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HomePod Gaining New 'Ambient Sounds' Siri Feature This Fall, Radio Station Support Launching September 30
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Thank god for ambient sounds. I use thunderstorm sounds albums on Apple Music when I sleep, but it has absolutely ruined all the recommendations in the For You section despite me telling it I don’t like those albums for recommendations. My New Music mix on Friday is loaded with the stuff every week. It sucks.
So much hate for the HomePod... I absolutely love the 4 that I have in my house.. I have full intentions to double that number in the coming year..
They sound amazing and work as advertised IMO .. If it's not a product that's up your alley, not sure why people have to unleash their hate for all the world to see - especially on a product they don't even own ...
I have zero intensions on buying a mini-van - perhaps I should seek out all the mini-van forums and tell everyone how much they suck... smh...
They sound amazing and work as advertised IMO .. If it's not a product that's up your alley, not sure why people have to unleash their hate for all the world to see - especially on a product they don't even own ...
I have zero intensions on buying a mini-van - perhaps I should seek out all the mini-van forums and tell everyone how much they suck... smh...
It’s probably a huge disaster, I mean being worth $1T and the most profitable company in the world that doesn’t sell a commodity.
But they're not, they're feature rich but they sound terrible. The HomePods actually do sound really good, although I wasn't convinced at first because i'm used to an even more high end, open, clinical sound from studio monitors and my Sennheiser HD800 headphones, but the Sonos line sounds woefully poor.
you won't be able to for long as the BBC are removing all their radio stations from TuneIn shortly. The only way to stream them will be through the BBC Sounds App, which you can get a skill for Alexa but won't be on siri for probably 5 years
I adore my HomePod. I can't believe I can be blasting some seriously aggro music and from 25 feet away in another room say "hey siri" barely above a whisper and it HEARS ME. It's incredible tech.
I still use my Play:3 in the kitchen and Play:1 in the bedroom, mostly as an alarm clock waking up with a specific radio station. I used to have a Sonos Connect in the lounge but sold it after upgrading my AV Receiver which has AirPlay2 - which I was using in preference to the Sonos app on my phone.
I've bought a HomePod for the dining room. mostly used for AirPlay2 streaming music from the BBC iPlayer Radio/BBC Sounds & Scala Radio app on my phone. If HomePod can take on playing these radio stations natively and use them as alarms, then I'd seriously consider moving the Play1 out of the bedroom and the HomePod in.
This isn't to say you or anyone else should start considering the HomePod vs Sonos (or HEOS or any other home sound system), especially if you've already sunk some serious change into it. Apple is closing the gap now, and other than having a hair more bass than is warranted at time (I mostly listen to classical, rock & Audible audiobooks), the HomePod is shaping up to contend with the more established ecosystems.
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I'd no idea the Beeb were doing this! BBC Sounds is fine for the phone and AirPlay 2 (although Sounds won't stream with iOS13GM and iPlayer Radio will!). The idea of them ditching TuneIn and removing support for TuneIn supporting devices - Sonos and soon to be HomePod - is a massively regressive step. Unless Sounds is going to start functioning as a fully specced alarm clock etc, what is the point or the advantage in their pulling TuneIn support?!
And yes Siri is still the stupidest digital assistant on the market. Honestly, between the new iPhone, the cheese grater Mac Pro and a myriad of other confusing, ridiculous and obscene product design and launch decisions... I’m going to start shifting my investments and professional recommendations onto other OEM products.
I don’t care what any potential trolls or fanboys in the forums might say about my opinion here but seriously the wheels have finally come off the wagon. What magic this company once had has entirely evaporated since Jobs died (RIP). It has now become the Microsoft of Microsoft’s. Just sad...
I still can’t believe I spent 3K on four Homepods for my home. They are utterly useless and since then I’ve outfitted my home with several Google home devices. The voice isn’t as nice but the assistant is FAR FAR better than Siri on HomePod could ever hope to be.
I don’t care what any potential trolls or fanboys in the forums might say about my opinion here but seriously the wheels have finally come off the wagon. What magic this company once had has entirely evaporated since Jobs died (RIP). It has now become the Microsoft of Microsoft’s. Just sad...
I still can’t believe I spent 3K on four Homepods for my home. They are utterly useless and since then I’ve outfitted my home with several Google home devices. The voice isn’t as nice but the assistant is FAR FAR better than Siri on HomePod could ever hope to be.
Since they don't work did you attempt to take them back to Apple and exchange them or get your money back?
The issue I have with that is what the top review on Amazon states, it reaches out to IPs in AWS, Yahoo, China, etc.
I'd rather just DIY it with a raspberry pi at that point.
I’ve been using my HomePod for about a year and a half and Siri works great.
How long have you been using yours?
It's ability to pick up what I say is the most impressive thing to me. It really is an impressive bit of work.
You could always set sleep timers. Check out this guide for details:
https://www.macrumors.com/how-to/create-an-alarm-on-homepod/
Multi-user and audio handoff have been pushed back to “later this fall”.
You'll find that most people that complain about Siri don't actually use Siri.
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I missed that. Audio handoff is essentially just AirPlay, but you don't have to push any buttons?
No, I got them immediately after release and waited for the stereo upgrade and waited for the Siri upgrades which were hinted and advertised. So far they haven’t delivered in a way that is practical or meaningful.
I can ask Google complex medical questions and get intelligent and useful answers with references and then a link sent to my google home app with more information to consider. Siri just spits out “sorry I can’t do that on homepod.”
Frankly, there is NO good reason the basic functions offered on the iPhone can’t be offered on the HomePod. The whole thing runs in the cloud.
It’s clearly not a priority for them. And it shows. But yeah if I could return them. I absolutely would. Now they are just an extra set of speakers (which I don’t even use). But for fun I’ll ask Siri to do things and then compare it to how Google responds. It makes for great comedy with my friends. So I guess they aren’t totally worthless. LOL
From my interpretation, it’ll drop your entire music session from one device to another - rather than iPhone airplaying, the HomePod will pick up and host.
Admittedly I’m a little disappointed at this specific delay, but my criticisms are directed at a more broad scale of the 13.x series of OSes.
I love my HomePod waiting for grab some “HomePod” minis for my bathrooms and kitchen
Uh, you're asking these smart assistant's complex medial questions?
Instead of selling them and recouping some of your money you just hang onto them as some kind of weird joke? lol you do you I guess.
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I gotcha, I see what you're saying. That would be/will be nice.
You say All Sonos speakers sound woefully poor???? Mmmm not to my ears, or many of the reviewers ears out there.
The pace of innovation here is breathtaking.
What a company. This is incredible
What a company. This is incredible