Yes, if you are unlucky enough to live in a house where a phone would be out of range of another device on the same home network, or where having a phone connected for charging might be problematic, third party services streamed via AirPlay would stop.
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Consumer Reports: Google Home Max and Sonos One Sound Better Than HomePod
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Yes, if you are unlucky enough to live in a house where a phone would be out of range of another device on the same home network, or where having a phone connected for charging might be problematic, third party services streamed via AirPlay would stop.
We used to have a bit of that but not for a year or more now. had that and more issues with airplay. it used to suck with voiceover. we have 6 speakers and a amp and thy have been pretty bug free for the most part. right now homepod keeps having siri issues and the sources are limited and more work to connect to then bluetooth.
Maybe I need to go for a walk, grab more coffee, or go for a walk to grab more coffee, but when I read the title of this article, I initially read it as "Consumer Reports: Bacon is now good for you again!" 
Just because you are not beholden to advertisers does not mean you are automatically unbiased.
Maybe, but you are not American and yet you seem to have a fetish with it too hence your comment (verbatim):
"They didn't give HomePod a fair shake, that's pretty obvious."
For claiming to not give a wit about CR you seem to still have an opinion on their review. Stop hiding behind your nationality. Being American or not has nothing to do with respecting or not respecting CR reviews.
No, what's not fair is comparing what's essentially two 2-way speakers in a single enclosure to a single speaker.
You can get stereo systems for much less than 400$ that sound better than Google home. But such comparisons are pointless. Apples to oranges.
Not to mention that being unbiased is impossible.
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Apple chose to have that arrangement and put it in the same market with the Max at around the same price. They’re both in he same market. It’s fair to judge their engineering choices in terms of what they produce.
They didn't give it a fair shake. I can construct this sentence differently if you want.
Sure, sound will always be subjective.
I'm just saying: There are some legitimate beefs to have with the HomePod and with Apple's strategy in that market. Sound quality is not a legitimate complaint when viewed in the context of everything else the HomePod doesn't do.
iOS hasn't been "locked down" from third-party apps since 2008, when it was iPhone OS 2 on the iPhone 3G. Yes, people bitched about it back then, and Apple opened up the iPhone to third party apps and the iPhone really took off. Those people were proven right - the iPhone is much better when you could run third-party apps on it.
I have one and after a few days of listening I can honestly say the sound quality is good, and even great at time but it’s not anywhere near as good as some of the reviews I’ve read. If HomePod was a $249 speaker I might think differently about it but at $349 it falls flat on both sound quality and features. YMMV but so far I’ve found it to be a pretty underwhelming product.
How many people have heard anything besides the Apple speaker?
Well yes, and
- sound as such is not the first and foremost feature of such devices because their "home centers"
- you are locked into an ecosystem *anyway*, so its not really much of a choice (I for example, get a "we're not in your country yet" page for Google Max. pointless)
- apple out of the bunch has the most promising design anyway, since Sonos One is a single 2-way speaker, and Google Max is a dual 2-way speaker, and from a technical perspective the only pushing the envelope. Are the other two as easily expandable to true stereo? (I don't know - valid option)
- HomePod is a woofer + 7-way tweeter array with some smart mumbojumbo positioning going on. It's also designed to be used in a pair. IF sound quality is the main concern, this is not something to be overlooked.
HomePod has a lot more manoeuvring space to adapt its sound to environment, while other two do not. Testing it would only be fair if you tested it out in various environments as well (you know, real-life applicability)
I'm not even defending apple, I personally think cramming all that into a speaker (And sell speaker in a *single unit* all together) is stupid AF. Give me a brain and an aux connection of a homepod and i'll connect my own speakers , thank you. Oh wait, i have an iphone. *shrugs*
For the love of God in heaven, please tell me you are joking.
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Good question. What are the chances of anyone interested in buying a speaker to listen to music on ever aging ever heard music through any other speakers ever?
If you’re going to buy a HomePod, I have some advice. Don’t buy it to be an AirPlay speaker for videos. Almost want to return it already because it just keeps dropping. AirPlay is bad.
The only Apple Speaker I love is Steve Jobs. The Woz is pretty good...I guess Phill Schiller is good too. Oh and Scott Forstall, he wasn't a good Apple Speaker but he could get his crews to write really good code.
Specifically, any of the competing speakers. Maybe people think the HomePod is the holy grail because it's the only higher-end speaker they've heard.
Could it just be that all three are actually good and it's down to personal choice? The likes of Consumer Reports use professional equipment to grade sound quality. The vast majority of users won't be able to tell the difference with their ears in a blind test. It's down to personal opinion or taste.
Apple relies on it's rabid fan base (as seen in this post) for it's sales (yes, there is a lot out there), because as good as sound as it may have, it lacks in features that the regular user wants. Not everyone uses Apple Music, and actually more people use other services. If the sound is actually "better", it it $150 better? Is it better that you'd change music services? I just very much doubt it for the normal (non-Apple fanboy) user.
I love Apple products, but would I pay $350 for a speaker that does not seamlessly support the music service I prefer and use... personally, no.
Apple relies on it's rabid fan base (as seen in this post) for it's sales (yes, there is a lot out there), because as good as sound as it may have, it lacks in features that the regular user wants. Not everyone uses Apple Music, and actually more people use other services. If the sound is actually "better", it it $150 better? Is it better that you'd change music services? I just very much doubt it for the normal (non-Apple fanboy) user.
I love Apple products, but would I pay $350 for a speaker that does not seamlessly support the music service I prefer and use... personally, no.
Siri is reliable for me in the ways I use her. Boy, that doesn't sound very nice. Anyways, in a year, thanks to the combination of Siri being both cloud based and hosted in an UPDATABLE HomePod, I would expect in a year I'll have a better product than I do now. If I don't, then I'll have enjoyed the musical aspects of the speaker and Apple will have royally screwed the pooch with Siri. Boy, that doesn't sound very nice either.
[doublepost=1518579786][/doublepost]While the CR review was not done in an anechoic chamber, from the video it does appear to have been held in a room that is quite acoustically treated, which I contend may be even too damped for listening to conventional speakers let alone the HomePod that probably benefits from rooms more active than the CR review room. But, this is just my visual observation, FWIW, which may be nothing.
Unlike some of you I don't have anything against CR. I don't read them though, what with so many other sources of commentary on products in general. Like any print journal they are probably being challenged to be relevant in the online world.
Ummmm... this is their revenue model! Have subscriptions so that their reviews aren’t financed by advertising.
There are two ways to finance anything in media: ads or other hidden support, and subscriptions. In the old days newspapers used to have classifieds sections which were also an advertising basis of revenue, but each classified ad was so small that you couldn’t say that it was influencing editorial.
I don’t think this CR review is right for reasons given by other posters, that the HomePod is designed for real life usage in a home, and that it’s smarts make it work really well there, but I don’t think that CR is broken because it charges a subscription fee to stay independent.
Well, they are stating that they FEEL that the HomePod sounds worse than the Sonos, however, we have seen actual technical reviews using actual empirical measurements, that show the HomePod is technically better than speakers costing way more.
While CR could be right, their review seems subjective, so, to me, I wouldn’t trust it as much as the more objective tests.
I don't believe I'm saying this, but perhaps Consumer Reports is listening to it wrong! Initial listening for me was not very good. I was right on top of the speaker at close range. I didn't like what I was hearing. I moved the HomePod away from a wall, and sat about 15 feet away from the speaker on the couch (speaker on the kitchen counter in great room). I was floored. This speaker should not sound this good.
Maybe this speaker does need room to breathe and the microphones to take proper readings of the room. I dunno, but something happened where I found my "sweet spot" with HomePod and it sounds MUCH bigger than it should.
Maybe this speaker does need room to breathe and the microphones to take proper readings of the room. I dunno, but something happened where I found my "sweet spot" with HomePod and it sounds MUCH bigger than it should.