Having second thoughts about the HomePod.

[Arran]

I'm having second thoughts about keeping it.

Yeah, I know, I surprised myself again when I got the actual product. It's what I do.

After the first day I was ready to return it, but I held off. I'm now finding it does a few things really well. The microphones' sensitivity is amazing and Siri+Homekit's response is near instantaneous (compared to Siri on my watch which can be sluggish but still incredibly convenient)

OTOH, it's pricey. But is does seem like a solid and capable hardware platform for Apple to expand gradually via software. Will they do that however? That's the big question. I don't want to be replacing it in 3 years.

Anyway, the jury's still out. For now.

 

[0014]

That's the big question. I don't want to be replacing it in 3 years.

This is the reason I got my Play:5’s.

Yes I could have gotten 3 HomePods for the price of the 2 Play:5’s. But the 5’s I think will last longer.

If Sonos do introduce a Soundbar next year with HDMI 2.1 (as is alleged from an Ex Sonos employee) then that will keep me in the Sonos Eco system. Otherwise it will be a Yamaha YSP-5600 and the Sonos will stay as a music only system.

Given Apple’s track record of introducing new things/features I’d be pretty annoyed at having to pay out a few hundred £ each year. Look at all those who paid ridiculous amounts for the Apple Watch Edition. I wonder how many are still using them.

If they introduce a way of having a few HomePods wirelessly setup, link to your Apple TV and play DTS:X/Atmos. Then I will be extremely tempted to switch.

 

[weeesss]

I was hesitant to get it, thinking I already have a Play 3 and Echo. I can ask Alexa to play music on my Sonos or I can use the Sonos app to access Apple Music. After using it for 2 days, it is doing more for me than I figured. For one, Siri controls Apple Music, I can use it as a speaker phone and I can send and reply to texts. It's not to say I can't do that from my iPhone or Apple watch, but this way works better for me. I have faith that new features will be coming out as they did with Alexa.

There is no do-all speaker and these cannot compete with a traditional stereo setup, but I am not expecting that. The Echo's we still use instead of screaming downstairs and controls my Fire TV; and for the $80 I paid for it, it is still a good bedside speaker.

 

[throAU]

I don't think we'll see anything like that, at least anytime soon. Just my $.02

Neither do I.

Apple doesn't generally play "build down to a price" games.

They build something that works well and sell it for 35-40% margin.

"Works well" may be relative to it's cost, size or whatever, but if you think apple are going to be dropping fully featured homepods on the market at half price or less, you're dreaming.

This thing will sell in droves as it is, if you're not in the market at this price I don't think apple is interested in making something less good to sell cheap.
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Given Apple’s track record of introducing new things/features I’d be pretty annoyed at having to pay out a few hundred £ each year. Look at all those who paid ridiculous amounts for the Apple Watch Edition. I wonder how many are still using them.

Most of the original apple watch edition customers (who aren't simpletons with credit) don't care.

They bought that watch as a talking point for a few months and then probably don't care any more.


Plenty of people with that sort of money spend stupid amounts of money on cars, shoes, clothes, handbags, etc. without a second thought because they're loaded.

The Watch Edition would have been no different.

That said, i expect the homepod to have a long life.

The hardware in it is plenty powerful enough to do the job it is designed to do and its basically a vehicle for Apple to drive Apple Music subscriptions.

Apple Music is the long term play, if they can keep you as a customer by keeping your homepod working, they will I suspect.

I'm not saying there won't be newer, better versions of the device. But i don't think there will be much cause for apple to cut support for them any time soon.

 

[mysteryman]

I am surprised it cannot add things to your calendar. Can it tell you what’s on it at least? Crazy that alexa can control my iCloud calendar but HomePod can’t.

 

[Jayderek]

I am surprised it cannot add things to your calendar. Can it tell you what’s on it at least? Crazy that alexa can control my iCloud calendar but HomePod can’t.

I'm sure that'll happen soon enough - I mean it's ridiculous it can't do this NOW, but it'll get there

 

[johngordon]

I think Apple missed the bus on this one. Every home already had Alexa and even Google was late to this party, but they covered anything without Alexa.

The price of the Homepod is just silly.

Every home does not have Alexa already.

$349 for a speaker with sound quality this good is nowhere near being silly.

 

[decafjava]

Every home does not have Alexa already.

$349 for a speaker with sound quality this good is nowhere near being silly.

Mine certainly doesn't and won't.

 

[douglasf13]

Mine certainly doesn't and won't.

Yeah, I personally don't know many people with an Alexa device. My thermostat came with it built in, but I have it turned off. I'm not interested in Google or Amazon listening to me all day. Apple deals with this a bit better, so I bought a HomePod, primarily so my six year old can shout song requests into the thing. I'm pleasantly surprised by the sound quality, and I've been using it quite a bit.

 

[ArmPol]

You lot need to use my 8 Step Plan!!!

1. Go ahead and make the purchase whatever it may be, HomePod, car remap/parts, new TV, trip away with the boys etc. etc.
2. Keep it quiet for as long as possible (this keeps earache down to a minimum)
3. As and when the new purchase is about to be delivered or you are about to go on that trip with the lads, start dropping subtle hints.
4. SWMBO finds out about said purchase/up coming trip
5. All hell breaks loose (be prepared for a rocky ride for up to a week)
6. SWMBO calms down (but has still not forgiven you so tread carefully)
7. After around two weeks everything is back to normal.
8. Start planning the next purchase/trip

This will lead to years of happy wedded bliss. You can ask my current and Ex-Wives to testify to that extent!

Sounds very muck like my situation!

 

[Newtons Apple]

I'm sure that'll happen soon enough - I mean it's ridiculous it can't do this NOW, but it'll get there

Apple is promising lots of new features. In the end I suspect it will be better than the other devices, but being late to the game, they got some catching up to do.

 

[Phil77354]

If I had another brand smart speaker in my home, I wouldn’t have gotten the HomePod. No way does it make sense to trade a 5 speaker system for 1 or 2 speakers.
Apple is late to the party in your case. Me personally, I didn’t have any smart speakers in my home (or home theater system ☹️) so the buy was easy. I did debate the two Sonos deal when the HomePod orders dropped, but I knew I would be stuck with whatever brand I went with, so I went Apple.

My situation is the same as yours, no smart speaker until now, so I'm not very concerned with the comparisons or deficiencies with Alexa or Google or Sonos. I had considered getting a Sonos for several years but there was no compelling reason to get one. Purchasing the HomePod was as much an impulsive decision as anything else, but I'm glad I have it now.
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Well when it comes to privacy, the biggest differentiator is that with (Apple in general and) HomePod any and all information is sent to the Apple server using an anonymous Siri identifier that isn’t tied to your Apple ID or email address in any way. So you can’t be identified from it.

After six months any voice data from HomePod is completely disassociated from your Siri ID.
Apple does plan to keep voice files for an additional eighteen months for product improvement purposes. But this is not tied to your account nor can you be identified from it.

Conversely all data with Amazon and Google’s alternatives is not anonymous. It’s directly tied to you specifically and your account, email address and so on. Google Home stores data indefinitely, or until the user deletes it.

This bothers some people more than others (and some people have no idea about it at all.) After all most of us aren’t having top secret conversations in our lounge, so what does it matter. You can of course manually delete any data you want from your account, it’s just a pain to keep doing it.

If you’re curious what’s in there, just have a look at the Alexa app for iOS, if you have an Echo. You’ll see every single thing it’s listned in on. Even the ones you didn’t know about because it’s been triggered by the TV or music or whatever.

Wow, this is very disturbing. None of the articles I've read that compare the HomePod with other speakers mention this security aspect. I suspect that the vast majority of Google and Echo users do not realize how this works for their speakers and how the information is stored and so forth.

This makes me especially glad that I waited and purchased HomePod instead of getting one of the others.
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My situation is the same as yours, no smart speaker until now, so I'm not very concerned with the comparisons or deficiencies with Alexa or Google or Sonos. I had considered getting a Sonos for several years but there was no compelling reason to get one. Purchasing the HomePod was as much an impulsive decision as anything else, but I'm glad I have it now.
[doublepost=1518880224][/doublepost]
Wow, this is very disturbing. None of the articles I've read that compare the HomePod with other speakers mention this security aspect. I suspect that the vast majority of Google and Echo users do not realize how this works for their speakers and how the information is stored and so forth.

This makes me especially glad that I waited and purchased HomePod instead of getting one of the others.

Competition is a good thing. Today we have Apple with the better sounding speaker (consensus of most reports) but Google and Amazon with better smart home and voice command features. Apples accomplishment will push Google and Amazon to improve sound quality, and in the meantime Apple will be working to improve the Siri and smart home capabilities of HomePod. Five years from now the products will be considerably better from all suppliers, and probably some not even involved now, and there might be some totally new technology that is also beginning to replace the features of this generation of smart speakers.

Its all good and in the meantime I'll be enjoying good quality sound from my HomePods and slowly deciding how much I want to implement smart home features in my home (today I have none).

 

[decafjava]

Wow, this is very disturbing. None of the articles I've read that compare the HomePod with other speakers mention this security aspect. I suspect that the vast majority of Google and Echo users do not realize how this works for their speakers and how the information is stored and so forth.

This makes me especially glad that I waited and purchased HomePod instead of getting one of the others.

You are one of the few posters that even cares about the security aspect, I'm still astonished this is not brought up more also in regard to Siri compared to other AI assistants.

 

[Phil77354]

You are one of the few posters that even cares about the security aspect, I'm still astonished this is not brought up more also in regard to Siri compared to other AI assistants.

Yes, me too. My awareness of these security differences was pretty much zero until I read some of the earlier posts here. Next time I'm talking to someone who has one of the Alexa or Google systems, I think I'll ask them if they realize this.

I wish I had access to one simply to spend a bit of time digging into the records mentioned by the earlier poster, so I could see for myself how and to what extent this information is being recorded.

 

[lparsons21]

I have both echo and google home devices and just looked at my history with both. I use them for home automation, some music, a bit of searching and appointment/reminders. I don’t have either set up to buy anything.
In my history is exactly zero that anyone would find of value, so the security model they use is of little concern.

While they both try to respond to only the subscribed user, echo certainly doesn’t do a very good job of it, otherwise I wouldn’t get the responses to something said on tv that didn’t have “alexa” in it. Google home seems a bit better about it as in a few weeks with them I’ve only had a couple seemingly random responses.
Of course HomePod doesn’t care who talks to it, so that is an issue that will hopefully be addressed going forward

 

[douglasf13]

You are one of the few posters that even cares about the security aspect, I'm still astonished this is not brought up more also in regard to Siri compared to other AI assistants.

Exactly. I’ve owned a thermostat for 6 months with Alexa built in, but I keep Alexa switched off and covered the mic. That’s a major reason I waited for HomePod.

 

[lsutigerfan1976]

This is why Tim Cook is so anorexic skinny. The poor guy can’t even feed himself, much less all the kids he has cause you ppl keep returning Apple products....

 

[BlueGoldAce]

Exactly. I’ve owned a thermostat for 6 months with Alexa built in, but I keep Alexa switched off and covered the mic. That’s a major reason I waited for HomePod.

****not claming you are the following example****

Half the people on this forum justify their apple purchase decisions by citing the superior security/privacy...but then turn around and use facebook (the worst offender, by far, and if you follow the news, facebook is implementing spyware in the masquerading as VPN).

Just something to consider.

I enjoy my homepod immensely, but I still find uses for my google home products. It is a great speaker, with smart features that will hopefully improve with time.

The one thing I find disappointing about the homepod is homekit. I have a logi circle 2 camera, and the app is great, as well as is the alerts/smart notifications, etc. But the homekit implimentation of that camera and motion detection (two seperate things in homekit for one device) is very poor. I have it integrated, but I have essentially turned off notifications and rely on the superior native logitech app.

Hopefully other products that are homekit compatible do a better job of integration. I am not impressed with homekit in general, but I wasn't/am not impressed with google and amazon's implentation either. They all have their flaws.

 

[decafjava]

****not claming you are the following example****

Half the people on this forum justify their apple purchase decisions by citing the superior security/privacy...but then turn around and use facebook (the worst offender, by far, and if you follow the news, facebook is implementing spyware in the masquerading as VPN).

Just something to consider.

.

Like submarine warfare the more noise you make the easier you can be tracked. Good point.

 

[The Game 161]

I'm starting to think if I really need my homepod.

the main reason I bought it is for sound and music and podcasts. However so far the most I've used it for has been for my lights which for me isn't worthy of £319

I'm very tempted to pull the trigger and buy the amazon Alexa echo for my lounge and the Alexa dot for my bedroom. That would come to £139 for two smart speakers compared to the £319 for the homepod while being a far better voice assistant which so far is all I have used it for.

The echo sound wise will be ok for my needs I reckon and now I realise the heating I use which is hive supports Alexa.

homepod is a great piece of kit but I feel the assistant is so limited that if I'm mainly using it for that then Alexa is the way to go.

tough decision and I wish I used the homepod more for it's main strengths.

 

[za9ra22]

I'm very tempted to pull the trigger and buy the amazon Alexa echo for my lounge and the Alexa dot for my bedroom. That would come to £139 for two smart speakers compared to the £319 for the homepod while being a far better voice assistant which so far is all I have used it for.

The echo sound wise will be ok for my needs I reckon and now I realise the heating I use which is hive supports Alexa.

homepod is a great piece of kit but I feel the assistant is so limited that if I'm mainly using it for that then Alexa is the way to go.

tough decision and I wish I used the homepod more for it's main strengths.

The 2nd generation Echo actually sounds pretty good. It isn't in the same class as the HomePod, but it goes pretty loud if you need it, and is well balanced. It isn't as detailed and has less bass than the HomePod, but out of the context of a direct comparison between the two, it sounds pretty respectable. The Dot of course doesn't (though Alexa works exactly the same on it). If your primary interest is in the voice assistant, there's just no comparison. Alexa is constantly developing, has a wide range of capabilities, and there are developers building new skills which you can add at any time. Siri is, on the other hand...well, Siri. With the best will in the world, Siri is very limited, and since it wouldn't be too much of a stretch to believe that Apple will plan on the HomePod remaining firmly within Apple's walled garden of products and services, Siri is not likely to improve greatly.

The only plus for Siri on the HomePod is that she is faster at turning my Hue bulbs on or off than Alexa, though they both fail to action a request from time to time. Even there Alexa has an advantage - you can open the Alexa app on your iPhone (or in a web browser on any system) and see what she thought you said if she made a mistake.

 

[steve knight]

I think the more systems the better since none of them work perfectly or for everything. most of my stuff is automated with smartthings and hue. but I may tell siri to turn all the lights off. alexa works better for my wemo's and other switches. I have some logitech pop buttons for things I do every day but not at the same time. I can automate the sonos speakers. Now that my wife is returning the home pod with the B&O speaker she airstreams from her iPad and controls the podcasts and such with her voice. though for some reason it is slower then on the home pod. takes several seconds to skip a minute.

 

[za9ra22]

I think the more systems the better since none of them work perfectly or for everything.....

I agree with that from the perspective of someone who likes to play with technology, and is interested in acoustics and music too. But I'd hazard a guess that many people don't want to play, and don't want a home filled with different gadgets, just something that works. And of course many can't really afford the luxury!

 

[steve knight]

I agree with that from the perspective of someone who likes to play with technology, and is interested in acoustics and music too. But I'd hazard a guess that many people don't want to play, and don't want a home filled with different gadgets, just something that works. And of course many can't really afford the luxury!

yes. thats why I have most things automated who can remember siri or alexa commands all the time? my wife is blind so I have to make things simple.

 

[douglasf13]

****not claming you are the following example****

Half the people on this forum justify their apple purchase decisions by citing the superior security/privacy...but then turn around and use facebook (the worst offender, by far, and if you follow the news, facebook is implementing spyware in the masquerading as VPN).

Just something to consider.

I enjoy my homepod immensely, but I still find uses for my google home products. It is a great speaker, with smart features that will hopefully improve with time.

The one thing I find disappointing about the homepod is homekit. I have a logi circle 2 camera, and the app is great, as well as is the alerts/smart notifications, etc. But the homekit implimentation of that camera and motion detection (two seperate things in homekit for one device) is very poor. I have it integrated, but I have essentially turned off notifications and rely on the superior native logitech app.

Hopefully other products that are homekit compatible do a better job of integration. I am not impressed with homekit in general, but I wasn't/am not impressed with google and amazon's implentation either. They all have their flaws.

Yep, I'm not on any social media, either.

Ultimately, none of these other functions matter to me. I just wanted some speakers around the house that connect to Apple Music on its own.