Apple Hosting Live HomePod Question-and-Answer Event on July 25

[droog]

When your product is so horrid it requires a PR team to put out the fires, you’re better off pulling the item. I think they are stuck trying to explain why this steaming pile of dung is acceptable because smart speakers are a desired product and considered a basic part of the smart home. Too bad they’ve missed the mark. Maybe they can put some of that money to work and get back on track.

 

[Vasilioskn]

Wait HomePod requires WiFi connection to even play anything ? That can’t be real.... can someone confirm ?

 

[tubular]

Got two, paired stereo, for running my music library from iTunes and HomeKit stuff. Happy with them.

 

[Tapiture]

Wait HomePod requires WiFi connection to even play anything ? That can’t be real.... can someone confirm ?

Yeah you have to have to setup HomePod with WiFi. The same goes for Sonos. These are HiFi speaker systems, not Bluetooth speakers.

 

[iMi]

While I think this is a good think, it’s a bit unusual. I think it shows that the general community either isn’t sold on the device or really doesn’t understand more than its basic functionality.

I love my two (and really want a third), but it’s not super simple to manage. I think the home app I’m general is not very intuitive.

You nailed it. I personally love mine and now that the rest of the features are rolling out, I will be buying another. But the weakest point, for the HomePod and other HomeKit items, is the home app. It's just not very "Apple," meaning it's not well designed or intuitive. They really need to spend some time on this... One glaring omission, or a feature I cannot find, is the inability to adjust volume on HomePod using the Home app. Seems elementary. Why isn't it there? Anyway... I could not agree more.

 

[Kaibelf]

I bought one and installed it for a client. I didn't get much hands on time with it. Maybe someone can answer this for me: why does it start randomly playing stuff music?

I *think* she was pressing the button on top to "turn it on". I tried to explain that it's always on, no need turn it on.

Not sure where the music was originating, or how to stop it. I looked on her iPhone, iPad and Mac and couldn't see anything connected. Was there a specific app for the device? It's been several months, so I may not be relating all the details correctly.

I think I get what you're asking. Touching the top starts music, and when you set it up initially to join the account it plays a playlist based on that person's library. It's a lot like the headphones when you squeeze the control once. Similarly, tap twice to skip, and three times to go back. That's in case you don't just want to verbally tell it to play/stop music or raise/lower the volume.

One thing I did like that was a surprise was when a super annoying song was on, and I said "Hey Siri I hate this song" and it stopped it, said it would remember, and then moved on. Haven't heard that track since. As for the control app, only the Home one accesses the device, but it doesn't show a Now Playing etc. Perhaps they will have something like that moving forward, but for those who really prefer to have that "remote control" feeling there's always the option of playing music on the phone and using the HomePod as the output.

 

[palmerc]

I actually really like my HomePod. Looking forward to eventually getting a second one to pair them.

Pairing works really well. Before pairing was released I had two HomePods in the living room and that didn't work well. Once you pair them I've never had a moments trouble.
[doublepost=1532320918][/doublepost]

I bought one and installed it for a client. I didn't get much hands on time with it. Maybe someone can answer this for me: why does it start randomly playing stuff music?

I *think* she was pressing the button on top to "turn it on". I tried to explain that it's always on, no need turn it on.

Not sure where the music was originating, or how to stop it. I looked on her iPhone, iPad and Mac and couldn't see anything connected. Was there a specific app for the device? It's been several months, so I may not be relating all the details correctly.

The HomePods in our house are the single most directly used piece of tech by our family. Since our kids are too young to navigate a textual app they tell Siri to play music, control lights, turn on the TV. Also turns out it is very useful for learning violin via the Suzuki method since you don't have to touch anything to play/repeat/pause the music.
[doublepost=1532321092][/doublepost]

Wait HomePod requires WiFi connection to even play anything ? That can’t be real.... can someone confirm ?

Absolutely. It requires WiFi. It is not a general purpose stereo and is designed for people that are already invested in the Apple ecosystem.
[doublepost=1532321208][/doublepost]

You nailed it. I personally love mine and now that the rest of the features are rolling out, I will be buying another. But the weakest point, for the HomePod and other HomeKit items, is the home app. It's just not very "Apple," meaning it's not well designed or intuitive. They really need to spend some time on this... One glaring omission, or a feature I cannot find, is the inability to adjust volume on HomePod using the Home app. Seems elementary. Why isn't it there? Anyway... I could not agree more.

That's a good point about the Volume. However, mostly you can ballpark the volume with Siri. Hey Siri set the volume to XX%.
[doublepost=1532321549][/doublepost]

When your product is so horrid it requires a PR team to put out the fires, you’re better off pulling the item. I think they are stuck trying to explain why this steaming pile of dung is acceptable because smart speakers are a desired product and considered a basic part of the smart home. Too bad they’ve missed the mark. Maybe they can put some of that money to work and get back on track.

HomePod, like all the smart speakers on the market need to convince people of their utility. This Q&A is exactly that, an opportunity to people on the fence with regards smart speakers that they might be worth a shot.

 

[InfoTime]

Touching the top starts music, and when you set it up initially to join the account it plays a playlist based on that person's library.

Thanks. But, do you know where the music is coming from? Is it streaming it directly from Apple Music? Not sure she subscribes to the paid Apple Music. Can you control what it's playing from an app on your iPhone, iPad or Mac? Or do you just have to say "stop that"?

 

[Shanghaichica]

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.

Well it's the same with the echo dot and google home. Yes they are smarter than the home pod but 99 % of what they do can be done by a smartphone.

Also the mics work better on the home pod so it can hear me from very far away, whereas my iPhone or iPad needs to be really close by to activate hey Siri. Also my phone might be in another room but I can still get info and respond to messages on my homepod. It's also a nice speaker to play music with.
[doublepost=1532329498][/doublepost]

Wait HomePod requires WiFi connection to even play anything ? That can’t be real.... can someone confirm ?

No it doesn't you can airplay from your iPhone but the content needs to be stored locally on your phone. When I moved home recently it took about a week to get my internet reconnected. I was able to airplay from my iPhone to my home pod. Neither we connected to wifi and I didn't have to tether.
[doublepost=1532329570][/doublepost]

Yeah you have to have to setup HomePod with WiFi. The same goes for Sonos. These are HiFi speaker systems, not Bluetooth speakers.

Once you've done the initial set up you can airplay locally stored content to the home pod without a wifi connection.

 

[palmerc]

Thanks. But, do you know where the music is coming from? Is it streaming it directly from Apple Music? Not sure she subscribes to the paid Apple Music. Can you control what it's playing from an app on your iPhone, iPad or Mac? Or do you just have to say "stop that"?

It comes from Apple Music directly if initiated on the HomePod. You can stream from any service if the music is started on an Apple TV, iPhone, iPad, Mac or any device that can output AirPlay streams.

 

[BlankStar]

One glaring omission, or a feature I cannot find, is the inability to adjust volume on HomePod using the Home app. Seems elementary. Why isn't it there?

It's not there because all music controls are in the music app? (or control center)

 

[triton100]

Interesting. I hope they get some tough questions.

You know, over things that aren’t in the manual, such as why they bothered with the HomePod’s development in the first place.

Joking aside, they do sound great. Great product, just not for me.

Hot dam you’re an attractive man. That’s all.

 

[wigby]

Well, I wanted more than a $350 egg timer that sounds great (and frankly was promised better/more). But it IS an AAPL product so I probably should have known that $350 for an egg timer is considered "a great thing" in the Apple reality distortion field and that I'm the unreasonable one for actually wanting something more than a beautiful device that really doesn't do what others do.

1) Get me an answer about something simple (that alexa and google assistant fire on with pretty damn good reliability) like "Tell me about the paul manafort issue".

2) *ANY* third party app data/task that isn't HomeKit. Integrations/skills - totally lacking, SiriKit is a joke on iPhone, it's even more pathetic on HomePod. Alexa can drive all kinds of things remotely and on its own, while HomePod can't even set a reminder unless my iPhone is on the same WiFi network.

3) Like I finished with above, even Apple's OWN ecosystem of things can't/don't work on it unless there's an iPhone on the same network. Sometimes my phone is in my car, it's dead, I forgot it at the office or home, whatever.

But you are correct: It's a brilliant speaker, but that is all it is, a brilliant speaker. *ALTHOUGH* even in that, no Bluetooth pairing support? Really? Yeah, AP2 exists, it's quality is ostensibly better, but sometimes I have friends come over with Android devices who want to play stuff and AirPlay 2 adoption sucks, soooo, no cigar on the HomePod. Even myself, AirPlay 2 itself is pretty damn buggy esp in larger WiFi networks, there are times I *wish* playing music off my iPhone would just use normal BT and not all the fanciness (and attendant things that also can go wrong) with more complex protocols like AP2.

Apple's whole thing is "our **** just works" (at least for me). It's never the fastest (despite the claims/reality distortion field). It's never the most modern (cute, the MBP just got DDR4 and 32GB and still has a keyboard that doesn't work). But I still buy it and pay the premium because, like I said, it just works without much fuss.

I've had way too much fuss, "I'm sorry, I am useless" from Siri, etc on HomePod, and not nearly enough "wow, it does this really well to forgive these other things". But if all you need to do is say "hey play this play list", it's probably the best sounding speaker in that price range that does that in one box without a phone attached. But it's not a smart speaker.

I never said HomePod was great but it does what I expect it to do and what Apple says it does. It has along way to go (as do all smart speakers) and some of your complaints are being addressed through Siri improvements in iOS 12. I'm not sure I understand the problem with requiring an iPhone on the same network. When is your iPhone on a different network than your HomePod? And AirPlay 2 was just released so it's a bit premature to judge its adoption.

I wish people would stop using "reality distortion field" to describe everything they disagree with. It's an old observation that really died with Steve Jobs and never had much to do with Apple as a company. Consumers come to ecosystems like Apple with all kinds of expectations and experiences. Sometimes it's a simple matter of consumers wanting or pretending Apple is the best just because they paid more than competing products. That's not reality distortion, that's the way capitalism and marketing work for everything. Reality distortion can also be defined as user experience. People living partially or fully outside of Apple's ecosystem love to poke holes in their marketing claims because they can easily quote specs and prices that seems to counter Apple's marketing promises. These specs are important but they never tell the entire story. Millions of Apple consumers gladly pay an extra 10% or even 50% price premium just so they don't have to think about compatibility, security and privacy issues. Apple doesn't always get these things right but that doesn't mean they aren't prioritizing them and customers aren't getting what they want.

 

[macduke]

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.

That's timer, singular, not plural. Although a new report on the site this morning says that multiple timers might be coming this autumn. Revolutionary!

As for reading the news, I can just read the news on my iPhone or listen to it on my way to and from work. Weather? Takes a few seconds to glance my widget from my lock screen or to ask my iPhone. Pairing with Apple TV? Kinda neat but I already have a nice soundbar. And I'm not going to get rid of my soundbar because what am I going to plug my Switch, Xbox, NES/SNES classic into? When it first came out the reviews said the audio was really laggy for things like games on Apple TV which makes it nearly unusable. Is that fixed with AirPlay 2? Also from what I've read, it doesn't replace the remote and only does basic things like play, pause, and change volume. Reading my messages/calendar/etc and replying to them is actually a reason not to get this at this point as it doesn't recognize multiple users so who knows what my kids might end up doing whether accidental or intentional. I think controlling HomeKit devices is probably the most useful feature because anyone can do it when they're in the room. But again, this could be bad if kids can change settings on the fly. Asking about local restaurants and trivia can be accomplished just as well on the iPhone and probably with more speed and accuracy using Yelp and Google. It won't be until they upgrade Siri's AI by quite a bit that it will be worth it for things like that.

 

[droog]

Pairing works really well. Before pairing was released I had two HomePods in the living room and that didn't work well. Once you pair them I've never had a moments trouble.
[doublepost=1532320918][/doublepost]

The HomePods in our house are the single most directly used piece of tech by our family. Since our kids are too young to navigate a textual app they tell Siri to play music, control lights, turn on the TV. Also turns out it is very useful for learning violin via the Suzuki method since you don't have to touch anything to play/repeat/pause the music.
[doublepost=1532321092][/doublepost]

Absolutely. It requires WiFi. It is not a general purpose stereo and is designed for people that are already invested in the Apple ecosystem.
[doublepost=1532321208][/doublepost]

That's a good point about the Volume. However, mostly you can ballpark the volume with Siri. Hey Siri set the volume to XX%.
[doublepost=1532321549][/doublepost]

HomePod, like all the smart speakers on the market need to convince people of their utility. This Q&A is exactly that, an opportunity to people on the fence with regards smart speakers that they might be worth a shot.

It’s already a well established market. There shouldn’t be a need when they are the late comers. The fact is that they need to hand wave and set up the smoke and mirrors to bring some parity to device that is woefully dumb in comparison to far cheaper alternatives. The utility is in smart capabilities. If I wanted a great sounding speaker, Apple is the last place I’d consider.

 

[dan110]

A good questions is why can I not use this $350 speaker with ... my tv? Or my video game system? Or anything else but the Apple TV for that matter.

A good questions is why can I not use this $350 speaker with ... my tv? Or my video game system? Or anything else but the Apple TV for that matter.

More reasons to not invest in this device. I would recommend another manufacturer(s). The home pod is simply a status symbol built to give the appearance of competing with Amazon and to a lesser extent Google.

 

[jigzaw]

I've had the Homepod for several months now and I won't say I regret it because it does sound nice and the microphone for talking to Siri is fantastic, but I think this first version of it is an overpriced misfire. The sad thing is the hardware is so much better than the software. You can't really do much with it except play Apple Music. It won't even set an alarm to music.. it only has one stock alarm sound unlike the competition that lets you wake up to gradually fading-up music in the morning. That sounds amazing and that feature isn't even rumored yet. Doubt I'll ever pick up a second one unless they seriously upgrade both Siri and the Homepod features.

 

[Dayv]

[doublepost=1532257276][/doublepost]I also have 2, stereo paired.

But what annoys me is that I alway have to go back to my Apple TV settings to make a movie play through both devices, after I may have used the two HP’s to broadcast an Apple Music channel or Podcast.

Surely iOS should be able the learn that given we have multiple devices - and we come into the HP space it should automatically understand that any device that is of priority, sends audio via HP.

But no! Every time, you must go to ATV and change to HP.

How do you set HP as default?

Sorry if someone already answered this (long thread), but I recently discovered that you can access a quick menu for audio settings on the Apple TV with a long press on the play/pause button. It doesn't completely solve this issue, but it makes it a lot less painful.

 

[iMi]

It's not there because all music controls are in the music app? (or control center)

I'll have to check it out. I didn't look to see if the control center would show HomePod volume when the HomePod is playing. HomePod works independently of the music app, so I don't think that would work. I'll check both. Thanks for the tip!

 

[BlankStar]

I'll have to check it out. I didn't look to see if the control center would show HomePod volume when the HomePod is playing. HomePod works independently of the music app, so I don't think that would work. I'll check both. Thanks for the tip!

Force touch the music tile in control center on your iPhone. It'll list your iPhone, HomePods, Apple TV's, etc. Just pick the homepod and move the volume slider...

 

[haganah]

I ordered an Echo Spot (and smart plug) on Prime Day. So I've had it all of 2-3 days now. So far, in my limited toying around with skills, it can voice control start/stop/unlock my Chevrolet. It can voice control view my baby monitor camera. It turned my old Sonos Speaker into a smart speaker. Both my spouse and I can update our shopping list with Alexa from our phones or the Echo Spot. Not to mention, it can play soothing white noise during bedtime.

It's got a routine for when I wake up, turning on a light, turning off a light, giving me traffic, weather, and relevant news.

I have had Siri on my devices for years and can barely get her to do anything besides a phone call.

I don't have the Spot, only the Echo and the Dot.

Let me know how often you use "voice control" to unlock your car. My garage door opens using Siri and I don't use voice control for that. What's actually cool to me about home automation is the fact that the devices talk to each other, not the part where I can talk to them. If the garage door goes up, lights turn on, camera records, etc.

My Arlo baby monitor uses Siri and it works well. But again, if the baby is crying, I wouldn't ask Alexa or Siri to show me a video. And again I would want it to talk to another device. I haven't quite figured out what device it should talk to yet - it would be terrible for it to go off and then turn on the lights for example.

Siri updates shopping lists from both HomePod and Phone. I have routines (they're called scenes and you can do them with shortcuts too), weather, news, time...and it all works flawlessly.

Siri will play soothing music from Apple Music. Or date night music. Or whatever. I had the 3 month trial and it did all of those and it was quite nice. But again, I find it hard to give up all my preferences which are stored in Spotify so I haven't made a full transition there.

I don't have a Sonos speaker - I can see value in that. My HomePods do sounds nice though.

There are lots of things that Siri does that Apple just doesn't talk about. I have no idea why. The other day I found out that you could ask it for pictures of white kitchens on pinterest. I ordered an uber XL to the airport. I tried it by asking for a ride, etc. and it was a nice experience actually. There are things that you can't do but the whole story that Alexa is better is bull. It is on more devices, it is cheaper and I can buy more of those devices, and it lets me use Spotify if I wanted but it also falls flat in other areas.

 

[BlankStar]

There are lots of things that Siri does that Apple just doesn't talk about. I have no idea why. The other day I found out that you could ask it for pictures of white kitchens on pinterest. I ordered an uber XL to the airport. I tried it by asking for a ride, etc. and it was a nice experience actually.

"Hey Siri, what can you do?". Enjoy the long list and make some more discoveries ;-)

The list can also be viewed by tapping once on the "wave" at the bottom of the screen when Siri is listening for a command.

 

[kjvmartin]

I don't have the Spot, only the Echo and the Dot.

Let me know how often you use "voice control" to unlock your car.

I will use it every single morning to start my car when it's cold outside and on hot days to cool it off. I do not have a garage and the key fob requires me to stop getting ready, find my keys, and move to a window nearest the parking area to hope it might work.

Alternatively with Alexa I can, from most any room in my apartment, while I'm brushing my teeth or putting on pants, say "Tell Chevrolet to start my car"

It's very cool. Hopefully Siri gains this function in iOS 12.

It's 2 a.m... I hear a noise from the kids room. "Alexa, show me the kids room" and 3 seconds later I'm able to see them on the nightstand screen. This is with the Cloudcam

Siri is behind.

 

[haganah]

You're saying that you use it now but you just got it - in the event that you do use it frequently (in the long term), please realize that this is not a frequently used Skill. In fact it only has 4 reviews: https://www.amazon.com/b?ie=UTF8&node=14284820011 I really hope of all the "functions" Siri or any product gets, that a Chevy start/stop is not at the top of the list.

As for the baby camera - again, the Arlo baby cam has that. If you wake up in the middle of the night and your first inclination is to say out loud "show me the kids room" then you've decided to take longer to do it (vs clicking the notification or button), you've decided to do it in an intrusive way for whoever else is in the room, and somehow you're better than most at waking up and being coherent to say that. And let me repeat again, Siri can do that if you still want.

You can keep saying Siri is behind, but your example of turning on your Chevy is not even popular at Amazon. And it neglects all the things I can do on Siri if I wanted, all the hubs I don't have for my home, all the security I have in my devices, the fact that my devices all integrate well for the scenes I have set up, the deep integration into my apps which I carry around with me.

Really, Alexa is behind.

I will use it every single morning to start my car when it's cold outside and on hot days to cool it off. I do not have a garage and the key fob requires me to stop getting ready, find my keys, and move to a window nearest the parking area to hope it might work.

Alternatively with Alexa I can, from most any room in my apartment, while I'm brushing my teeth or putting on pants, say "Tell Chevrolet to start my car"

It's very cool. Hopefully Siri gains this function in iOS 12.

It's 2 a.m... I hear a noise from the kids room. "Alexa, show me the kids room" and 3 seconds later I'm able to see them on the nightstand screen. This is with the Cloudcam

Siri is behind.

I will use it every single morning to start my car when it's cold outside and on hot days to cool it off. I do not have a garage and the key fob requires me to stop getting ready, find my keys, and move to a window nearest the parking area to hope it might work.

Alternatively with Alexa I can, from most any room in my apartment, while I'm brushing my teeth or putting on pants, say "Tell Chevrolet to start my car"

It's very cool. Hopefully Siri gains this function in iOS 12.

It's 2 a.m... I hear a noise from the kids room. "Alexa, show me the kids room" and 3 seconds later I'm able to see them on the nightstand screen. This is with the Cloudcam

Siri is behind.

 

[The Game 161]

When your product is so horrid it requires a PR team to put out the fires, you’re better off pulling the item. I think they are stuck trying to explain why this steaming pile of dung is acceptable because smart speakers are a desired product and considered a basic part of the smart home. Too bad they’ve missed the mark. Maybe they can put some of that money to work and get back on track.

There is nothing wrong with the product

It works very well for most basic needs. Sound wise there isn’t a better smart speaker on the market