Here's How Apple's New HomePod Speaker and iMac Pro Look in Person

Carlanga said:
$350 and HomeKit at its infancy vs the other services, looks like it will be a dust magnet with that mesh and looks older vs the competitions I don't think it's going to be a hit at that high a price point just because it sounds better , but we shall see.
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Don't forget the tap that is movable w battery at $99 and the dot for $50
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Yeah, and I can buy a cheap Bluetooth speaker for $10. Price isn't the reason that people will buy the HomePod.
 
craig1410 said:
I'm afraid this was never going to be a battery powered product. It would probably have been possible to design this to last maybe 24 hours on a battery charge with a small increase in size but it would quickly become a pain if every time you wanted to use it, it needed recharged. It also needs WiFi so it's not the sort of thing you could expect to take (very far) outside. I think what you need is one of the many bluetooth speakers which are already available.
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I don't think even a 6 hour battery life would've been much of a hassle. Infinitely better than the 0 hours it currently gets. Personally I would've given it a "home" where it stays with it's power cord most of the time. Then when I want to take it somewhere unplug it and go. It could've used Apple's W1 chip for times when not on Wi-Fi. My Wi-Fi reaches a good distance into my backyard anyway. Bluetooth speaker options fill some of the gaps the HomePod has, but introduce their own, such as a lack of smart functions and (at this time) no support for Airplay 2, enabling whole-home audio.
 
I think I will stick with my Amazon Alexa Dots. They we $30 each so I have them various places in the house.
 
vipergts2207 said:
I don't think even a 6 hour battery life would've been much of a hassle. Infinitely better than the 0 hours it currently gets. Personally I would've given it a "home" where it stays with it's power cord most of the time. Then when I want to take it somewhere unplug it and go. It could've used Apple's W1 chip for times when not on Wi-Fi. My Wi-Fi reaches a good distance into my backyard anyway. Bluetooth speaker options fill some of the gaps the HomePod has, but introduce their own, such as a lack of smart functions and (at this time) no support for Airplay 2, enabling whole-home audio.
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I respect your opinion but I don't think many (any?) pundits were predicting a battery powered device. I certainly didn't. Hey, you can always run a power cable out into your yard right?
 
ktecac said:
iMac Pro looks excellent and is a strong return to the Pro market. I can't help but feel that forcing me to use that display is a rip off though.
Not being totally ungrateful - lots of encouraging things today - but I really don't want to spend an extra $2000+ when I already have many monitors that suit my needs.

Lets hope the fabled modular Mac Pro and a return of the Mini are on the horizon.

I'd pay $3000+ for the iMac Pro internals - I just can't bring myself to spend the rest for the 5K display - not every professional needs it.
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Completely agree. Hell, I'd be happy with the internals of an iMac without the display. Put it in something about twice the size of a Mac Mini, and I wouldn't bitch about Apple for at least another 5 years.
 
Bbqthis said:
If HomePod is on par with Sonos, it's not a ridiculous price at all. Actually, it's a bargain.
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The Sonos is going to blow it away in the sound quality category. There is no way in hell that little speaker with a 4" driver is going to sound all that good... regardless of how much Apple hypes it up.

I'm hoping they actually make a much larger one next, with real room filling sound. I don't want to buy two or three to fill the room. Build one that will compete with the large Sonos speakers and I'm sold.
 
craig1410 said:
I respect your opinion but I don't think many (any?) pundits were predicting a battery powered device. I certainly didn't. Hey, you can always run a power cable out into your yard right?
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I don't know if they were predicting that or not, would've been nice is all. I'll wait around for a future HomePod 2 and see what Apple does then I guess.

Chopper9 said:
The Sonos is going to blow it away in the sound quality category. There is no way in hell that little speaker with a 4" driver is going to sound all that good... regardless of how much Apple hypes it up.

I'm hoping they actually make a much larger one next, with real room filling sound. I don't want to buy two or three to fill the room. Build one that will compete with the large Sonos speakers and I'm sold.
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Exactly. What you're looking for is a set of bookshelf speakers.
 
If they were serious about audio, they would have at least made it the size of the outgoing Mac Pro. I am extremely skeptical of its low-frequency/low-mid-frequency production in an enclosure of that size.
 
craig1410 said:
I hate to say it but I suspect Sonos will suffer massively from the combination of Amazon and Google at the low end and Apple at the high end. I love my Playbar and Play:1's but if the HomePod works as well as expected then it's game over.
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Depends how quickly Sonos can support Alexa/Google Assistant. Still does a lot of things none of the other guys do
 
While the new iMac Pro is interesting, the HomePod speaker will be a flop. $350 for a speaker that has a half-baked voice assistant? No thanks.
 
Chopper9 said:
The Sonos is going to blow it away in the sound quality category. There is no way in hell that little speaker with a 4" driver is going to sound all that good... regardless of how much Apple hypes it up.

I'm hoping they actually make a much larger one next, with real room filling sound. I don't want to buy two or three to fill the room. Build one that will compete with the large Sonos speakers and I'm sold.
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It's a bit early to come to such a conclusion I'd say.

Sonos Play:1 = 6.36 x 4.69 in (1.85 Kg)
Apple HomePod = 6.80 x 5.60 in (2.50 Kg)

No reason from the size and weight to expect the HomePod to produce lesser sound than the Play:1. The Play:3 at 2.6Kg is probably more comparable but none of us will really know until we hear the HomePod in person.

As I've said above, I love the Sonos gear but the integration with iOS is not brilliant, lacking Airplay support. I'm definitely conflicted on this though and will be interested to see how it pans out. Keeping an open mind as much as possible.
 
Larry-K said:
Why the 27"? Since you're stuck with it forever, I would expect at least 30", or the choice, like my old ACDs.
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Would it work to get a second monitor and make that larger second monitor the "primary" monitor? Or does that cause some other issues that I haven't thought of yet?
 
According to Ben Bajarin someone at Apple told him that HomePod will do a lot more than what Apple announced on stage.
 
vipergts2207 said:
Even streaming audio codecs (dolby digital plus, etc.), which is 95% of what I do, greatly exceed the capabilities of almost all sound bars setup, especially ones without a subwoofer like the Soundtouch 300. (Though you can add a junk one on for another cool $700.) A chain is only as strong as the weakest link, and for most people that is the speaker quality, even for streamers.
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You portrait yourself as an audiophile expert, however the true audiophiles I know who spend thousands on their equipment would never stream 95% of their content with lossy compressed audio.

Sadly in this day and age high end Hi-Fi is just about dead. People are more mobile then ever and their not spending money on big tower or even large book shelf speakers these days. Lifestyle brands like Bose, Sonos, Apple (Beats) pretty much own the speaker and headphone market. You don't like soundbars but that's where the market has gone and speakers like this HomePod have made the traditional stereo receiver with a couple large bookshelf speakers obsolete. Now I still have some of that equipment in my house, but my younger friends just look at it funny.
 
I'm glad the HomePod doesn't have a screen. Will force Apple to make Siri better. A screen would allow them to offload stuff to the screen like on the phone where Siri too often defaults to web search.
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Ankaa said:
Like? :)
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He didn't say (or more likely they didn't tell him).
 
jeremiah256 said:
The iMac Pro can power two external 5K monitors. The world is your oyster.
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I'd rather just have the big one, thanks all the same.

Tacking on a couple of external monitors kind of defeats the purpose of an all-in-one, not that I was begging for an all-in-one in the first place.
 
vipergts2207 said:
I don't need to listen to it to know that those tiny drivers in the speakers and the boomy fart box they call a sub, isn't going to properly reproduce the entire range audible frequencies, making for a rather subpar home theater experience. You won't exactly see me singing the praises of Sonos either, but I'd still take them over Bose. In any case, a proper HT setup will blow both of them away.

And for the ripoff of $700 Bose is asking for it, someone could have a really nice 2.0 setup, ready to expand for surround sound.
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Hear hear. Won’t replay my KRK monitors!
 
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