HomePod Early Hands-On Reviews: 'Seamless' Siri Commands and Audio Quality 'Feels Like You're at a Live Performance'

[dukebound85]

We can play the credentials game all day yet the fact you think a speaker is a higher tech marvel than a shuttle, your words not mine, kills any credibility you have.

There is nothing about beamforming that is transformative and the average consumer is not going to care. Let’s be real. Is it cool tech, of course but it’s not going to be a must have.

Not every thing apple does is gold.

Tell me why an average consumer is going to care and spend the premium for beam forming when it comes to smart speakers that you can get for much cheaper and sound 90% the quality?

Tell me why a true audiophile would get this when they already have a sound system that takes any benefit of beam forming away?

You can take the reasons for why the iPod hifi failed and it’s an EASY parallel for why this, in my opinion, will suffer the same fate.

Hey, I hope you’re right as I own Apple stock but I’m more grounded in reality and I don’t think this will pan out well

 

[riverfreak]

How can you have a discussion of sound quality without describing the room in which you are listening?

 

[bobenhaus]

Fanboys will be Fanboys no matter what products Apple makes. I think hearing for yourself is valid than reading or listening to someone on the Internet.

 

[Donoban]

And the refugees from Syria think they have problems.

You just won reply on the year my friend. Many lolz.

 

[NMSUballa]

Ugh the biggest problem I have is choosing what color. I wanted two, but i want it to match by other devices. Problem is I have a silver iphone X (256GB) and a space grey ipad pro (10.5), plus a space gray iMac Pro... not to mention my stainless steel (black) watch. So I ordered two HomePods in White, and two in Space Gray. I'm hoping that will cover my living room sufficiently. Depending on which color is nicest, I'll order more to place in the other rooms.

Any openings where you work?

 

[dukebound85]

Translation: I don’t know anything about the physics of sound, but that won’t stop me from commenting like I do.

You’re amusing. You don’t seem the understand the point of disminishing returns do you? AKA the slight benefit this tech provides won’t be valued in the consumer space for the premium it costs when there are simpler and frankly more capable devices

 

[deanthedev]

You’re amusing. You don’t seem the understand the point of disminishing returns do you? AKA the slight benefit this tech provides won’t be valued in the consumer space for the premium it costs when there are simpler and frankly more capable devices

So now you're changing tack to "diminishing returns"?

You have to first understand the technology before you can talk about what returns it offers you. And it's painfully obvious you don't understand what beamforming is.

 

[dukebound85]

So now you're changing tack to "diminishing returns"?

You have to first understand the technology before you can talk about what returns it offers you. And it's painfully obvious you don't understand what beamforming is.

I do understand it.....It's a pretty simple concept. However, it's not going to gain much really. It's quite amusing you all hold onto "beam forming" as something that is worth it and the premium it carries whereas in real life, you won't be able to tell. Have fun justifying it, my stocks appreciate it.

To the average consumer, beam forming means NOTHING. People would rather be able to play music from services like pandora, spotify, and other services deeply more entrenched than apple music and the HomePod doesn't allow this....but hey, it has beam forming. whop-pa-de-doo

 

[Bestevaer]

Beamforming.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beamforming

Marketing.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marketing

 

[ValO]

I'm really curious how good it sounds. If you're only interested in music, I'm almost willing to bet that you can get better sound for less money: buy a good pair of powered speakers (e.g. Swan M200MkII), a cheap used Apple TV 3 from eBay, hook it up via optical, and voila, you have an excellent little Airplay speaker system for under $300, and it's even stereo without buying another $350 speaker.

Yeah, but they don’ t have room eq, and that is pretty important to get good sound.
Of course there are better deals out there, to get better sound, especially wired.
I have 5 b&w speakers and a b&w subwoofer, and an arcam receiver and an apple tv. Great for movies and music.
But it is 5000 euros, and all the hassle with wires, and the fact that my living room looks cluttered.
If apple would release two bigger homepods, for front speakers, and a type of soundbar(with built in apple tv) for a center speaker, and use 2 regular homepods as surround speakers, and the apple tv could handle 5 speakers at once, i would get rid of my old setup.

But it probably won’ t happen until 2022, or something like that.

 

[Bestevaer]

To all of you who are so critical of the HomePod's sound; have you even heard it, personally? Most who have, in fact, heard it, are raving about the sound. If I take their words for it, it seems like a great speaker for its price - plus you get siri aspect of it on top of it.

Are you really that naive? That you believe "paid" reviews?

 

[smirking]

with speakers...it's physics. How much air can you move? Bigger is almost always better.

Apple seems to have performed some magic tricks with the sound in the Touchbar MBPs. I'm very very surprised at how good music sounds played on my 2016 MBP. Not everything sounds great, but speakers this small packed into a thin waferish enclosure have no business sounding this good.

 

[Khedron]

Ugh the biggest problem I have is choosing what color. I wanted two, but i want it to match by other devices. Problem is I have a silver iphone X (256GB) and a space grey ipad pro (10.5), plus a space gray iMac Pro... not to mention my stainless steel (black) watch. So I ordered two HomePods in White, and two in Space Gray. I'm hoping that will cover my living room sufficiently. Depending on which color is nicest, I'll order more to place in the other rooms.

Why are you matching them to your other devices and not your room?

 

[chatin]

These are being sold in a deceptive way because unlike other smart speaker systems there is no way to get good stereo without buying two. Why not sell them as a pair if two are required?

 

[ValO]

These are being sold in a deceptive way because unlike other smart speaker systems there is no way to get good stereo without buying two. Why not sell them as a pair if two are required?

Unlike other systems? Which? Which current smart speaker has a better stereo sound effect on its own instead of 2?
I haven’ t heard the homepod yet, but the impressions are that it is the best sounding speaker in a one speaker config. So... i don’ t see your point.
Unless you are talking about the other speakers than the homepod.

 

[chatin]

Unlike other systems? Which? Which current smart speaker has a better stereo sound effect on its own instead of 2?
I haven’ t heard the homepod yet, but the impressions are that it is the best sounding speaker in a one speaker config. So... i don’ t see your point.
Unless you are talking about the other speakers than the homepod.

My point is that it does not support pairing at launch so if you happen to have another speaker you could make a concert experience with only one.

 

[ValO]

My point is that it does not support pairing at launch so if you happen to have another speaker you could make a concert experience with only one.

I really can’ t make that of your first post.
But what other speaker are you talking about? Homepod just got out, so how is it possible to already own one and then order a second one now?
Or are you talking about owning a different brand like the echo , sonos and then buying a homepod?

But would it even be techically possible to pair a homepod with another brand of speaker to get stereo sound? And if it was, would it get a decent stereo effect?

 

[fpsBeaTt]

Ugh the biggest problem I have is choosing what color. I wanted two, but i want it to match by other devices. Problem is I have a silver iphone X (256GB) and a space grey ipad pro (10.5), plus a space gray iMac Pro... not to mention my stainless steel (black) watch. So I ordered two HomePods in White, and two in Space Gray. I'm hoping that will cover my living room sufficiently. Depending on which color is nicest, I'll order more to place in the other rooms.

“Boy. Gotta. Flex. Gotta flex, flex, flex. ‘Cos when you’ve got no personality, replace it with a Rolex!”
On a more serious note, I sincerely hope you’re being sardonic with your post.
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" If you close your eyes, it's easy to feel like you're at a live performance."

Stop. Just stop it now.

Yes, critique that, instead of the less credible description of the Echo as sounding “decent”.

 

[cjbryce]

Play Blind Guardian album Beyond the red Mirror

Out of curiosity I just tried asking Siri this on my MacBook. It's currently playing. I have Apple Music and have never heard of this album before today.

Many people are worried that HomePod won't play their ripped own music "natively" - and that's true BUT given that homePod can't be "HiFi" and is (hopefully, I haven't listened to one yet) just a much, much better than average WiFI speaker then if you have Apple Music, will it make any real difference that the bit rate of your ripped music is better than that of Apple Music?

Of course, if you listen to Spotify &etc or have no Apple Music subscription or your ripped music is so esoteric it's not on Apple Music, then reverting to Airplay seems, currently, to be your only choice with HomePod and I can understand that that's a PITA because Siri isn't going to work for you. These inconveniences are software addressable and Apple may fix them over time.

I've read a lot of the debate on this thread around quality vs. convenience and is HomePod "good", and I think for what is basically a small WiFi speaker with some voice assistant functionality HomePod seems like it might be a good option as a speaker (just as Sonos is). What I'm pretty sure of is that HomePod will be better in terms of sound quality than the Google and Amazon offerings - simply because these latter offerings were never really designed with sound quality in mind - they don't even try to compete with Sonos &etc.

For many, many people used to listening to earbuds and even decent on-ear headphones, HomePod may well sound pretty good. For many others with high-end kit HomePod will sound "average" to say the least. Of course there's no way that a small speaker and a streaming source can be put up against any serious audio kit and "win" - why on Earth would anyone expect that to be the case? There's no point in even bothering with that test. But can you put a full-blown HiFi rig in a small apartment or a student dorm, do you want to spend £2k+ for a rig for your holiday home, is there space for floor-standers in your bedroom or kitchen?

Everyone's use case and perception of "quality" is different - my partner frequently listens to music whilst in the bedroom or kitchen etc via her iPhone speaker, which she finds acceptable and enjoys. This drives me absolutely nuts as it sounds like tinny crap to me. I'm used to listening to music on a fairly high-end set-up with B&W floor-standers, which she knows and appreciates sound much better - but they're not in the bedroom or kitchen and the music source is not her iPhone as she can't be bothered to Airplay. If I buy a HomePod for the bedroom and it sounds even vaguely acceptable, she has access to all of Apple Music and I'm not hearing tinny, hissy crap - problem solved

Whether Siri can compete with Alexa or Hello Google is a whole different debate - for me, of course Siri has them whipped, simply because I have no Amazon or Google devices and have no desire to get any. For many others Siri is inadequate. Fair enough.

 

[Phonephreak]

Huh! No. play again buddy.
[doublepost=1517019410][/doublepost]

.

https://www.bose.com/en_us/support/article/adaptiq--audio-calibration-system-setup.html

no really

 

[SBlue1]

So an iPad is a single user device? Do you have a family because I don't think you do.

It is. It has all my personal bookmarks in Safari, all my photos, calendar dates, notes, all my logins (facebook, macrumors, Amazon and so on). My wife cant use it since it does not have her Safari bookmarks and logins. My small kids cant use it because I dont want them to be able to accidentally delete photos or view my Facebook posts or YouTube Horror Movie links.

Our MacBook has different Accounts so all of us can use it.

 

[Donoban]

It is. It has all my personal bookmarks in Safari, all my photos, calendar dates, notes, all my logins (facebook, macrumors, Amazon and so on). My wife cant use it since it does not have her Safari bookmarks and logins. My small kids cant use it because I dont want them to be able to accidentally delete photos or view my Facebook posts or YouTube Horror Movie links.

Our MacBook has different Accounts so all of us can use it.

Nice. Would you want your kids playing with a 1000 dollar piece of kit?

Blows my mind, my sister gives her phone to her kids to play with. 2 phones dropped in the bath tub, one urinated on(the person at Apple said it had water damage and she was like, yeah.... water damage), and the last one dropped. Yet she still gives it to them to play with. She now has a 7 which offers some water protection, but just a matter of time until it Gets broken.

 

[Wiesenlooser]

For the prices involved here, there are PLENTY of great speakers you can build around a television. And then use TV to be able to do the exact same airplay everything to those speakers. And use Siri in TV for voice command controls.

HomePod seems to really be Apple's answer to Echo and similar. A lot of us are trying to frame it like it's all kinds of other stuff, but I still think it looks like Deluxe Magical Echo + for Apple people, happily living mostly within the walled garden.

Put this- or one of those- in rooms where you don't already have speakers and it should play some good-sounding music from a little box. And give- especially the single living alone- some basic functionality as implied by the term "virtual assistant."

This thing MIGHT be something for the television speaker hungry too. But even Apple hasn't pitched anything in that direction. It makes me perceive that Apple is not wanting this to be that kind of speaker(s). If Apple viewed it in that direction, I think they could have at least implied it. After all, someone shopping for home theater speakers are typically quick to realize they may need at least about 5 speakers instead of just one.

Maybe, but I like the design of the homepod and also the tight integration in the apple ecosystem.

 

[Keirasplace]

https://www.bose.com/en_us/support/article/adaptiq--audio-calibration-system-setup.html

no really

I said LIVE. Play again buddy. Good god.

 

[fpsBeaTt]

We can play the credentials game all day yet the fact you think a speaker is a higher tech marvel than a shuttle, your words not mine, kills any credibility you have.

There is nothing about beamforming that is transformative and the average consumer is not going to care. Let’s be real. Is it cool tech, of course but it’s not going to be a must have.

Not every thing apple does is gold.

Tell me why an average consumer is going to care and spend the premium for beam forming when it comes to smart speakers that you can get for much cheaper and sound 90% the quality?

Tell me why a true audiophile would get this when they already have a sound system that takes any benefit of beam forming away?

You can take the reasons for why the iPod hifi failed and it’s an EASY parallel for why this, in my opinion, will suffer the same fate.

Hey, I hope you’re right as I own Apple stock but I’m more grounded in reality and I don’t think this will pan out well

All this without having used them, and that 90% figure is complete crap.