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HomePod No Longer Available for Purchase From Most U.S. Apple Stores
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Agree with the comments suggesting $199-$200 could have been a sweet spot for customers. I would not have wanted to purchase a pair without trying out one first. If the price drops down to $199 (Best Buy/Costco) again I'll probably pick up another one.
For home automation I still slightly prefer my Homepod (w/ Homebridge) combo over my numerous Alexa Echo devices. The Homepod is significantly better at recognizing my commands.
For home automation I still slightly prefer my Homepod (w/ Homebridge) combo over my numerous Alexa Echo devices. The Homepod is significantly better at recognizing my commands.
Privacy is a fantasy in 2021 if you use the internet at all. Alexa cleaned apples clock on Siri so fully, that its an embarrassment that hopefully led to a whole lot of people in Cupertino being sacked and their careers ended.
I think the reason is that Apple realized that they were late to the party, and actually the Home Pod did not have Apple's "magic touch". It is just a good speaker with integrated Siri. There was really nothing innovative or new in the HomePod...iPhone chip inside, good tweeters but nothing unseen before, some touch controls and that's it.
I bought one for for $199 (No tax) a long time ago to test the waters. I loved it and waited for the next big sale which never came as Homepods disappeared off shelves and never came back. I got a mini but it's no where near as good (Audio wise) as the OG. Now it's me always checking craigslist or FB Marketplace for used ones...
...when a $120 LG soundbar (complete with wireless sub) is "higher-end" than $400 worth of HomePods
Definitely! And a tray for inserting your compact discs.
If I use my MacBook to transmit audio to the Homepod over Airplay 2, is there any latency lag between my Mac and the Homepod? I'm talking about YouTube videos. I don't want to see voices out of sync with people's mouths. Also, will all system sounds play?
LOL. They are not home theater equipment. They were never meant to be...customers tried to force them to be...and Apple was dragged kicking and screaming into the space by adding features over years to make it not terrible as home theater.
They are an expensive smart speaker with fewer features than the equivalent products at half the price.
Much like the next product to be be abandoned, the AirPods Max.
I like mine for audio, Apple music integration and I do use homekit. I like Google home for answering questions though and occasional Spotify use.
I always thought the A8 chip was too old, so from that standpoint I think there could be a newer version. It would probably shift away from the A series processor like the mini. If Siri improves I think a new homepod should be released.
I always thought the A8 chip was too old, so from that standpoint I think there could be a newer version. It would probably shift away from the A series processor like the mini. If Siri improves I think a new homepod should be released.
My point is that they turned out to be great home theater equipment.
I agree as a smart speaker they suck and Apple should have acknowledge that and pivot how they promote it accordingly.
they did the same thing with the Apple Watch, they learned very quickly the selling point of the watch is health and fitness and pivoted.
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Agreed, Apple knows best for the consumer, so much so that they still haven’t cleared stock from 3 years ago.
I thought it was a typo. Would have continued thinking so for the rest of my life, but for your comment.
Thank you, the Interstellar and Star Wars references are all I need to know that I want a pair!
As soon as I heard the news it was discontinued my wife and I thought the same thing. We have a mini for the bedroom and it sounds good for a speaker it’s size and price point but it doesn’t come close to the sound our HomePod in the living room puts out so we waited a few weeks for the price gouging to stop and tracked down a new, unopened space grey version via a third party website at an acceptable price point and bought it.
Here’s to hoping Apple has something higher end in the works. Perhaps at $149 to $199. Something larger with better sound for those of us who prefer the original to the mini. We do use the original in conjunction with our Apple TV so hopefully the version they put out for that will be the higher end version of the mini sans an LCD display which we don’t want nor need on a speaker that sits below our TV and Apple TV. If you need a display and UI to control what you hear on the HomePod the Apple TV does an excellent job when paired to it.
When they eventually do drop new HomePods (hopefully larger ones that don’t have unnecessary screens) I’ll probably pick up the new Apple TV with a pair of them.
yeah, the trade off was less clutter and a cleaner tv set up. Got rid of the sound bar and subwoofer. simplifying was my goal, and I was able to do that without losing sound quality (IMO) worth it! if you get mini’s you can AirPlay your music and hook em up. maybe It’s faux surround sound, but sounds great to me!
I am not sure which LG soundbar you are talking about, as I don't see any priced anywhere near $120 with a wireless subwoofer.
One of my friends replaced his Yamaha YAS-209 (about $350) with a pair of HomePods. Yamaha YAS-209 is frequently cited as one of the best budget soundbars. While Yamaha is better in some respects, such as deeper low-end extension (you can't fool physics), HomePods actually sounded better to us overall. Significantly better dialog intelligibility, soundstage, and surround virtualization. While Yamaha's dedicated sub may have lower bass extension, the fact that you have two HomePods can improve the overall bass experience.
To get optimal surround experience with HomePods, Apple recommends placing them within 10 inches off a wall and as close to the center of your TV as possible, or about 4 feet from each other.
I found it interesting that the newest Apple TV had an icon of the large HomePod on the box not a mini.. if they were obsolete surely you’d have an icon of the mini..
Actually there is quite a lot of innovation inside the original HomePod. Automatic room acoustics equalization, adaptive beamforming through signal processing on both playing music and listening for Siri commands using multiple speakers and microphones. It works extremely well and is why the audio quality is so good for such a small package. I like that I can control it with a normal speaking voice 20 feet away in a noisy environment.
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