other streaming services is a more reasonable request.
 
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In case any Apple marketing people are still reading here looking for help on their homework: for most audio people it’s quite simple. A speaker is a device with a red/black connector on one side and beautiful sound on the other. And audio people rarely look at price (if they do, it’s to make sure it’s not too cheap).

I’m only half of an “audio person” but I’d have bought the HomePod twice if
- they had a red/black connector
- they were for sale in my country.

N.B.: I even have a full rack of CD’s in my house. Such a product would have been a nice way to get “old-fashioned audio people” introduced into the “connected music world”. Even showing up as a simple BT device would be considered “red/black connected”.

PS. While we’re at it: please give the next iMac a DisplayPort input connector, so it will still be useful as a monitor after the computer part becomes obsolete. It’s a similar consideration. It also doesn’t take away any sales, because if it had, I’d have bought a Mac mini to breathe new life into my old iMac (which I’m reluctant to just “throw away”) three years ago, while holding out for the new AS iMac to appear.
 
I love my HomePod stereo set up and plan to love them until something better is released. I’m also a fan of the Mini HomePod and I’m pleased it’s a success, as it will mean Apple will look to develop and grow the speaker range.
 
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