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Apple's Early Version of HomePod Stood Three Feet Tall and Packed Dozens of Speakers
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Except nobody would rather listen to an overpriced glorified Siri speaker than a proper home system or a proper outdoor portable speaker option that costs a fraction as much.
Yes and no. There are speakers on the market which would cost you more than that, but many a lot cheaper. Apple are positioning themselves in the luxury audio market, making the product still relatively cheap. You also have to add Apple Tax on top of that. It's pricey, but I don't think it's unreasonable. I think they're still giving people a pretty good reason to pick up a Sonos though. Only reason I returned my Sonos One (and will be waiting for HomePod) is because their services and software is bad. But Sonos make excellent sounding speakers.
And we both know that was not Apple building and selling an Apple-branded phone, that was Apple doing an agreement with Motorola, who was building a phone, to include the ability to play things from iTunes.
So if your claim is correct, not even a single HomePod will ever be sold. I guess we'll see if you're right.
Myself on the other hand, I think it'll be a very successful seller because it's what a huge portion of the market want. An easy to use way to stream Apple Music at home, with great sound.
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All the time. And if they didn't listen to it at home before, this is the type of product that'll encourage them to do so. By making it easy to listen to music in the home, they'll likely do it much more.
I have great speakers (EVENT 20/20 BAS) and I am still in the market for this. Even in an apartment, stereo speakers only deliver great sound in the cone in front of them. I want great sound to fill my entire apartment, hence I am going to fill the rest in with one or more HomePods.
I’m confused by this statement. I thought the HomePod was designed to be a smart speaker not just a high quality speaker. That being said Siri is dreadful I think most of us can agree on that. Secondly Apple Music is dreadful as compared to Spotify and I think most of us can agree on that as well. Third, is the HomePod worth the $150 premium as compared to say Sonos One? Since the Sonos One is Alexa capable, Spotify capable and is a great high quality speaker what will entice people to pay the premium. Not to mention Sonos One will open up to not only HomeKit Siri but google assistant also. I want to love the HomePod because I love Apple products but I’m half tempted to get 2 Sonos ones for $50 more then the Apple HomePod.
The HomePod is not communicating with an iPhone to control HomeKit devices - it will communicate directly with them the same as the Apple TV does, same for Reminders, Notes, Calendars, Weather, Traffic/Directions, iMessages, Phone Calls (hopefully), Timers, Alarms, Music (obviously), various general knowledge questions, etc. - it is running a version of iOS after all. That wasn't the point of this article, they were saying basically that third party developers can't write native apps for the HomePod - think Skills for the Echo (though those aren't technically native either, since they are in the cloud) - without communicating with an iOS device.
Also right now SiriKit for HomePod only supports Messaging, Lists, and Notes (missing Ride Booking, QR Codes, Photo Search, Payments, and VoIP calling like on full fledged iOS devices) - so third party apps are extremely limited in what they can do with HomePod. For example at launch compared to Siri on your iPhone you won't be able to call an Uber, call someone on Skype, send someone money on Venmo, or ask your iPhone to bring up specific photos in Flickr.
You will however be able to send/read messages on WhatsApp, or add items to a third party grocery list app like AnyList or OurGroceries, or to a to-do app like Todoist - provided you have those apps installed on your phone and the app developers implement the feature.
This page breaks down what SiriKit on HomePod can do pretty well: https://developer.apple.com/sirikit/
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I’d be willing to bet a $100 set of bookshelf speakers and a $100 stereo receiver blow the Homepod out of the water.
I’m not saying the HomePod doesn’t have its place but it is not a replacement for s true stereo. Hell I may even get one to check it out.
Hoping the HomePod sounds killer, because if it does it's a definite buy for me.
I don't have the space for a proper receiver and bookshelf speaker setup, and most of the portable bluetooth speakers I've heard over the years have sounded awful so I'm hoping this is a nice middle ground between the two.
I don't have the space for a proper receiver and bookshelf speaker setup, and most of the portable bluetooth speakers I've heard over the years have sounded awful so I'm hoping this is a nice middle ground between the two.
"Apple fanatics" or "very tiny market". Those are two very different things. Please make up your mind.
The upside to the HomePod is the small footprint. It will fit in a corner on your kitchen counter, on a nightstand, etc. A receiver with two speakers won’t fill that need.
I'd much rather have a HomePod. Far greater utility with a wireless connection. And, most importantly, with a speaker and microphone array, there are loads of potential digital signal processing enhancements available. That's why the A10 is there, btw.
Lol not how it works. Some people out there buy anything Apple craps out out of trust/brand loyalty. This will probably outsell the competition, but it's just not the best for anything - it has a much dumber assistant than Google's offering and has quite likely has worse sound than a proper home theatre setup or a proper portable speaker. Selling more units doesn't change those facts - it just means some people out there will literally buy trash if it is Apple branded.
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Wish more people could understand this! Not everything Apple makes = good. Sure it's late to the party, but at the very least, it should be somewhat "perfected" by Apple's standards. It just seems like a rushed product, which just so happens to be the last to the party.
We haven't seen HomePod released yet so we can't really say what it does or how well it performs. We will redo the house next year and may put a pair of these in the living room if they sound good and work well with HomeKit.
I use Siri quite a bit everyday and find that it works OK for me. Could be better. I'd like to see the option for custom vocabularies so that I could use it with work related jargon.
I would never allow an Amazon or Google controlled microphone in my house.
I use Siri quite a bit everyday and find that it works OK for me. Could be better. I'd like to see the option for custom vocabularies so that I could use it with work related jargon.
I would never allow an Amazon or Google controlled microphone in my house.
Yes, as I said, these are luxury audio devices and will be marketed as such. If you're in the market for a high end home audio solution, and you have the money, and you're in the Apple ecosystem - you'd be looking at these.
Or, you'd be looking at getting a couple of Sonos One's for around $400. If you really want to spend $700 you may as well get 3 or 4 of the Sonos speakers.
It's not about whether this is good, it's about whether it's priced to compete with similar 'more than good enough' or even possibly better speakers. And it's also about SIRI. It's easy to see that Alexa/Sonos is a better value and more useful option for most of the same situations that the homepod would be deployed. Even if the Homepod does sound marginally and subjectively 'better' it's not going to sound $150 better to most people's ears - yours, mine, or Phil Schiller's.
Why's that so hard to understand?