We would have no idea if "from the sofa" is far or not, lol.
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HomePod Hands-On: Unboxing and Overview
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We would have no idea if "from the sofa" is far or not, lol.
I don't think you're alone on this one, this is one of my pet peeves as well. I don't know how Apple keeps pushing Siri to be a magical, smart assistant when others are blowing it out of the water with theirs. Clearly, they haven't really improved their "assistant" since it was first introduced. And, don't get me started on Siri being an AI learning what you like and what you ask of it more often. It has failed to even give me the most basic information when I used to use it.
It's only good for simple commands, other than that, it's pretty useless that's why I turned it off on all of my devices.
Still a good distance away. Was worried I may need to shout to say hey Siri but luckily not.
Interesting - this doesn't seem to work for me, I'll try again. Thanks for pointing out my mistake.
Have listened to it for a few hours with the family and we are all blown away. Apple made an amazing speaker. Setup was flawless (and cool!), Siri can hear us at normal voice volume even when she’s playing the music at 100%, and the sound is wonderful. Going to see if we can return my wife’s Echo and pick up a second HomePod for her.
Picked mine up at the Apple store on my way home from work. The sound is everything I expected, and well, Siri is Siri. My thinking is that Siri can always be improved over time with updates, but hardware can't. I have it in the kitchen, plugged in < a foot from the outlet, so I wish there was a way to hide the excess cord.
Sound wise, it's not lacking. On par with my Bang & Olufsen equipment, better than my Harman/Kardon equipment (my HK Sabre SB35 wireless soundbar does a better job at simulating surround sound, but the sound dynamics of the HP are clearer).
Like mentioned by reviewers, Siri is lacking. For example, though Siri can read my messages, it can't answer a question like "what's my name?" (but the iPhone Siri can). Which I understand could be due to the inability to differentiate between / identify people speaking. But if Siri is able to read messages from my device, it should at least be able to tell me what's the name of the person whose Apple ID it's assigned to.
I'm not disappointed though. I purchased it while already looking forward to this year's WWDC.
Like mentioned by reviewers, Siri is lacking. For example, though Siri can read my messages, it can't answer a question like "what's my name?" (but the iPhone Siri can). Which I understand could be due to the inability to differentiate between / identify people speaking. But if Siri is able to read messages from my device, it should at least be able to tell me what's the name of the person whose Apple ID it's assigned to.
I'm not disappointed though. I purchased it while already looking forward to this year's WWDC.
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Or, you know, your iPhone/iPad. Just sayin’. That’s probably what I would do anyway.
Just got mine out of the box (about 1/2 hr ago) and playing music from ErikGrim list to give it some go-go all round music...liking what I hear so far...not just the music but the way HP sounds..
This is a great little insight. As a device that's going to be out on countertops, tables, etc, it would've been great if they found a way to have the excess cable retract into the HomePod to minimize excess length.
I pretty much have to agree with most things, but one thing I haven't seen mentioned is that I wish it were capable of being taught about everyone in our family - that is, handling multiple accounts.
Other than that, same old, same old - Siri continue to be the Forest Gump of digital assistants, and the audio quality is as outstanding as everyone else has said.
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Maybe just wind it around the base. Probably the most elegant option I can think of.
Other than that, same old, same old - Siri continue to be the Forest Gump of digital assistants, and the audio quality is as outstanding as everyone else has said.
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Maybe just wind it around the base. Probably the most elegant option I can think of.
Incorrect, bud. No pausing needed with the HomePod, and no screaming, either.
Oooo. That's a good question. I've wanted a soundbar for my TV, but since I ONLY use Apple TV, being able to airplay to a homepod would be an interesting feature that I hadn't considered.
Sound quality is OK. I expected a lot more, especially after the reviews from other people. I bought two, but probably will return one of them.
I used to think that about my iPhone and Apple Watch, but then I started just saying "Hey Siri Turn the Lights Off" to either device and it picks the entire phrase up correctly. Try it on HomePod and tell me what happens?
Thanks for the clarification. It's very surprising to see an Apple device with soldered cable. This is the only one I can think of, actually. I wonder what prompted that approach...
Can you turn on/off audio feedback on a per app/service basis? Like, i don't want Siri to repeat the note i asked her to make, but i do want Siri to repeat the iMessage i wanted to send before sending it, is that possible? Or is audio feedback all or nothing?
Really good questions. I was in the exact same boat as you.
Getting the HomePod to play audio from the Apple TV is simplicity itself. You just select the speaker as the audio source in the TV's settings. So far it's been working flawlessly, playing movies on my Apple TV, content sent from my Mac over AirPlay, and switching back to music on demand. The one caveat is that (I believe) you have to manually switch the audio output every time you directly ask Siri on the HomePod to play music.
TL;DR: It'll play nice as a Siri-enabled soundbar with your Apple TV, but if you ask the HomePod to play content directly you'll have to manually reselect the speaker as your TV's output.
All-or-nothing today. I suspect more granular control schemes will come with updates.
Yep! And it works flawlessly. No audio sync issues or whatnot. This is the main reason I ditched my Sonos a while back. I can't wait for the stereo pair update to come out. I'd love to have two of these next to my tv.