Does this mean there’s going to be a successor to the large HomePod ?
🧐….interesting…
Something looking like and being priced like this one perhaps? https://syngspace.com
Does this mean there’s going to be a successor to the large HomePod ?
🧐….interesting…
Get the second, while you can. I finally bit the bullet about a week ago and the stereo sound is incredible. So much more flexibility too if you have an ATV and want to try theater out (also pretty amazing). Hopefully you can return or resell if you’re disappointed, but I strongly doubt it - again, I was the complete opposite. I think you’ll be more disappointed if you don’t try and then it’s gone.It's really strange that Apple keeps adding new features to a product that is quietly being discontinued? eARC passthrough, a possible lossless music streaming, spatial audio and what not.
What's the deal here really? I really want to buy a second HomePod for the bedroom as stereo pair. But the dire situation of it being discontinued keep bugging me.
Bluetooth cannot handle lossless, AND ALSO the DAC of the AirPods Max makes the received signal not true lossless (because it goes digital -> analog -> digital again, there is no way for this to be perfect).So much for the suggestion that the AirPods Max had a DAC unable to handle lossless— sounds like the limitation is bluetooth.
Yeah. It just came up in my feed on Thursday as I’ve set it up to be alerted about homepods on market place. It was advertised as £150 but the guy said he was open to offers. To be honest I would have taken it at £150. I asked him what’s the lowest you would accept because it says open it offers and he said £120. I picked it up yesterday. Set it up and it’s all good.That’s fantastic! I have been looking around on ebay and FB marketplace and I have only come across £180+ That too opened.
From the FAQs on Lossless from the Apple support article:No. The support article was only talking about Apple Music streams played back directly onto the Homepod. Not about lossless playback of local files.
Since 2018, you have indeed been able of playing lossless files on the Homepod via Airplay 2, which supports lossless CD quality wrapped in an Apple Lossless container. So yes, the difference that you perceived is real.
You have been able to do this because, hardware wise, the Homepod has hardware decoding support for ALAC and FLAC streams up to 24bit/48khz. CD quality is 16/44.
So it made NO SENSE whatsoever that these wont support Apple Music lossless, specially when, right now, you can play lossless Deezer (CD quality) directly on the Homepod (not using Airplay, they added natively support not long ago). If a third party music service can do this, them im sure as hell Apple Music can too.
I expect the original homepods to be supported with new software features that the mini gets with the expectations of things that rely on specific hardware differencesFunny that a discontinued Apple product is getting support for a new feature, but I am not one to look a gift horse in the mouth.
I find Siri to be more capable and easier to use for smart home stuff then both Alexa and google home.Glad I bought those two homepods. Just like 3D Touch, they failed on the marketing. The HomePod sucks when compared to Alexa and all that other stuff for smarts. But it does the basic stuff I need that google home did.
But, it’s a freakishly incredible sounding device and adding this functionality pushes ir closer to soundbar/home audio space.
there’s no way a HomePod successor isn’t inbound. While discontinued, new features are still inbound.
Possible. Apple Music surround is Dolby Atmos so all you need is a Dolby Atmos compatible headphone.Does anyone think the Bose headphones with AR will gain support for Spatial audio through software updates in the future? (Provided apple lets them.)
I don’t ever expect the headphone jack to return on phones. Hopefully the streaming services moving to higher quality audio pushes Bluetooth to get better. Personally I hadn’t used the headphone jack in my phone since the iPhone 3gso we come full circle for the stupid decision to remove the 3.5mm jack. wonder if apple will backtrack on that just like they did with their stupid decision on macbook ports.
Ok, but I was talking about the HomePod not the AirPods max lolFrom the article:
Ah now that makes more sense. Bluetooth just doesn't have the data bandwidth for uncompressed, raw, digitised music.
But for Apple to not support it on its on Music playing hardware, which it touted at launch a few years ago as being best in class, made no sense at all.
From the FAQs on Lossless from the Apple support article:
“Can I listen to lossless audio on my HomePod or HomePod mini?
HomePod and HomePod mini currently use AAC to ensure excellent audio quality. Support for lossless is coming in a future software update.”
I believe what you’re saying is true, but the article did not seem specific to streaming.
So now the mini is gonna do atmos? I thought it wasn’t capable as the full size has been able to for awhile…
Fair enough. I’ll be using lossless and perhaps hi-res lossless on my high-end headphones. Looking forward to try it outI was convinced I could hear a difference on my stereo pair of OG HomePods between the Apple Music stream and CD-quality music from my library (pushed over AirPlay 2), but the support article says they have only been playing AAC format (so now I’m not so sure).
Feel free to not use Lossless if you can’t hear a difference. Save the bandwidth or storage space. I at least look forward to the FREE opportunity to test it out for myself.
Dude, it's going to kill the battery life in your headphones (if you have wifi headphones/airpods).... Bluetooth bandwidth isn't there yet..
This is great news. Wonder why Apple didn’t have this announcement ready when they first announced lossless?