HomePod May Support Multiple User Accounts and HomeKit Scenes That Mute Siri

[MacRumors]

Several new icons unearthed in the latest build of iOS 11.2.5 and shared on Twitter appear to reveal additional functionality included in Apple's upcoming HomePod smart speaker. On Sunday, Filipe Espósito found an image hidden amongst Apple's Home app assets that includes icons which suggest it will be possible to create custom scenes that mute the HomePod speaker's "Hey, Siri" function.

As Espósito notes, the function could be useful in a house party scenario, for example, where the owner might want to control other smart devices like lights and motion sensors while disabling Siri responses for privacy reasons.

Apple has not yet mentioned if HomePod can support more than one user, but Espósito believes there are references that indicate the speaker will distinguish between different voices to service multiple accounts. He also notes that existing assets show support for combining two HomePods for stereo sound, or using two or more HomePods to simultaneously stream music using Apple's AirPlay 2 wireless streaming protocol.

Apple originally announced the HomePod back in June 2017 at the Worldwide Developers Conference, where it demoed the speaker's advanced spatial awareness which intelligently adjusts to the surroundings to deliver the best possible sound. The company initially planned to release the Siri-based speaker in December 2017, but in a subsequent statement said it was pushing back launch to a more non-specific "early 2018" timeframe.

Rumors suggest HomePod supplier Inventec has started shipping the HomePod to Apple, whose historical definition of "early" is January through April, so it's still not entirely clear when it will launch. Supplies of the HomePod could also potentially be limited at launch, based on information shared from Inventec, and Apple has said the $349 speaker will initially only ship in the U.S., the U.K., and Australia.

Article Link: HomePod May Support Multiple User Accounts and HomeKit Scenes That Mute Siri

 

[beanbaguk]

I get how this is great for homes without HiFi, but what about those of us who don't need Apple's "premium" speaker system? I want a Siri "Dot"...as I'm sure many others do too....
[doublepost=1516612927][/doublepost]ETA, When the heck will Logitech Harmony support homekit!?!

 

[infinitejest]

Can't wait, I'm sure it's gonna be amazing!
They have to do something special when joining the smart speaker game so late and they know that. They never disappoint when they are taking so much time to get something right.

 

[Cybbe]

Can't wait, I'm sure it's gonna be amazing!
They have to do something special when joining the smart speaker game so late and they know that. They never disappoint when they are taking so much time to get something right.

Multiple users via voice recognition is already part of Google Home. Privacy protections if it doesn't recognise your voice as well. It's nice that Apple has these features ready from day one, but this doesn't sound like something special.

 

[farewelwilliams]

I get how this is great for homes without HiFi, but what about those of us who don't need Apple's "premium" speaker system? I want a Siri "Dot"...as I'm sure many others do too....
[doublepost=1516612927][/doublepost]ETA, When the heck will Logitech Harmony support homekit!?!

putting on my "jony ive" thinking cap:

if your apple watch is more than capable of doing what an Echo Dot or a "Siri Dot" could do (because of the fact that it's always with you, it has a button to activate, and it has a touchscreen), why would you want to use a smart home speaker to use Siri?

your apple watch however doesn't play music outloud. so that's where Apple figured it can contribute. let a speaker do exactly what it should do and be really good at it: playing audio. making a Siri dot compromises on its number 1 task, so it has no reason to be.

 

[allenvanhellen]

Should be WIDER stereo with two; should be able to get some sort of stereo from one speaker with six or seven tweeters... I hope.

 

[pdaholic]

Eh, all we really do with our Echo is play music. I would really love to have a better speaker like that which Apple will offer, but not at this price point.

 

[twinlight]

putting on my "jony ive" thinking cap:

if your apple watch is more than capable of doing what an Echo Dot or a "Siri Dot" could do (because of the fact that it's always with you, it has a button to activate, and it has a screen), why would you want to use a smart home speaker to use Siri?

your apple watch however doesn't play music outloud. so that's where Apple figured it can contribute. let a speaker do exactly what it should do and be really good at it: playing audio. making a Siri dot compromises on its number 1 task, so it has no reason to be.

I think the same. Only problem right now is that Siri doesn’t know what devices you have and won’t communicate with them when asked. Maybe the HomePod extensions will fix this.

Raising my arm and telling Siri to play chill mix on my ATV gives an ‘I can’t do that’ answer.

 

[pancakedrawer]

putting on my "jony ive" thinking cap:

if your apple watch is more than capable of doing what an Echo Dot or a "Siri Dot" could do (because of the fact that it's always with you, it has a button to activate, and it has a touchscreen), why would you want to use a smart home speaker to use Siri?

your apple watch however doesn't play music outloud. so that's where Apple figured it can contribute. let a speaker do exactly what it should do and be really good at it: playing audio. making a Siri dot compromises on its number 1 task, so it has no reason to be.

I have a pair of studio monitors at home that sound far better than the Apple HomePod. I don't need to listen to it to know that. Physics doesn't allow a speaker that big to have a proper range. The problem is they don't have a smart assistant like Siri or bluetooth connectivity. I think the point 'farewelwilliams' was making is that a dot allows people to decouple the smart assistant from the speaker giving you the best of both worlds.

I like the idea of a HomePod but for that kind of money you can buy yourself some really nice bookshelf speakers and an Amazon Dot and end up with far superior sound. For those of us in the Apple ecosystem it would be nice to have a more integrated product but I'm not willing to sacrifice sound quality for it.

 

[OllyW]

putting on my "jony ive" thinking cap:

if your apple watch is more than capable of doing what an Echo Dot or a "Siri Dot" could do (because of the fact that it's always with you, it has a button to activate, and it has a touchscreen), why would you want to use a smart home speaker to use Siri?

your apple watch however doesn't play music outloud. so that's where Apple figured it can contribute. let a speaker do exactly what it should do and be really good at it: playing audio. making a Siri dot compromises on its number 1 task, so it has no reason to be.

That's an answer to a question he didn't ask.

He's already got a decent hi-fi system and wants to add the Siri functionality from the HomePod to it, Echo Dot style. Your Apple Watch isn't much good (even if it was somehow connected to your hi-fi) if other family members want to use it while you are away from home.

 

[riverfreak]

Multiple users via voice recognition is already part of Google Home. Privacy protections if it doesn't recognise your voice as well. It's nice that Apple has these features ready from day one, but this doesn't sound like something special.

While I agree with you on Apple being extremely late to the party and coming in hot at a high price point, they do have at least one other thing going for them: a business model that isn’t centered on advertising.

 

[CmdrLaForge]

Really looking forward to the HomePod. I will definitely get one once it gets to Europe.

 

[beanbaguk]

putting on my "jony ive" thinking cap:

if your apple watch is more than capable of doing what an Echo Dot or a "Siri Dot" could do (because of the fact that it's always with you, it has a button to activate, and it has a touchscreen), why would you want to use a smart home speaker to use Siri?

your apple watch however doesn't play music outloud. so that's where Apple figured it can contribute. let a speaker do exactly what it should do and be really good at it: playing audio. making a Siri dot compromises on its number 1 task, so it has no reason to be.

While I appreciate not everyone will have this, but I guarantee you and Jony Ive that my $5k+ Bowers & Wilkins speakers and Yamaha amp will sound infinitely better than some SoundPod speakers.

 

[kbfr08]

putting on my "jony ive" thinking cap:

if your apple watch is more than capable of doing what an Echo Dot or a "Siri Dot" could do (because of the fact that it's always with you, it has a button to activate, and it has a screen), why would you want to use a smart home speaker to use Siri?

your apple watch however doesn't play music outloud. so that's where Apple figured it can contribute. let a speaker do exactly what it should do and be really good at it: playing audio. making a Siri dot compromises on its number 1 task, so it has no reason to be.

I agree, but I also think that the success of small bluetooth speakers indicates that most people don't care about sound quality. Not everyone wants to shell out so much for a speaker and Apple proved this with the failure of the iPod Hifi, which was also $350.

For the bluetooth speaker crowd, who just want a smart speaker that is capable of playing music, a stripped-down "dot" like product would be very compelling.

Regardless, I hope that the combination of Siri and premium sound quality is compelling enough to make this a success.

 

[Jsameds]

I'm apprehensive about this product, purely because Siri is still such a mess. I have a feeling it will be great hardware let down by sloppy software.

 

[WatchFromAfar]

Should be WIDER stereo with two; should be able to get some sort of stereo from one speaker with six or seven tweeters... I hope.

What are you talking about? If an audio track was produced in stereo, that is a two system left and right track, then no amount of additional homepods is going to make it sound better. You could have a million tweeters, and good for you, but the source material is simple stereo.

 

[BMcCoy]

“Multiple user accounts”?

Hopefully it will support multiple users on one account. Only I have an Apple Music subscription in my house, but if my wife can’t say “hey Siri” and get music playing, that really downgrades it’s usefulness to me/us.

 

[Jsameds]

What are you talking about? If an audio track was produced in stereo, that is a two system left and right track, then no amount of additional homepods is going to make it sound better. You could have a million tweeters, and good for you, but the source material is simple stereo.

Wrong. I have a 5.1 set up that I can feed stereo audio into. I can choose to have it coming out of two or five speakers. It sounds tonnes better with five.

 

[ke-iron]

I think the same. Only problem right now is that Siri doesn’t know what devices you have and won’t communicate with them when asked. Maybe the HomePod extensions will fix this.

Raising my arm and telling Siri to play chill mix on my ATV gives an ‘I can’t do that’ answer.

Siri does know what devices you have.

If you have an iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch like I do and activate “hey Siri” it will only activate on 1 device and cancel out the other 2 devices. This proves that Siri or something in the Apple devices knows what devices you have and is communicating with them on some level to cancel the voice commands on all but 1 device.

 

[groovyf]

I like the idea of a HomePod but for that kind of money you can buy yourself some really nice bookshelf speakers and an Amazon Dot and end up with far superior sound. For those of us in the Apple ecosystem it would be nice to have a more integrated product but I'm not willing to sacrifice sound quality for it.

You're forgetting the WAF (Wife Acceptance Factor)... for some, bookshelf speakers are not an option.

 

[Porco]

Lol, some of those icons...

I am happy that Apple will apparently cater for situations such as ‘wet and windy balloon time’, ‘tiny man in the garden hour’, and ‘fried egg with popcorn day’.

These are surely the hieroglyphics of the present, destined to be uncovered and debated by historians of the future as to their meaning...

‘So when the wifi symbol is blue it means ‘on’... when it’s grey... it means... ‘off’?’
-‘There appears to be conflicting evidence on that actually!’

 

[Vjosullivan]

...they do have at least one other thing going for them: a business model that isn’t centered on advertising.

Apple is a sales company. They spend upward of $2 billion a year on advertising. Telling us how good they are and how much we want their products. People tend to buy what they've heard of, especially if they've heard it's good. Market dominance (which they don't have but people think they do) only comes about through lots and lots of advertising. Or do you really think you've been completely impartial in you decision making all these years.

 

[itsmilo]

Its pretty sad if you think about how they had such a head start buying Siri and have done nothing with it. Its like they bought it but have no idea what to do with it

 

[WatchFromAfar]

Wrong. I have a 5.1 set up that I can feed stereo audio into. I can choose to have it coming out of two or five speakers. It sounds tonnes better with five.

Don't be fast and loose with "Wrong", if the original input is stereo, two-track stereo, then you can't get any-more better than that. You can do all sorts of upscaling trickery so you think it sounds better, and if if does to you well more power to you, but if the original recording was mastered on two tracks then you can't, ever, gleam more information than what was originally recorded onto five speakers and somehow think you've gained an extra three tracks (that weren't present in the original recording)

 

[centauratlas]

Multiple users via voice recognition is already part of Google Home. Privacy protections if it doesn't recognise your voice as well. It's nice that Apple has these features ready from day one, but this doesn't sound like something special.

Hopefully they'll wrap an Airport inside it so if you have multiple, it will form a nice mesh network like "Google WiFi"