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Uhhhhh...Why? The Airport and Apple TV have removable power cables. Does Apple sell those cables individually?

Edit: I don't think people shouldn't be able to buy these cables (I don't care what the F people do with their money) [yay double negative]. I also hadn't considered that you could go through Apple Support to buy replacement parts. I was going off of the concept that Apple isn't putting power cables the Apple TV and Airport on their retail store walls, and they aren't available in the Apple Store app. I was simply asking why they thought there was a good chance they would be sold individually.
It’s have a ac cable pretty much every device have it
 
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As I'm reading more and more about the HomePod, still disliking the damn name, and still waiting official news whether or not Sonos will grant my Play:1 Special Edition speaker AirPlay 2 (always mixed reports nothing precisely clear from Sonos) I'm beginning to reconsider this Apple HomePod. If the audio quality is better than the Play:1 and Play:3 then I'm in as the price is competitive.

Still ridiculous the limited launch countries though. Siri speaks and understands French so why not France and Canada? oh well ... let's see those jacked up prices on eBay and Amazon shipping to Canada.

It's good to hear Siri understands French because English sure isn't her first language. :D
 
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Lmaoo. This is a genuinely funny post.

But how is the HomePod not useful? The UE MegaBoom is $299 and doesn’t have “smart functions”.

Apple packed awesome audio technology into a device that is also a personal assistant (that will get better over time) and a hub for your smart home. You can still stream/AirPlay music to it that’s not in your Apple Music app.

I don’t get why it’s getting so much hate.

Honestly , he Siri thing is a big turn off. You say it will get better over time but there has been more than enough time to improve it and all she mostly does is “here are some results from the web”
 
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Lmaoo. This is a genuinely funny post.

But how is the HomePod not useful? The UE MegaBoom is $299 and doesn’t have “smart functions”.

Apple packed awesome audio technology into a device that is also a personal assistant (that will get better over time) and a hub for your smart home. You can still stream/AirPlay music to it that’s not in your Apple Music app.

I don’t get why it’s getting so much hate.

Well, is not considered is the environmental cost of the R&D* and design, the production, the marketing costs to convince people to buy yet another doo-dad, and the environmental cost of the jobs that people need to perform to earn the money to buy this...

As opposed to buying something more useful, or not buying anything and enjoying some more time outside...

Of course I understand capitalism - but still, need to look at the big picture - not the Apple marketing-spiel.

*think if those engineers designed more useful things...
 
This is important because I really care how much power I'm using when listening to my music. :rolleyes: Can they add anymore lipstick to the pig already late to the party?

MC1.2KW_Front_Top.jpg
 
Not to mention, Apple will continue to provide updates and roll out new features through capabilities through software updates as the HomePod matures. It's way too early to make any pre-noted judgments without having experience for those who are chastising it. The audio itself I very look much forward to hearing.

This thing shoud come premade with the features. From what I understand you can't even use it as a home theater set up thru Apple TV and no bluetooth.
 
HomePod looks neat, but once again, they're several years behind Amazon and I don't feel like switching and locking myself in.

I wouldn't say no to a gift of a HomePod, but you know what I'd like better? A deal between Amazon and Apple that plays Apple Music on my Echo devices (including third-party gadgets like the Garmin Speak in the car), instead of this incompatible world of warring giant corporations.

Since the Home app on my iPhone doesn't work with my IoT things like Wemo and Insteon, I assume HomePod wouldn't either. Amazon does. The real cost of getting a HomePod would be much higher for me, since I'm not starting from scratch.

BTW I also have a cheapass Kindle Fire for reading Amazon books at the pool. Apple Books doesn't work that way. See a trend? Amazon is more compatible, economical, and open than Apple, and the "customer experience" isn't bad, either. I don't see myself switching to Android anytime soon, but if/when I do, this kind of thing will be the main reason why.
 
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is there something i’m missing here?

why would i pay $350 for not stereo sound?

i don’t own much music mixed for mono.
 
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Unfortunately it can't be a 7" woofer because it is only 5 1/2 inches wide...
"High excursion" would have to be by a factor of 4.75 or 6.5 to meet a decent 12 or 14" woofer.
Frankly, I don't think anyone, even Apple, has the tech to reach those numbers with any sort of linearity.
The un-baffeled enclosure would still cause trouble even if they did move enough air to equal a 12 inch speaker.
Here's a "high excursion" full range with an excursion of 5mm.
Apparently the record for excursion length is 6 inches for a woofer of 60 inch diameter. I'd like a couple, but they'd probably burn out because you get more heat as excursion increases.
 
is there something i’m missing here?

why would i pay $350 for not stereo sound?

i don’t own much music mixed for mono.
You’re missing the fact that people have already been buying portable speakers for years from companies like Bose, Libratone, JBL, Beats, Harman Kardon, Sony, Philips, Cambridge Soundworks, iHome, Klipsch, Bowers and Wilkins, Sonos, and others. Many of those are priced in the same neighborhood as HomePod.
 
People are going to accept it for what it is, not a replacement a home theater system with a sub-woofer or an audiophile stereo system. If you like the sound and eventual functions, the buy it. Just realize you can't bypass the laws of physics.

Nice picture of the Mono block Mac, now you are talking some real power. I sold HI-Fi systems and later became a professional sound contractor. More voice coils in speakers were burnt from too little power than too much. People would turn up their 25 watt receivers until the amplifiers clipped, producing DC voltages, since the voice coils don't move with DC, they just heated up. I built a live system in a night club and used a 300 watt per channel Mac to drive 2 JBL mid-range compression drivers on each channel, and never replaced a diaphragm.
 
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is there something i’m missing here?

why would i pay $350 for not stereo sound?

i don’t own much music mixed for mono.

HomePod isn't a mono speaker. It splits the sound into left/center/right channels. 7 tweeters means that the mid/high range is stereo. One woofer means that the low end technically isn't stereo, but in terms of how people perceive sound at the low end and how most music is mixed for stereo...it's not going to be a significant issue when using a single unit.
 
This thing shoud come premade with the features. From what I understand you can't even use it as a home theater set up thru Apple TV and no bluetooth.
You can airplay your phone to it, so you should definitely be able to airplay an Apple TV to it.
 
Why? There are those speakers portable intended for travel and have a water resistance rating, but the HomePod is meant more less to be stationary in a living room type setting. It's just one more thing that would need to be recharged when it's more convenient to leave it plugged in. And if someone forgot to charge it And wasn't aware of where the battery life is , then it would not be very effective for HomeKit control, etc if the battery was depleted.
To be able to move it from room to room with ease, and without the hassle of unplugging it and then plugging it in.
 
128kbps mp3 is awfully popular.
You only need a speaker with the fidelity of your old, 1960's 6 transistor radio to get the most out of that.
Most people do not care to pay more for better.
Still, $350 is a chunk of change for nearly mono.
 
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To say Consumes Less Power Than Average LED Bulb
is like saying an object is as heavy as lead. It depends on the size or quantity.
Some of my LED bulbs in my house are 2W and 3W. Most are less than 7W.
A 9.5W LED is probably a little more than the equivalent of a 60W incandescent.
I'm sure LEDs used for indicator lights on a panel are under 1W each.
 
Nice speakers, even better than this have been out for many many decades.

So the whole key/focus here IS the AI aspects of it and how it can thru voice aid and enhance you and your families life at home, making tasks easy for you.
Apple makes a new product (which you haven't touched or heard yet) and says the main point of it is that it plays music really well (oh, and you can talk to it to tell it what to play), MacRumors forum member knows Apple's intentions better than Apple does, reveals to the world that the device's AI aspects are really the main focus. Or maybe you could wait to actually play with one, and then cast judgement?

Instead of that being the No.1 focus, they are throwing a curve ball to distract from this by stating to talk about it's power consumption instead, which no one ever cared about when buying these devices before.

Given that it's nothing special anyway in comparison with the competition. Really says a lot when they have to use this to desperately try and help their product. If they were confident they would focus on the aspect that actually matter like the amazing AI
Apple has released a bunch of information about the HomePod. One of those many bits of information was this PDF about how much power it draws. MacRumors made a post all about this PDF, because that's what MacRumors does - reports on even small bits of info from Apple. You are pretending as if Apple said, "forget everything else we've said about the HomePod, the One Real Important Fact is how little power it draws!" But they didn't do that. Instead, you're taking one small detail and building it up into a strawman that you can attack, speaking of how desperate they must be for them to be focusing on this one aspect - which they are not focusing on. Seems like you either can't, or don't want to, see the overall picture. The latter would be pretty disingenuous on your part.
 
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Oh, you saw <10W and made the erroneous link to speaker volume..

Go and read about speaker sensitivity.. and impedance for that matter.
It'll all become clear then! :)

Efficiency does not equate volume. I am sure it will sound wonderful if it's efficient. It has to be in order to produce any deep base without any real power draw.
 
It's good to hear Siri understands French because English sure isn't her first language. :D

Well I sure don’t parlez en francais, but Siri is supposed to. Funny each time I try to type Siri rapidly on my iPhone 7 it comes up as “Sori” lol which is something Siri seems to do frequently with my command attempts in English.
 
More voice coils in speakers were burnt from too little power than too much. People would turn up their 25 watt receivers until the amplifiers clipped, producing DC voltages, since the voice coils don't move with DC, they just heated up. I built a live system in a night club and used a 300 watt per channel Mac to drive 2 JBL mid-range compression drivers on each channel, and never replaced a diaphragm.
Yep, common misconception that providing "too much power" would hurt a speaker, when usually the problem is too little, with the amplifier horribly misbehaving when called upon to provide something it can't. Vaguely related, I have a friend who, back in the day, borrowed a well-regarded test CD from me so he could test out his fancy new speakers (M&K satellites and subwoofer). Among other things, he went through the series of test tones... he ended up cranking the volume ever higher trying to hear the topmost 20 kHz tone... until he heard a click and experienced a funny smell in his room. Had to get the tweeter replaced in one of his new speakers.
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HomePod isn't a mono speaker. It splits the sound into left/center/right channels. 7 tweeters means that the mid/high range is stereo. One woofer means that the low end technically isn't stereo, but in terms of how people perceive sound at the low end and how most music is mixed for stereo...it's not going to be a significant issue when using a single unit.
The important point is that Apple has always focused on "what is the user experience of using this" rather than which boxes does it tick on the specification buzzword chart. What they are going for is something that sounds really nice when you listen to it. This is a mark they may or may not have hit with the HomePod (and the perception of their level of success may differ considerably from user to user, depending on how demanding the user is, and how much experience the user has with high-end audio).

The MP3 format was based on the idea of throwing out large parts of the musical information to which users are less sensitive, in order to make files small enough to store and transmit on 90's era computers and networks. Despite the obvious compromises in this, many people have enjoyed MP3-encoded music, many not caring about the technology itself.

Rather than worrying about whether the HomePod is stereo, or quasi-stereo, or full(-enough)-range or not, the real answer is to wait until it's released, and go listen to it/them, preferably in an environment that is not "one corner of a 100ft-by-100ft Apple Store" (cavernous, noisy, and probably quite unlike your living room). Decide then if you like the sound it produces, rather than trying to argue about how it sounds based entirely on things you've read.
 
While Apple finds it's worthwhile to highlight a Power consumption comparison in an environmental report, I would rather see a report on impacts to the environment:
  1. Soldered vs. Socketed RAM
  2. Soldered HDD/SSD vs. Drives using a standard industry connector
  3. How many iPhones were replaced because of throttling while owners were not aware of it.
 
To say Consumes Less Power Than Average LED Bulb
is like saying an object is as heavy as lead. It depends on the size or quantity.
Some of my LED bulbs in my house are 2W and 3W. Most are less than 7W.
A 9.5W LED is probably a little more than the equivalent of a 60W incandescent.
I'm sure LEDs used for indicator lights on a panel are under 1W each.
Apple is a little more specific in their claim. They said “HomePod consumes less power than an average LED household light bulb during music playback.”

An average LED household light bulb is then defined the footnoted statement: “Based on the average power consumed by A19 LED bulbs listed on the ENERGY STAR Certified Light Bulbs Version 2.0 registry as of January 10, 2018.”

Depending on the efficiency of the amps and drivers, 8W is capable of creating quite large sound pressure levels. It’s notable that all 8 drivers are driven by their own separate amplifier.
 
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