Yes you’re right. I was saying if you’re not an Apple Music subscriber then half of the functionality of the HomePod is gone. This idea that it’s just as flexible and open as Sonos is a fallacy.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Apple Hosting Live HomePod Question-and-Answer Event on July 25
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Well yeah, it is very clearly marketed towards people that are in the Apple ecosystem. Siri has its shortcomings, but as far as setting timers, playing music, checking the weather, and utilizing HomeKit (those are really the only thing I personally use Siri for) it works really well and it hears me better than any other Alexa device that I have (3 dots and a show).
Part of your initial reason Sonos was better was because you did not need to bug your house with microphones, but in this argument you are using that as a positive. As far as using different streaming services, I don't really see the need for me personally. Nearly everything the other services have Apple Music will also have.
It seems like the only place Sonos really has HomePod beat would be the integration with Alexa and being able to utilize more music services "naturally" using voice. If you are an Apple Music subscriber this basically becomes a nonissue. After hearing the points you mention I don't see how it is inferior to Sonos in nearly every way.
Sonos’ play:5 (gen 2) has (unused) mic’s and everything sonos has released since has mic’s too. Since airplay 2 I’ve been using my play:5s a lot more than HomePods. I now just use the HomePod as an alarm clock, sleep music, and control my lights and a/c.
While I realize many people enjoy the HomePod and find them convenient, I still believe it is the most pointless device that Apple has introduced in this decade. They should’ve just endorsed another company’s smart speaker and focused their efforts on Mac hardware and perhaps Apple branded cinema displays. There are lots of displays on the market but it just doesn’t feel right to use Apple hardware without Apple displays. I hope they release something along with the upcoming Mac Pro. It shouldn’t take much effort to put a nice panel in an Apple enclosure. Perhaps they can even collaborate with LG and release an OLED 4K display. I’m sure that would get a strong reception. It’s time that LED gets phased out.
The market for the HomePod is small as it is. It just is not a must have product and doesn’t do enough to differentiate itself from the other options on the market.
The market for the HomePod is small as it is. It just is not a must have product and doesn’t do enough to differentiate itself from the other options on the market.
I merely brought up the point of the microphone because I can imagine that’s a negative for some people. Also, my Echo has an analog mechanism where I can disable the microphone. I’ve brought up multiple reasons for why Sonos works better. Overall, it’s much more flexible and open than HomePod. It works equally as well for everyone’s setup, whether you’re an Android junky or an Apple fanboy. HomePod only works well for one setup.
Amen....siri acts like it is in the EMR room in school or the learning disability curriculum
[doublepost=1532289256][/doublepost]
I have yet to see a session on homepod at any of my apple stores
I just want to be able to take my speaker anywhere and not rely on WiFi. Pairing the speaker with new WiFi sucks and also times when I have no WiFi and would like to stream directly to the speaker using Bluetooth or some sort of direct connection
...I guess there is no V2 needed - it is all about software. All hardware you need appears to be on board.
If you sell a product with a huge list of things it can NOT do, then you are doing several things the wrong way. First of all: Not listening to your customers.
I will be heading for the next Apple Store if:
- I do get the radios of my choice on that thing
- I can make it play MY music from files I store at home
...without the need of having a mobile telephone streaming the music to that speaker
...having a computer running all the time to stream my music (the speaker is intelligent enough to to that himself)
Sonos and others do it. Why can't Apple do something similar?
They might want to force customers to do things their way - they can try it.
Last edited:
How many were returned?
[doublepost=1532291766][/doublepost]
Teufel makes some really nice speakers for €1,000 that are built to be taken anywhere, and you can connect them to a car battery. And they make _a lot_ of noise. They are built to be used outdoors. No WiFi needed, no power infrastructure needed. Put them in the boot of your car, drive anywhere, and play your music.
My speakers, on the other hand, get put into one place and stay there forever. Well, until I move.
[doublepost=1532291936][/doublepost]
You are right. And Samsung should stop building phones and endorse iPhones instead, and focus on building refrigerators and washing machines.
Last edited:
First, you're being dishonest with the facts. DDR4 laptops *DO* exist, as you later pointed out, AAPL simply decided not to use those SKU because they're more concerned with the look than the function. AAPL decided to take the "Pro" out of the MacBook Pro and make it the MacBook Thin (which is funny, because that already exists in the 12" MB).
Keep the old MBP form factor, keep a bigger battery. Use actual Pro components.
I'd love to go buy some other machine, but I can't, because if you want to build iOS or OS X apps, guess, what you gotta use an AAPL platform (not totally true, lots of cross platform technologies exist, but those don't meet a lot of the needs out there).
So, your solution "don't buy thin" doesn't actually fly: AAPL provides no option, and in the "Pro" line where you used to be able to get a slightly thicker machine that actually had the chops now has turned into another "fashion" line of computers rather than "actual tools for professionals".
I'm not asking to change physics, I'm asking for an actual Pro product range, which used to exist, but was neutered because of the "all our things shall be thin and available in unnecessarily obtusely named shades of Grey and Pink" extremism that dominates AAPL lately.
Say what you want, Apple is not the Pro company it once was, esp on the mobile side.
All that is a red herring from the actual topic here that you didn't even address: Siri sucks. SiriKit is pathetic. Apple is selling a $350 "smart speaker/assistant" that's really just an egg timer (because that is about the extent of the smart features that work on this speaker).
Keep the old MBP form factor, keep a bigger battery. Use actual Pro components.
I'd love to go buy some other machine, but I can't, because if you want to build iOS or OS X apps, guess, what you gotta use an AAPL platform (not totally true, lots of cross platform technologies exist, but those don't meet a lot of the needs out there).
So, your solution "don't buy thin" doesn't actually fly: AAPL provides no option, and in the "Pro" line where you used to be able to get a slightly thicker machine that actually had the chops now has turned into another "fashion" line of computers rather than "actual tools for professionals".
I'm not asking to change physics, I'm asking for an actual Pro product range, which used to exist, but was neutered because of the "all our things shall be thin and available in unnecessarily obtusely named shades of Grey and Pink" extremism that dominates AAPL lately.
Say what you want, Apple is not the Pro company it once was, esp on the mobile side.
All that is a red herring from the actual topic here that you didn't even address: Siri sucks. SiriKit is pathetic. Apple is selling a $350 "smart speaker/assistant" that's really just an egg timer (because that is about the extent of the smart features that work on this speaker).
By putting it into your living room, plugging it into a power supply, and playing music from your Mac, your iPhone, iPad or iPod, or by subscribing to Apple Music and playing any music you like by talking to the HomePod.
I'd like to know why the HomePod can't play music from my iTunes library? Why does it have to use an Apple Music subscription that I don't want to pay for? I already have the music in an Apple preferred format on my home network. The Apple TV can do it - why can't the HomePod? Make it do that and knock $100 off the price and I'd seriously give it a look. Until then, I'm not real interested.
The figures speak for themselves. The HomePod has been the poorest performing device Apple has introduced. The AirPods were a huge hit and I believe the 2nd gen AirPods will sell even better especially if they provide more battery life which they should.
The main question is this: Why, when Apple and everyone is supporting 4K Video, are we still stuck with crappy compression formats for music from Apple and then expect to use AirPlay which is also less than ideal to listen to music?
Tim Cook is all about the quality and user experience of Apple products yet Apple Music and AirPlay are not focused on music quality and are all about compromise.
So I won't ever buy a HomePod or Apple Music. Instead I use roon with TIDAL and a roon ready devices like the Elac Z3 No compression, avoid airplay, and get really good sound. Definitely don't need a smart speaker. My phone uses Siri. If I have a question, I'll pull the phone out of my pocket. Why would I want a speaker always listening to me to do this?
Come on Apple, take a cue from Onkyo and Sony with Hi Rez audio players, from roon and TIDAL for lossless playback, and learn from the best in the sound industry if you want to play in this space. 4k Video but lossy music from Apple? The soul at Apple seems to have been missing for some time.
Tim Cook is all about the quality and user experience of Apple products yet Apple Music and AirPlay are not focused on music quality and are all about compromise.
So I won't ever buy a HomePod or Apple Music. Instead I use roon with TIDAL and a roon ready devices like the Elac Z3 No compression, avoid airplay, and get really good sound. Definitely don't need a smart speaker. My phone uses Siri. If I have a question, I'll pull the phone out of my pocket. Why would I want a speaker always listening to me to do this?
Come on Apple, take a cue from Onkyo and Sony with Hi Rez audio players, from roon and TIDAL for lossless playback, and learn from the best in the sound industry if you want to play in this space. 4k Video but lossy music from Apple? The soul at Apple seems to have been missing for some time.
How dare listen to music that was not made tomorrow!
Old person!
I tried listen to Mozart Prague symphony, sounded very weak, the winds were faint.
The Apple asso asked what the source was. I replied an old cd, converted into mp3.
They assured me that the ihopepad sounds better with Apple Music.
I will stick with Bose
What are you talking about? Apple is using standard DDR4 @ 2400MHz on all the 2018 MBPs just released. The 13” have quad core i5 and i7 and the 15” have hexa i7 and i9. And they’re using the best SKUs unlike PC OEMs that are throwing in a slower i5/i7 across the board. I think the base clock is 1.6 on the i5 most Windows notebooks have. If this isn’t high end enough for a notebook what is?
Every MBP has been a professional machine. They are not consumer notebooks even though many people who don’t need that performance buy them. The only weakness is the Radeon GPU but that is remedied by eGPU vía any one of the 4 TB3 ports. Heck you can even buy an enclosure to run 2 cards in SLI if you want. The 13” can be configured with a 2TB drive and the 15” with a 4TB drive. These machines are more than sufficient but the most demanding 3D work and ultra high res video editing but this will be the case with every modern notebook except those huge, bulky gaming laptops that last less than 2 hours on battery. The market for those bulky 17” gaming/desktop replacements is small.
Your complaints could’ve maybe been justified before the last refresh but not now. Unless you work for Naughty Dog or blockbuster Hollywood films, the current MBPs should be just fine for whatever work you’re doing. If they aren’t then I don’t know how any of the previous models ever were for you since they’re all much, much slower than the 2018 models and there was much more powerful hardware available when they launched. There always is. Heck the old 13” models only had a dual core CPU and that was always the biggest seller for so-called “pros.”
Last but not least, MacBook “Pro” is just a marketing term. It’s like Super, Max, Turbo or anything along those lines. It means high-end. Apple also sells a really strong machine in the iMac Pro which can be configured for more performance than the majority of users could possibly need.
Setting timers and reminders, adding events to my calendar. Reading the news, weather updates, pairing with Apple TV for enhanced sound. Reading my messages and replying to them, controlling video playback on the Apple TV, controlling home kit devices if you have them. Asking about local shops and restaurants. Trivia.
This might be attractive if basically every smartphone, PC and tablet on the market didn't already do this. It's like buying a non-portable smartphone that doesn't have a screen and, uhh, requires a smartphone to make calls. Surely all of this can be achieved equally easily by tethering a phone and its microphone to a speaker set? I want to, but I still don't get it.
I have 2 and really like them both. I only use Siri for music and HomeKit stuff, but I’d welcome any updates. I hope they take suggestions to heart.