I took my own Sony speaker, which cost about £100 a few years ago, into the Apple Store recently, and tested the Home pod mini with it side by side. The Sony was far better, especially in the bass response. I think Apple can and should do better. The AirPods Pro 2 are excellent, and so are many other products. If they tried a little harder at the cheaper end of the market, they would sell so many more. I wish they still produced a plastic Mac laptop. I loved mine and it would be so good for people with less money, to enter Apple's ecosystem. Everyone should be able to benefit from Apple's products, not just those with lots of spare cash/credit limits.
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Gurman: Apple Not Working on New HomePod Mini
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One of the biggest disappointments of the HomePod 2G was its regression from Wi-Fi 5 (802.11ac) to Wi-Fi 4 (802.11.n). I suspect this wasn't Apple's specific intention but rather a byproduct of switching from the A8 to the S7 SoC (used in the Apple Watch Series 7). So, Apple is now using watch chips to power its lineup of speaker products, and those speakers are thus subject to the limitations of the watch chips.
Separately, it's been disappointing that the latest watches (Series 8, Ultra) are also still stuck on Wi-Fi 4, when they would very likely benefit from the greater power efficiency, reduced latency, and increased reliability of Wi-Fi 6. So I assume at some point Apple will incorporate Wi-Fi 6 into a future Sx watch SoC -- and then after that it will eventually make its way into a 3rd-generation HomePod and a 2nd-generation HomePod mini.
Separately, it's been disappointing that the latest watches (Series 8, Ultra) are also still stuck on Wi-Fi 4, when they would very likely benefit from the greater power efficiency, reduced latency, and increased reliability of Wi-Fi 6. So I assume at some point Apple will incorporate Wi-Fi 6 into a future Sx watch SoC -- and then after that it will eventually make its way into a 3rd-generation HomePod and a 2nd-generation HomePod mini.
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I find it’s great for all of the above but only when moved around to find the right spot. Voices do sound amazing everywhere.
My first impression was “how did this get any good reviews?” upon first setup in my wife’s office, to “Oh man that’s coming from this little thing?!”, the first time I plugged it in outside for a party.
In my experience when the sound is reflecting off of a piece of furniture or is placed too closely to a wall, it sounds a bit muddy and bass heavy. It sounds “boxed in” even though it isn’t. When it has a smidge more open space, it has clarity and range & still retains the bass but only when it’s needed.
I thought it was supposed to figure that sort of thing out on its own, but it doesn’t seem to be very good at that.
HobeSoundDarryl
macrumors G5
Why would you want that? The AppleTV tech would almost certainly obsolete before the "dumb" speaker part. However, the "smart" speaker part might obsolete at about the same pace as the AppleTV "smarts."
When reasonably careful for, speakers can last 10-20+ years and sound as good way out there as they do when new. Latest AppleTV is always on the clock to lose functionality not too many years down the road.
Keep them separate and "long it tooth" AppleTV wouldn't necessarily lead to "throw baby out with the bathwater."
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Agree. I notice the same thing. Using Wifi 6 router and the stutters and random dropping of connections when playing audio from my MBA (M1) is irritating.
HobeSoundDarryl
macrumors G5
Other than for spec minded, this is no big deal. Sound is not a big bandwidth hog at all. I believe they could drop to wifi 2 (802.11b) from about 1999 or maybe wifi 3 (802.11g) and still play as well as if they had wifi 8 from 4-6 years into the future.
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Came here to post this. Any refresh would be primarily to reduce costs (at some point, it's going to be more expensive/inventory will be limited to stick with the S6 processor in the HomePod mini vs. something newer) and for the jump in processing power, newer Bluetooth support, and better WiFi (which as you pointed out, may be limited until we get a Watch upgrade).
As others have said, these should be 2-3 year product refreshes. For a backbone of our smart homes that needs to last a while, it's frustrating to see the device already limited by the wireless communication features they offer.
For my part, I am extremely disappointed (polite phrase covering what o really feel - I am from England, after all) that Homepod1 does not work with Homepod2.
Mmmmm not quite. 802.11n is the lowest you can go without degrading the signal for newer devices by polluting the air with old, inefficient signals.
I agree in principle that it’s fine as the bare minimum. n Should be backwards compatible for a while.
As slow as 6E and 7 are rolling out it probably won’t be noticeable for many years.
HobeSoundDarryl
macrumors G5
I do recall streaming music on 801.11n with no issues way back in the day.
But I'm guessing what you are saying is that newer wifi is inhibited by anything still forcing "n." If so, then that implies that 4 will eventually inhibit 7 or 8 or 9. And if so, then I would join the other side and be less happy that Apple didn't put "modern wifi" in these things.
But I'm guessing what you are saying is that newer wifi is inhibited by anything still forcing "n." If so, then that implies that 4 will eventually inhibit 7 or 8 or 9. And if so, then I would join the other side and be less happy that Apple didn't put "modern wifi" in these things.
Yeah I mean that 802.11n in terms of getting a connection for the device with enough usable bandwidth is fine.
I don’t remember all the specific technical details, but I do know that after g they made significant changes to the way the RF is broadcast. I believe it’s called OFDM. They keep improving the way they divide up the channels and encode data on them, and apparently g essentially is noise on those channels.
A lot of modern routers don’t even broadcast below 802.11n for that reason unless you specifically turn it on. So if the device was g only it would have a lot of problems connecting to modern APs, and even if it did it would degrade your wifi signal by having to deal with g devices.
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I am completely fine with that. They first should master their existing system - software + hardware before bringing out new not properly working products.
HomeKit and the HomePod software seem to be a mess - even years after launching. That's a bad sign.
The hardware for sure is not trash, but Apple lost my trust regarding software quality - not only talking about HomePod software but in general...
HomeKit and the HomePod software seem to be a mess - even years after launching. That's a bad sign.
The hardware for sure is not trash, but Apple lost my trust regarding software quality - not only talking about HomePod software but in general...
I agree that in most cases the bandwidth of Wi-Fi 4 is probably not a limiting factor in HomePod performance. However latency is also a factor, and Wi-Fi 6 is superior in this respect. Wi-Fi 6 also has improved power efficiency, which is always a good thing (in terms of individually marginal, collectively/aggregated substantial decreases in energy usage, not to mention lower costs of ownership).
So for these reasons (lower latency, increased power efficiency) every modern device should support Wi-Fi 6. I suspect Apple's hardware engineers would agree with this. The only reason the HomePod 2G lacks Wi-Fi 6 support is to enable Apple's financial decision-makers to maintain their desired margins.
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HobeSoundDarryl
macrumors G5
Most of the things we consumers are finding WRONG with the new HPs is probably solidly grounded in that last line of rationale just shared.
That would actually be a good price for a HomeKit thermometer, which it has now offically become for me. A nice upgrade from Dust Catcher.
Personally, I’m tired of Apple producing the products they want instead of the ones I want. If they’ve really done all that work on sound and audio components then produce some fine devices without compromise.
The first one wasn't a runaway success by any means, it will be interesting to see how this sells. Not that Tim will let us know the exact numbers. On the other hand, I know so many who bought the mini that never showed any interest in the original speaker.
I understand your feeling, but it's not as simple as that. In any engineering project there are almost always compromises, and often those are driven by financial constraints. And these are real. Consider one case where Apple produced a "device without compromise:" the Twentieth Anniversary Macintosh in 1997. It was beautiful, performant -- and expensive ($7500 at the time, about $13,000 today). Not surprisingly, it didn't sell well, and was discontinued less than a year later.
Apple's challenge today is to strike a balance between profitability and engineering devices that minimize functional compromises. It clearly hasn't found that sweet spot yet for HomePods or a number of its other products (e.g. the latest Apple Watches are also still stuck on Wi-Fi 4). We can hope it eventually will, and encourage Apple's engineers and managers to keep on iterating, seeking the sweet.
Exactly.
This is just not how a product team operates and I would be REALLY surprised if Apple removed all resources from multiple active product lines. The ramp up and down costs of re-prioritizing resources completely off a product line like homepod and mini would be huge, in terms of cost, knowledge, IP, context switching, time, etc... some functions within the company like marketing might be able to do this without a lot of sunk costs but not product, engineering and design. If the product line is active and viable someone is working on it.
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