HomePod mini Launches in Austria and Ireland, Coming to New Zealand Later This Month

[BSben]

Think the problem is language based, Siri is a pain to use in one language, but it gets worse if you go bilingual.
Try and ask Siri tp play an Artist with a foreign name and playing a song in a foreign language. When trying to this please do not throw your HomePod against the wall, just concentrate on your breathing..... slow and deep.

 

[ignatius345]

Same functionality as HomePod. And yes as stereo pair, can be set as default, can play dolby Atmos,can play lossless audio, works fine on previous generation 4K AppleTV. (No idea on older, would presume it does stereo pair but older does not do Atmos does it? I don't have one, so I don't know). A future update is supposed to allow Dolby Atmos directly for music played on mini, right now, you can airplay from any device.

Yeah but it's a tiny speaker and sounds like a tiny speaker -- a good one, but still. I bought a Mini and returned it after a few days in favor of a full-size HomePod. The sound just isn't in the same league at all.

 

[LimpHamster]

Think the problem is language based, Siri is a pain to use in one language, but it gets worse if you go bilingual.
Try and ask Siri tp play an Artist with a foreign name and playing a song in a foreign language. When trying to this please do not throw your HomePod against the wall, just concentrate on your breathing..... slow and deep.

So siri on the HomePod is worse than the iPhones? I am using siri in swedish on the iphone and asking to play a song with an english title/artist works completely fine, it works 9/10 times.

 

[Ikertxo40]

It is a language issue for sure. Here in the Netherlands there are no homepods due to Dutch being really ignored by apple. Same for Safari translations, all but Dutch.

In Belgium they have it ready in French due to France, but due to no Dutch, it is not sold in places like Brussels, with a mayority of french spoken belgians. Ridicule as f.

And I have a homepod acting crazy with popping sounds, i bought it in a kind of dutch amazon, is a german model, and now Apple told me they dont serve Netherlands for repairs. Asked me to bring it to Germany! Like if i could…

Complained to the ones that sold it to me, and no promises they can replace it. Waiting, as i had 2 in stereo pair…

 

[I@beck]

Apple, you have 3 apple stores here in Singapore. Please make HomePod available in Singapore, please. 🙏

 

[zv470]

I live in New Zealand and imported one but had to switch my Siri language to Australia as it wasn’t available in NZ. I am assuming that tomorrow I will be able to switch it back to NZ Siri.

Edit: It’s unavailable to purchase in NZ still…

NZ Siri is available, has been for about a week or so. You might have to disable personal requests and re-enable after changing HomePod language to NZ Siri… at least I had to do that.

 

[PilotWoo]

I sold my Homepod MINI. Disappointed with the sound quality, it didn't play nice on a mesh Wifi network, and Siri was as useless as it is on any other Apple device.

 

[BSben]

So siri on the HomePod is worse than the iPhones? I am using siri in swedish on the iphone and asking to play a song with an english title/artist works completely fine, it works 9/10 times.

Be a bit more exotic and ask for French or German. Asking from the UK to play any artist or song in my first language results in 99.9% failure and asking for other language ones is just as bad.

 

[Maxtweedie]

Apple last month announced that the HomePod mini would be made available in several new countries in June. Now, less than a month later, the HomePod mini has officially launched in Austria and Ireland, and is listed as "available in June" in New Zealand, suggesting availability in the next couple of weeks.

The HomePod mini is the follow-up to the original HomePod released in 2018. The full-sized HomePod failed to become a mainstream hit, leading to its discontinuation. The $99 HomePod mini features a significantly smaller design than the original HomePod but offers the same functionality enabled by Siri.

The HomePod mini first launched in October of 2020 in the United States, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Japan, Spain, and the UK. Both the HomePod and HomePod mini will gain support for Apple Music's recently launched lossless audio feature via a software update later this year. Additionally, the HomePod mini will be able to be set as the default output speaker for Apple TV 4K starting later this year.

Article Link: HomePod mini Launches in Austria and Ireland, Coming to New Zealand Later This Month

The HomePod Mini is now available to purchase on the NZ Apple Website, deliveries are in 2-3 weeks