HomePod Reviews: Outstanding Sound Quality, but Siri 'Struggles at Smart'

[rtomyj]

So silly conversations like that are important and fun these days? Maybe for kids I suppose.

Much rather have an assistant that does basic tasks well. The smart answers are nice. It not something I would ever use. Just play my music, podcasts, reminders, weather, my lights

That’s all I need a voice assistant for

Commentary of what's going on this site, bud.

Siri doe all these things for me. I also use her for some light computation, conversions, music recognition, and viewing notes. Flawlessly about 95% of the time.

 

[Frobozz]

Same. I get the news and weather from my Echo while I get ready for work. Sounds like the HomePod can do the same thing.

On a side note: Every review I've seen blasting the HomePod for not allowing Spotify to work with it. Does anyone blast Amazon or Google for not being able to use iTunes? I'm firmly tranched in the Apple ecosystem and it sounds like the HomePod would work for me just fine.

Great points! I agree. People pick sides for efficiencies. Sometimes we mix and match, too— but criticism that I can only do Apple Music isn’t criticism to me. It’s a fair point to make, sure. Unless you’re buying an expensive Sonos or comparable set and have other complicated devices hooked up, this is THE home audio aficionado solution if you’re in the Apple ecosystem. If your not, there aren’t great simple to use solutions. As always, people will umderestimate the value of simplicity in the equation.

 

[mcarthon]

for 350 bucks this thing needs to better than all the competition and just in sound quality isnt enough. Apple is supposed to be groundbreaking with a new product release. Right now its just an average smart speaker with above average to great sound quality. But great sound quality really isnt that exciting. Just my opinion. I own an alexa but just the echo version and its basically used for its smart features and not a stereo. So its a much better option for me at 30 bucks. I have nice wireless speakers already.

if they come out with a cheaper/smaller version i may be interested if they improve siri that is.

 

[Will.O.Bie]

Either they take Siri in the backyard and just whack her or they need to completely overhaul that horrible "assistant". It's like pulling infected teeth without anesthesia using Siri. I even completely turned off that function on any of my devices that have Siri. They can't have their heads so high up in the clouds that they think everyone is happy using that feature.

 

[Glideslope]

Once again a devices full potential is castrated by Siri. So embarrassing, but WTH iPhone sales are up, right?

 

[mcarthon]

I don't really care. Siri works fine for me. Dictation works excellent. The last thing I want is google or amazon in my house.

so you never shop amazon products? or use google search?!?! Because if you do google and amazon are already in your house...

 

[MachCrit]

First and foremost, since this thing is a Speaker, I want excellent sound quality. Too many settle for crummy audio from streaming software or speaker hardware. The smart assistant thing is secondary, and I really wonder how many average users routinely use these things to read email, make calls and so forth. Guess I am just not there yet. No way I'm going to stand there and ask any smart device questions and wait for it to play back who knows what?

Everyone is different. All I want is good quality, and Airplay capability to play content from my devices while I work out. Sonos 1 is a PITA to do that right now. Hopefully Airplay 2 will address that.

What do you typically use the "smart features" for? Is it a novelty that wears off, or do you actually make phone calls and do research on your speaker?

 

[cambookpro]

Top 3 Amazon requests

Set a timer
Check the weather
Play a song

Top 3 for Google

Check the weather
Play a song
Set a timer

Sport score requests only 10%

Add an item to your todo list 5%

Siri can do all of that.

And it does a lot of these things very poorly compared to the alternatives.

I am pretty entrenched in the Apple ecosystem: Mac, iPhone, Watch, AirPods, etc. but the one place I stray is music and speakers. I subscribe to Spotify for the vastly better music discovery (I tried Apple Music for the trial, maybe it's become better, but Spotify gives me multiple personalised playlists each week and a selection of personalised daily mixes - it's hard to beat), have Sonos speakers and a Google Home.

Google Assistant is better even at the simple things: it can set multiple timers, which Siri can't do. It can have a conversation with me, when asking about the weather you can reply with a 'what about in Birmingham?', something Siri can't do. Google Assistant can play songs from Google Play and Spotify, radio from TuneIn, whilst Siri is limited to Apple Music - fine if you're a subscriber, extremely limited if you're not.

Google's attitude to privacy is a genuine concern, but that can't be the biggest selling point for Siri. It has to be able to stand on its own. It's disappointing, because the HomePod looks like some stellar hardware.

 

[Theophilos]

These reviews are a bit discouraging to me as an early HomePod adopter (expecting mine on Friday.)

While I do enjoy professional audio, I purchased HomePod more for its smart capabilities as a replacement for my 1st generation Amazon Echo. Early on, when HomeKit was nowhere near ready, Amazon Echo offered seamless integration for our home's WeMo devices, but with the release of the new WeMo bridge for HomeKit compatibility, we wanted to go all in with HomeKit. I thought HomePod would be a nice addition, but it sounds as though it will actually do much less than the Echo.

I suppose the bright side is my children won't be able to "accidentally" order any toys from Amazon anymore...

 

[Stella]

blah blah blah oversell something, blah blah blah... Hmm oh I've used them and blah blah blah that's only true in search where I never use assistants ... But, hey, you hold the truth blah blah blah and your use case is universal.

Are you having a stroke?

None of what you've typed actually makes any sense. Its gibberish.

 

[hr10]

The reviews are on par with my expectations. The lack of Siri features compare to other are not surprising because Apple likes to roll out extra features through software updates. Just Look at all previous Apple products. More importantly it sounds great!

 

[macduke]

Apple has enormous brand momentum. This will sell very well. Apple claims nearly 40M paying AM subscribers already. If 5% of them decide to buy a HP, 2M HPs at $349 = $698M in revenues. If they want a stereo pair, that doubles to nearly $1.4B in revenues. A lot of companies in the world would love to be able to package up a speaker and quickly make hundreds of millions to more than a billion in new revenues.

HP is also heavy on the ecosystem lock-in. Those who buy are likely to maintain a subscription to AM for the long-term.

Is this an iPhone-level impact product? No, but really, what will be? Can this sell as well as the Watch? Maybe? Probably? If so, the Watch volume is considered a pretty big success.

That written, I wish it was fully baked out of the box myself and I wish Siri was significantly smartened up so that the "smarts" side was being reviewed as favorably as the "quality of sound" side. But Apple being Apple, I have little doubt that this will sell well. Apple could box air right now and probably sell it in the millions.

Yeah, but the thing is if this thing doesn't sell half as well as Echo then most companies are going to release Echo-compatible devices and services and ignore HomePod. HomeKit has already had really slow uptake compared to competing services that are more open and easier to implement. And I'm all about security and privacy so I hope Apple can make it work. I'm just saying they need to do better. I want to buy this stuff. I won't buy the competition but I also don't want to miss out on a future where I can easily do everything with my voice (because I don't want Google listening in on my conversations to sell me stuff) in my house because Apple can't figure it out and doesn't have the market penetration. Apple can't possibly make everything I want to use with HomePod.

 

[the future]

Here's one. I'm sitting at my desk upstairs in a loft right next to my iPhone. My Alexa is downstairs (30 feet away). I asked the same question to Siri and Alexa. I really want to use Siri. I own an iMac, Macbook Pro, Ipad Pro, Ipad Air 2, iPhone and Apple Watch. I have every incentive to use Siri. Siri doesn't work.

Siri:
View attachment 750121

Alexa:
View attachment 750122

Ok, seems there are two problems here. Siri apparently has problems understanding you (your voice). This is unfortunate. Also, Apple has repeatedly stressed that Siri is not meant as a fountain for general knowledge answers, so if this is something you want, Alexa/GA seem better bets. This sort of thing does not seem to be a core value for a smart assistant to me, though; it should help me if I want to do something, i.e. set a timer, turn on/off lights etc. if I want to know something, I would always prefer a visual search on a computer/tablet/phone.

 

[smirking]

Which is just BS. They probably assumed Airplay works via bluetooth, which it of course does not.

I don't think that was their point. They know that Homepod doesn't use Bluetooth. It was right at the start of the review.

 

[vipergts2207]

I'm hoping this will sound better then my klipsh 5.1 /Denon for music.

Won’t happen, though I have no doubt that the HomePod will sound great for what it is.

 

[smirking]

I don't think they're saying everything sounds lower quality over Airplay. I think the issue with "lower quality" may be that the music coming from those 3rd party sources can't get the same auto correction for the space like iTunes/Apple Music content. Airplay streams at CD quality, so it's not a technical bit-rate issue.

Well, I'll be very interested in hearing more about people's experiences with using Airplay with this then. I think a visit to an Apple Store in the coming weeks is in order.

 

[r4dbeard]

Nonsense. Post some real examples.

Siri = Alexa and is better than Bixby.

GoogleHome appears to be better, but how often do you ask Siri things she can't do or answer? What specifically does she struggle with?

I honestly think people here just repeat their negative thoughts on Siri based on what they read.

Siri has an inherent problem with mostly working with Apple devices and Apple software. I don't subscribe to Apple Music but I do subscribe to Spotify. Siri isn't allowed to communicate with Spotify but Alexa is. And Alexa is worlds more responsive than Siri has ever been for me. Alexa responds near perfectly every time while Siri lags just a bit too long to make her useless to me. If Siri could control Spotify or really any other software that isn't proprietary to Apple whether on the iPhone or Homepods then it could have the potential the reign supreme.

Open Siri up to the level that Alexa is open and you won't hear nearly as many people complaining.

 

[the future]

I don't think that was their point. They know that Homepod doesn't use Bluetooth. It was right at the start of the review.

Then I don‘t know what they were thinking or trying to say. The Airplay protocol absolutely doesn‘t degrade audio quality.

 

[The Game 161]

Either they take Siri in the backyard and just whack her or they need to completely overhaul that horrible "assistant". It's like pulling infected teeth without anesthesia using Siri. I even completely turned off that function on any of my devices that have Siri. They can't have their heads so high up in the clouds that they think everyone is happy using that feature.

Depends what you want out of an assistant

If you just want

Play music
Reminders
Podcasts
Weather
Switch lights on and off

Then Siri is fine for basic tasks. If you want more than google assistant and Alexa is better

 

[mackinmike]

so basically an overpriced speaker to be used within the walled garden.

 

[steve knight]

As I said, totally wrong. Actually, for playing music I find an "assistant" quite pointless. I prefer scrolling through the music that I have on my Mac, see lots of album titles, and pick one. Or do you think I can remember 1,000 artists, 2,000 albums and ten times more songs and tell some assistant what to play?

my wife is blind she remembers her music.

 

[whit2891]

Siri:
View attachment 750121

That's because you said "Golda" instead of "School,"

 

[w00master]

Ok, seems there are two problems here. Siri apparently has problems understanding you (your voice). This is unfortunate. Also, Apple has repeatedly stressed that Siri is not meant as a fountain for general knowledge answers, so if this is something you want, Alexa/GA seem better bets. This sort of thing does not seem to be a core value for a smart assistant to me, though; it should help me if I want to do something, i.e. set a timer, turn on/off lights etc. if I want to know something, I would always prefer a visual search on a computer/tablet/phone.

But that's an example on what Alexa can do but Siri can't.

That was the point.

Here's another one off the top of my head:

Try and ask Siri to do 2 timers. Good luck. Before you say anything, cooks often need more than one timer running.


[doublepost=1517940650][/doublepost]

Siri:
View attachment 750121

That's because you said "Golda" instead of "School,"

No, that's what Siri thought he/she said.

 

[babbit]

You guys shouldn't need to argue about whether the Echo or Homepod is better. Just get both and connect them together. For an extra $30 (equivalent to sales tax on the Homepod), you can get an echo dot with your HomePod. Connect them together with BT, and now you'll have the best assistant (Alexa) along with the best speaker (HomePod) in this segment. Now you can do stuff like voice command Spotify and also use non Home-kit connected smart home devices.

 

[w00master]

You guys shouldn't need to argue about whether the Echo or Homepod is better. Just get both and connect them together. For an extra $30 (equivalent to sales tax on the Homepod), you can get an echo dot with your HomePod. Connect them together with BT, and now you'll have the best assistant (Alexa) along with the best speaker (HomePod) in this segment. Now you can do stuff like voice command Spotify and also use non Home-kit connected smart home devices.

Except Homepod doesn't do Bluetooth.