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HomePod Now Unavailable From Apple in Canada After Being Discontinued [Updated]
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The thing I love the most about the HomePod is all these new feature surprises.
First, the stereo pairing, which was promised as a future software update feature.
The next big feature was multiple users, although it never really worked as well as I had hoped.
The next big surprise was home theater audio that brought default audio output for Apple TV and virtualized Dolby Atmos audio.
And as a swan song, the HomePod recently received eARC support via Apple TV (2nd generation).
If Apple revises HomePod with faster processor (HomePod mini is much more responsive), up-firing drivers and support for multi-channel discrete audio (e.g., 5 or more HomePods), Thread, and Hi-Res Lossless, it would be one heck of a product.
The elephant in the room is Siri, which needs to be much more responsive (faster processor would help but it needs more local processing) and smarter.
That's the point I've been making -- people were judging it in the wrong category, because Apple marketing didn't get the word out about what the HomePod really was. It wasn't meant to be an Echo Dot. Apple let the message get away from them.
Yes, they‘ll announce a new one in 20 min after they discontinued them a few months ago. Makes total sense. /s
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Do think I can get 6 figures for mine? I mean people are buying nothing for 5 figures. If you have ideas for how I can go about marketing my unit, please let me know.
Let’s be real, the HomePod is a great speaker but it was nothing more than a me too product that was artificially constrained by Apple. No bluetooth? Literally just a software update. No aux on a speaker that’s stationary? Really?
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i would call it a decent speaker. i will say IME Amazon's stuff sucks much more. HomePod mini > Echo Studio. srs
lol no.
the issue is they did get the message out, and they sucked ass in competing where the message was because the product sucked at the price.
do a medium sized one - even quite profitable - could be 75% as good as a sonos one - with upward-firing drivers and no 360 audio cancer, do it for $150-200, with BT, aux, and plenty of third-party compatability for whatever new API's emerge.
It would sell well. I would maybe even buy one. (probably not, but lmao)
So glad I grabbed 2 Space Gray HomePods when I could. As a simple set of speakers (disabled everything else), I couldn't be happier with them. As long as Apple doesn't discontinue support for playback from them, I don't really care that they're discontinued.
Doesn’t make sense to do this as they roll out lossless audio (on HomePod mini?!) and all this spatial jibbajab for Apple TV, etc.
I’d love a new HomePod with an upward firing speaker, Atmos would be even more impressive. I’d also like the ability to link more than two to create a surround setup; three with one rear center, four for stereo front and rear, five for a typical five channel surround, etc.. Or be like the usual Apple way and just place as many as you want around your room and have the mics create the proper phantom channel mix. And let it be a combination of og/max/mini so it doesn’t cost thousands too.
Maybe you can try using a surge protector with it and see if that eliminates the problem? I was also immediately thinking it could be related to the current.
Well, there's a more cynical take that Apple wanted to sell out the old stock before cannibalizing it with a new model. If true, it definitely seems to be working, as the new Apple TV 4K features have put the HomePod more in demand than ever — especially with fears that it may not be possible to get a replacement anytime soon. I've personally picked up three more since they've been discontinued.
Not that I buy into that theory, but I can't entirely rule it out either. Apple did say it's putting all of its efforts into the HomePod mini for now, however, and I suspect the next-gen HomePod-related product is still quite a ways off. After all, consider how long we waited for a new Apple TV 4K (and what we got when one finally did show up).
I'm thinking something along those lines, or more likely this hybrid Apple TV+HomePod thing that Apple is rumoured to be working on. Again, though, I suspect that's still a long way off... I'd be surprised if we even see it next year, considering how slow Apple moves in the home space. It's definitely a second or even third-tier business for them.
Meanwhile, they really are putting all of their eggs into the HomePod mini basket. Look at yesterday's announcement that the HomePod mini will now work as default speakers for the Apple TV. Of course, Apple coyly avoided mentioning that you're not going to get Dolby Atmos audio with a pair of those, but it seems clear the HomePod mini is the only thing in their short to medium term strategy.
I think the problem is that most folks don't take Apple seriously as a speaker company. The iPod Hi-Fi suffered from a similar perception problem... Even though Apple hired at least one senior engineer from Klipsch to design the original iPod Hi-Fi, the Apple brand isn't something most people associate with great audio fidelity. If it doesn't have a name like Bose or JBL (or Harman Kardon) or Sony, then it can't possibly be a good speaker. Apple is instead lumped in with companies like Logitech and Creative Labs who make computer speakers, but not "real" speakers for home entertainment systems.
The same applies to Google and Amazon, so naturally, most folks assumed the HomePod just had to be some cheap speaker by a tech company.
Actually, the price in Canada was comparable to what the market will bear. Things in the U.S. seem cheap because we don't live in the U.S. economy. I've heard these same complaints since the original iPod came out 20 years ago, but when you look at things like average daily wage and cost of living, the prices of Apple products in every country are roughly equivalent, give or take a few bucks. In other words, at $299 USD, the HomePod "feels" just as expensive to people living in the U.S. as the $399 CAD HomePod does to us up here in Canada.
It's also priced roughly for what the average exchange rate was at the time. It hasn't been adjusted for this year's plummeting currency rates, but Apple always understandably lags on that — in both directions. When the rates skyrocketed a few years ago, it took about 6-12 months before the Canadian prices went up to match.
I hope that yesterday's announcement of local Siri processing in iOS 15 will also apply to the HomePod, as you're absolutely right that this is probably the biggest limitation of Siri, especially in a HomeKit context. Every so often it's almost instantaneous, which makes it all the more disappointing for all of those other times when it takes just long enough that you wonder if it's actually going to work or not...
As I mentioned above, I don't think Apple deserves all of the blame for this. They had a lot of market inertia to overcome from folks who automatically dismissed the HomePod as a "computer speaker." The iPod Hi-Fi suffered pretty much the exact same fate — nobody took Apple seriously.
The Apple Watch had a similar mindset to overcome when it was first released, and I've always been convinced that the only reason Apple ever produced the Gold Edition version was to get the fashion industry to take Apple seriously as a brand, rather than just dismissing the wearable as a techie toy. I'm really not sure how Apple could have done something similar in the audio industry, however... Perhaps finding a way to partner with the higher-end boutique home audio shops to position the HomePod as a more serious device?
Ultimately, though, I think Apple was living in a bubble when it created the HomePod. It clearly thought the market for the device was much bigger than it actually was. It wasn't just a marketing issue.... The HomePod appealed only to a very specific type of user — the person who was very firmly entrenched in the Apple ecosystem, from Siri to HomeKit to Apple Music. I'm that guy, which is why I have a dozen HomePods and HomePod minis around the house, but I also recognize that I'm in the minority.
That must have been a blip, as they're definitely showing up as "Sold Out" now (whereas yesterday, they were just "Not available for delivery.")
That said, Staples.ca still has the white ones available for ordering online, plus a few stores in Toronto are listing the Space Grey as being available for curbside pickup — although based on my previous experiences, those might be the floor models. I ran into that at the Dufferin location just down from Yorkdale. Ordered online for curbside and when I showed up I was told it was the demo model. He said he'd be happy to sell it off once the store reopens, but they can't do that while they're in curbside mode as they can only process online orders.
I eventually found a new one at the Leaside location, where they showed four in stock about a month ago. However, they're down to only 1 listed now as well, so I wouldn't be surprised if that's the same as the Dufferin location. Still, if anybody is looking for a Space Grey HomePod in Toronto, it's worth a shot, and if you don't mind getting a slightly used one you can probably get one of the floor models at a discount once the stores reopen. In fact, those might not be a bad deal, considering that a demo HomePod kind of just sits there and collects dust in most stores — it's not like a MacBook or iPad that has customers pawing at it all day.
Unfortunately, on device processing of Siri requires A12 or newer processor. A footnote from iOS 15 preview page:
"Available on iPhone with A12 Bionic and later. (Available on iPad with A12 Bionic and later on iPad OS 15 page.) Requires download of speech models. Available in German (Germany), English (Australia, Canada, India, UK, U.S.), Spanish (Spain, Mexico, U.S.), French (France), Japanese (Japan), Mandarin Chinese (China mainland), and Cantonese (Hong Kong)."
That opens up the possibility for the feature coming to Apple TV 4K (2nd generation), but Siri isn't something I use all that often on Apple TV.
Yeah, I realized it was very unlikely the A8 would be able to handle it after I wrote that, but I also wasn't necessarily referring to just the full-sized HomePod either. I suspect the S5 in the HomePod mini may qualify, since it's from the same era as the A12 Bionic.
Sadly, there's no mention of the feature on the watchOS 8 page, so it's an open question whether this will come to the Apple Watch at all. However, if it turns out the Apple Watch Series 5 can handle it, then the HomePod mini should be able to as well, since it's the same S5 chip.
That's an interesting point too, but since most of the requests I make to Siri on the Apple TV are for things like TV shows where it has to do an online catalog lookup anyway, it probably won't offer the same speed benefit. It's far easier to make non-content related Siri commands (for things like HomeKit) directly to my HomePod instead.
And still they should make an answer for Echo Dot. I'm not interested in sprinkling mediocre $99 speakers all over my house just to get enough Siri coverage. Dot for $35 makes so much more sense. Neither of them provides sound I'd actually like to stop to listen to and enjoy, but that's not what I'd want them for in the first place. To use any assistant it needs to hear me everywhere without me having to shout. Siri can't do that even in the car with Carplay. You need to mute music for it to hear anything. And even then it's half the time "calling mom..." -"no, no, f'n no!"