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HomePod Mini Begins Arriving to Customers
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Yeh I think some further testing on the difference is needed to understand properly.
I'm using an iPhone XS and I hold the iPhone over the HomePod as if I was using Apple Pay and it seems to work every time.
I saw on Marcus Brownlee's review that with the U1 chip on iPhone 12 you have to hold it at a very specific point on the HomePod, which doesn't make sense to me - as you suggested my impression was that the U1 chip would make it easier. Then there is also talk of something coming in a future update where you 'feel' the music transferring... does that also change the fact you need to be super accurate with the iPhone 12 or not?
Will be interesting when people start trying it out to figure out exactly what the deal is...
Did you order the black or white ones? I was on the site day one early in the morning also, and ordered black, and it isn't going to arrive until Wednesday. I think the white ones are shipping earlier for some reason.
No not an original HomePod, and don’t have an Echo but do have a Bose Soundlink Mini and they are roughly same size but different shape. The HomePod Mini is nowhere near as nice sound as that. I appreciate that the Bose isn’t a smart speaker, but the difference in sound is disappointing to me.
Dumb question but why does the mini have to be plugged in to use? I have a little Bose speaker and it’s so nice to be able to take it off the charging pad and use it anywhere. Needing to be plugged in all the time is a pain.
The literal answer to 'why' is that it doesn't have an internal battery.
I presume it's to keep costs down or just a general design decision from Apple.
Could also be because by design you need to allocate which room a HomePod is in - if you moved it around it might not work as Apple intended.
All just theories - only Apple will know for sure.
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Thanks for clarifying. I have a pair of original HomePods and my sister has a SoundLink Mini (which I think retails closer to a Sonos 1, around $150 to $200, so your audio assessment makes sense).
I'm curious to see it the HP mini goes on sale any time soon for $80 or something like that. If so I will definitely pick up a couple to try out. I don't think I'm going to spring for $99, just like I didn't spring for the HP at $349 (but at the $199 sale price, the HPs were an excellent buy in my opinion).
Out of interest, has anyone tried one of these out with the Apple 18w USB-C plug, I've got a couple of these kicking about and 2 HomePod Mini's getting delivered tomorrow, was thinking if they work with the Apple 18w adapters I can use them with the HomePod Mini's and the 20w adapters for my 12 Pro Max🤔
Bose SoundLink Mini is nice, but I wasn't a fan of the bass. Plenty of bass, no doubt, but it lacks precision. I much more enjoyed the Bose MusicMonitor (different kind of products, I know). The SoundLink mini is Stereo. Has great build quality. Has replaceable battery (if you can find one). But only has basic profile Bluetooth audio, no AptX. That's a bummer. In the end, for me, the sound was not that musical, as separation of all instrumentation was lacking. The drivers are quite small. Also very directional sound. It also is $150. Great resale value, though! I hope two HomePod minis might do the trick for me. I don't know. I can hope.
I pre ordered when they went on sale. Best Buy notified me yesterday that they shipped and I would receive it today, but a few hours ago that was changed to tomorrow for delivery.
I'm also curious about this. The 18W charger was very short-lived compared to the 5W and 12W chargers.
Yeah, if it can't supply enough power it just won't turn them on, not worried about the charger overloading Apple's chargers have circuitry built in to stop this but if it works then I've got a couple of 20w chargers I can use out and about (like that's a thing right now) or around the house🤔
I haven't seen 18W vs. 20W iPad/iPhone charging comparison yet, does it really make much of a difference?
I was consumed with other US things going on the day of launch and didn't order until late morning. I ordered two black mini's; showing to deliver between the 24th and the 2nd of December.
with the Magsafe charger it makes a difference, 18w charger gives you 10w charging but with the 20w you get the full 15w, Apple's built in some form of circuitry handshake shenanigans between the Magsafe puck and the power brick, doesn't matter what other charger you use it's only the 20w brick that'll do it.
Also just seen this that seems to blow the idea of using the 18w brick with the HomePod Mini's out the water 😕
HomePod Mini Pre-order status/tracking
I saw something on Twitter, apparently you can’t do this. The HomePod screen glows red and it doesn’t work. Edit: tweet attached.
forums.macrumors.com
I agree. There are plenty of Bluetooth speakers if people want portability. There’s even a few with AirPlay. It’s a “done” product and you can pick a price at Walmart for one.
the main use case is for these to be plugged in. In my experience the portable ones will kill the battery if they’re plugged in all the time. (from constant charging, I had a Jawbone Jambox I used for years.) So if you want one in a semi-permanent location, it needs to just plug in.
la cosa assurda in spagna l'hanno commercializzato... bahh ! a volte le aziende ci prendono per polli
Apparently if you try using a power supply of less than 20W (such as the apple 18W adapter) the mini boots up with an orange glow on the top and doesn't work.
From Gruber's review:
The HomePod Mini even includes a 20W power adapter1 (which it needs — the hazy touch panel “display” on top just pulses orange if you plug it into an adapter that provides less than 20W of power).
The HomePod Mini
They’re easy to set up and sound great for the price — and to my non-audiophile ears, sound remarkable for their size.
daringfireball.net