I bought a HomePod on the Friday it was released and a second on Monday. Obviously I am a fan. I do not have a decent stereo system in my house and have no interest in the Amazon or Google Home products as I don't want to be monetized in exchange for cheap hardware. I am deep in the Apple ecosystem with an Apple Music subscription. I am exactly the type of consumer they designed the HomePod for.
I don't quite get all of the criticism about Siri and the HomePod in general. I understand some of it, but having used HomePod for a few weeks, I believe some expectations may have been set unreasonably high and naturally now some are disappointed.
My two HomePods do everything I want them to do. They play music on demand from Apple Music --and they create a very pleasant listening experience. I agree some songs come across as too bassy and I do hope they will allow for user preferences at some point, but it doesn't bother me for all genres.
I can change the music genre or volume with a simple voice command. I think that is just wonderful. The HomePods are mostly great at the music related commands - only a few misses, they turn my Hue lights on/off, dim them and initiate preset scenes, they read a news summary on demand, they play podcasts on demand (when you use the right name ;-)), they are stellar at adding-subtracting-multipling-dividing on command, they give me instant conversions while I am cooking, they set timers and alarms and add to my reminder lists that I use extensively. I love being able to dump thoughts into my lists before I forget them. At my age that happens more often. I have no interest in calling an Uber, ordering a pizza nor do I have an immediate need to know the length of the average Ferret.
I was curious as to how much Apple actually promised with the HomePod and rewatched the announcement at the 2017 keynote. From my point of view, the HomePod delivers on every major promise made. Tim Cook explicitly said in his introduction that the HomePod was designed to reinvent music in the home. He did not say it would take the place of hi-fi equipment, nor compete with Amazon or Google Home. Reinvent doesn't imply better.
Then Phil summarized in the announcement:
HomePod will
1) Rock the house (check)
2) Will be compact enough to put anywhere (check)
3) Will have spatial awareness (check)
4) will serve as a musicologist (mostly check, a work in progress)
5) will be designed to work with Apple Music (check)
6) Will have music oriented commands and interactions (check) this was emphasized....
7) will be able to hear you when you speak across the room (check)
8) will serve as a home assistant (check - for me)
9) will allow specified reminders and timers and HomeKit (check and check)
10) He also emphasized privacy and Encrypted communication (I take their word for it and it is important to me)
11) ... and that Apple was starting with the functions it thought were most important first implying more would follow.
Are there issues? Yes, absolutely! Do I wish there was voice recognition so it could read my calendar and make phone calls? Yes! But I live alone, so it isn't frankly important to me. I haven't experienced any issues with the Apple TV and HomePods fighting over their status. Siri does have a very specific way it wants to hear some commands. Other commands, it will take several versions.
This can be incredibly frustrating and don't think I haven't sworn at Siri and called her stupid more than once. However, I am delighted with my HomePods. It is a revelation to interact with a music device in my home (and sometime personal assistant) with my voice only. No searching for my phone, a remote or needing to open up my MacBook Pro. My home is filled with music just about every hour of the day that I can experience while going about my daily life at home, and after all isn't that what HomePods are supposed to be about? My two cents.
