Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

HomePod Launches February 9, Available to Order Starting Friday in United States, UK, and Australia

Over promised and under delivering. When they announced it will go on sale in December 2017, there is no way they thought stereo pair or AirPlay 2 will be ready by then, if those features are now "coming later this year".
 
  • Like
Reactions: Wilburx3 and Dan Holmstock
Rivals have such a head start I struggle to see the market for this device.

For the bedroom or kitchen an Echo sounds "good enough" and is significantly cheaper.

For the living room, where sound quality is more important, surely most people will already have a decent stereo - just plug in a cheap as chips dot and you're away. No need to spend 10x as much on this...
 
For marketing purposes is obvious that Apple wants you to buy 2 of them...

I still have this at home (not mine though) sound was pretty good...

apple-employees-are-reportedly-testing-a-smart-siri-speaker-at-home.jpg
 
  • Like
Reactions: DeepIn2U
ke-iron said:
“The team has worked to give Siri a deeper knowledge of music so that you can ask to play virtually anything from your personal favorites to the latest chart-topping releases, simply by saying 'Hey Siri.'”

Does this mean the Siri built into the HomePod is more advanced than the Siri on iPhone X? Because currently I would ask Siri to play some songs I have in my library and it would go to the store to play a song with the same name. I’m like wtf, why would you go to the store and find a song if I have what I’m asking for in my library.

It’s in my library and not necessarily my favorites. Does this make the difference? Do I need to favorite all my songs in my library???
Click to expand...
Siri is cloud-based. When the Crappod comes out, maybe Apple will boot up a more advanced version of their random-trivia-and-fact-answering service.
 
davie18 said:
I'd like to own one because of how awesome the sound everyone has said it has. However I simple refuse if it doesn't support spotify. It's such a dumb decision by apple if they never allow you to use it with spotify... it's tiwce as big as spotify and still growing at a faster rate despite already having far more users.

It's a shame they're going to lock out the majority of the market due to their obsession with trying to get people to only use apple software.

I firmly believe it's a big reason Siri has never taken off. I'd love at times to be able to ask it for directions or spotify but I can't because I only want to use google maps and spotify... so I sacrafice the siri functionality since it doesn't support them. It's one of the main things that really annoys me with apple. Maybe this is just me and not the case for many others but siri seems like it has so much potential that apple have just wasted away if they gave third party developers much more power to use it. Like why can't they allow any developer they like to use voice commands for it and then you just get a prompt 'allow X app to use siri' like you do for notifications and location services.
Click to expand...

I will agree with you... On my iPad as a hub i used home bridge software to connect all NON HOMEKIT devices work for homekit, but it got annoying using siri on the phone (using the hands free hey siri wake up) and Siri hardly understood my commands and i had to repeat often. I was really trying to find ways to use siri, but it became a glorified timer setter. I finally bit the bullet and bought Google Home and it controls everything very nicely with updates to my day and the function of controlling my devices. Now granted on my iPad i have to launch the google assistant app to control devices without a hot word trigger but thats still more functional then lame siri.
 
  • Like
Reactions: jeffreyg, DeepIn2U, tkukoc and 1 other person
Jamie0003 said:
I have a full 7.1 surround setup at home, and while I love it, I don't like the fact it takes over my lounge. With the homepod being a sonos competitor, is it safe to assume this includes the home theatre setup too? While it won't sound as good, it would be awesome to have a wireless surround system that sounds good, and actually it may even fill my room better due to it sending sound off in all directions.

Only issue I can see with this is whether or not the Apple TV can ARC the sound to other devices connected to the TV.
Click to expand...

Your fellow consumers have tried in many HomePod threads to all but assure that a bunch of these in a room could yield a great surround sound setup. However, Apple themselves have never said anything about these being surround speakers. Best we've seen from Apple is two of them in the same room can coordinate for stereo.

Sonos home theater systems are built to be more toward what you seek. The comparison of HomePod to Sonos is trying to shift the price arguments to something where $349 doesn't look really high. HomePod is probably deluxe Echo at best, not a real Sonos home theater setup equivalent. But since Sonos has some speakers that cost more than HomePod, "we" really want to compare HomePod to Sonos so "we" can win some kind of pricing comparison.

It sounds like you already have a great system. If it's aesthetics that bother you, perhaps you can creatively hide your speakers. If its sound is overwhelming, turn it down? If it's quality of output, maybe change your receiver or feed it different source content? If you want something more like HomePod, unhook speakers to get it down toward 1.1 sound and you'll likely get closer (but your .1 will probably beat the tiny .1 equivalent in this thing).

I suggest you consider something more like the Google Home Mini or Echo Dot. Hook the superior brains of Google or Alexa into your existing setup and get the bulk of the benefits with the far superior speakers you probably already have in place. Bonus: instead of having to fake stereo sound from a tiny little singular box, you are set up for REAL stereo sound with speakers reasonably distant from each other. A product like Home Mini or Dot may get you most of what you think you might get from Homepod, feeding what is almost certainly better quality speakers (already in place) with real stereo, not faux.
 
  • Like
Reactions: jeffreyg
Jay42 said:
Doesn't make much sense to compare speakers purely on price. There are speakers that cost $10 and some that cost $100k.
Click to expand...
Yep. My studio monitors were $2500 each, and $5k in the world of audio is small-time, “budget friendly.”
 
According to the standards in this thread, I am a Apple fanboy. I have one of every Apple product category and I only buy Apple branded lightning cables. But having all of Apple's product category's is about to end. Because there is no way I will be buying a Homepod. This is not a Apple Fanboy product, It's a SUPER fanboy product. You have to be the person that says I'm Apple only forever. That is not me.

I do not play my music on $350 speakers. But if I did, I'd buy a Sonos play 3 or if I wanted even better sound I'd buy a Sonos play 5. The play 3 is cheaper (249) and offers true stereo with different speakers for both channels, the play 5 does all of that even better. (499) I have full control over Alexa and Google Assistant is coming soon. I can play native Apple Music, and just about every other streaming service. I can also play audio tracks from over my home network and from my NAS. Apple Airplay 2 is coming. I can (and I do) buy their connect and add Sonos to my true real audio systems. There is no comparison.
I don't have to wait for some promised firmware to do any of this including multi room play back and paired speaker for TRUE stereo sound with true wide soundstage. ( note the Google Assistant and the Airplay 2 will require a promised firmware, Sonos always delvers,but for me they are not needed.)

I don't have to rely on siri. Which for the most point does not work. I have access to the FULL universe of home automation devices and thousands of skills.

This is a product looking for a solution. Apple is late. The problem has already been solved. In a much better way. Sorry Apple,NO.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: tkukoc
I don't know why you would buy this over the Sonos play? Unless you exclusively tied into apple music. Twice the price probably half the function.
 
  • Like
Reactions: RickInHouston
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back