The innovators behind Siri left soon after the acquisition by Apple. Imagine a huge code base with no one around knowledgeable enough to make heads or tails of it, and that's what Apple "owns". They've been climbing out of that hole for years.
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HomePod Reviews: Outstanding Sound Quality, but Siri 'Struggles at Smart'
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I can see it now...
Burglar shouts through the letterbox, "Hey Siri, unlock the front door".
I ordered one. I hope it doesn’t turn into iPod Hi-Fi situation and Apple actually continues to invest in and evolve the product over time. It’s an expensive speaker but reviews and the technical data support the cost.
Comparisons to Amazon Echo, in particular, seem poorly placed. The Echo has a basic woofer half the size and one tweeter. Amazon is notorious for making cheap, inferior products that only gain market share because of the extremely low cost and Prime integration. Sonos products are a much better comparison.
After thinking about it for a while, I think the value is there for someone like me who already has a complete Apple ecosystem consisting of iOS devices, including Apple TV and already subscribes to Apple Music. It’s clearly not intended for an Amazon Prime or Android fans.
The HomePod, if as good as some have suggested, could be a catalyst for improved Apple Music sales.
Comparisons to Amazon Echo, in particular, seem poorly placed. The Echo has a basic woofer half the size and one tweeter. Amazon is notorious for making cheap, inferior products that only gain market share because of the extremely low cost and Prime integration. Sonos products are a much better comparison.
After thinking about it for a while, I think the value is there for someone like me who already has a complete Apple ecosystem consisting of iOS devices, including Apple TV and already subscribes to Apple Music. It’s clearly not intended for an Amazon Prime or Android fans.
The HomePod, if as good as some have suggested, could be a catalyst for improved Apple Music sales.
My own theory about that: 3rd party streams may not work as well with the audio beam forming and/or acoustic adjustments as 1st party streams, i.e., it's not just the bit rate that determines quality of reproduction. There may be an additional layer of software/hardware interaction that isn't necessarily possible with 3rd party sources through AirPlay. So, for example, the separation may not seem as wide with a 3rd party stream and that's the actual quality difference, not anything else.
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I think the big edge that the HomePod has over the HiFi in terms of longevity is that it's an actual technology platform for Apple. HiFi was just a nicely designed shelf speaker with an iPod connection built-in. It didn't contain any hardware or software that tied in to the rest of Apple's products, thus easier to discard from the lineup.
The price per pair is irrelevant. How much bass it can produce from a 4” driver is what matters, to show what’s possible in the industry. This is all my post was about.
Yes but I tried each of the other Sonos speakers which obviously costed more than the One and returned all of them. For audio I was not spending that money on them from what I heard.
We will see if I return the HomePod.
That's exactly what I thought the HomePod would do for those that are integrated into the Apple ecosystem, sad if it doesn't considering folks are spending dang near 400 for a wireless speaker.
I already have my own setup so I have no use for this, but I am interested to see what people (that pay for it) say about the device after using it for awhile. I will say Apple's marketing is top notch cause a speaker that has features that I'm sure people already use with their current setup is generating this much controversy.
I have Alexa setup for a few convenient things like turning on the TV, changing to the channel I ask for, and adding stuff to my AnyList app. It is nice to have these features and since the Dot doesn't take up any space, I see no reason to throw it out.
I bought the Google Home Mini just to try it out in my home office while they were practically giving them away over the holidays. I wanted to be able to turn on my TV, switch to Youtube and play something I haven't seen by a creator of my choice. It ALWAYS plays the last video and works its way back. The thing that makes this so frustrating is that it knows what I have seen because I set it up with the same account. I have tried several different commands to get it to start somewhere else and it doesn't work. Let me know if I am missing something because I don't even have a use for the thing unless a child of a friend visits the house and asks why the sky is blue.
For Netflix, I have to get out the remote anyway, so it isn't something I ever use. I don't have a default Netflix show. However, this does show how people use all of these devices differently. The HomePod doesn't do a lot of the things that Alexa, and to a lesser extent Google, do. However, it doesn't have to because I bought it for a different purpose and if does those things well, then it was worth it for me.
.. and the problem with homepod is *drumroll* SIRI!
hey siri t.. DING
HEY SIRI - DING
HEY SIRI - nothing happens
hey siri, turn off the lights
(me every evening talking to my iphone, while my gf is laughing at me)
no thanks i stay with sonos for now
Get off your lazy butt and turn them off yourself; the tiny amount of exertion won't kill you!
It's important to note that the complaint is actually about all manner of 3rd party iOS apps that don't have more native integration. Not allowing something like Spotify is one thing, as it directly competes with Apple Music, but the problem is that disallowance (by way of not providing Siri intents/integrations) is also locking out many wonderful iOS only Apps for things like podcasts via apps like Overcast (and many others).
That move is actively hurting it's own product for its own customers in a way that has nothing to do with competitive concerns with other music streaming services.
I really hope they open Siri up a bit. Honestly, what does it say about your own music service if it doesn't win and keep customers on its merits in a more open ecosystem/competition.
If Apple Music is so amazing, open things up a touch and let customers decide with their wallet.
This has been a gripe of mine for a while.
For someone that DOES have 100% of my tech toys from the Apple ecosystem.... it's frustrating that siri doesn't link them better. "She" should be able to link all content and devices on my iCloud account.
Why can't I ask my Apple TV 4 to do something on my iPhone?
Why can't I ask my iPhone to do something on my TV?
Siri... as a more natural AI assistant... has a LONG way to go.
No one impedes Apple from licensing better (Google, Amazon) technology, as they do with Samsung OLED screens, where their own tech failure becomes so elementary.
SiriKit will expand further. I wouldn’t be surprised if this discussion is moot by this year’s WWDC. Maybe they’ll need another year or two.
A lot of malice (“not allowing”; “competitive reasons”) is being attributed to something that could simply boil down to engineering priorities.
Certainly possible....but 3rd party devs have been waiting a long time already (way before HomePod was even a thing).
It's pretty frustrating how slow things are going in this regard.
I'm not really sure why anyone is defending how slow Apple has been with Siri progress (I'm not saying you are).
The question is, was focusing on a high quality speaker the right way to go or should HomePod have been Apple’s announcement of a new computing platform/OS (siriOS)? Some would argue it’s a missed opportunity. Of course Siri can improve over time but the fact that Apple is playing up sound quality and playing down Siri makes me wonder how much Apple is focusing on Siri as the next computing platform. We don’t get any leaks or puff pieces about what teams inside Apple are doing with Siri. Cook talks a lot about how he thinks AR is profound but we don’t hear him talk nearly as much about AI (which is what Google’s CEO said is the most important thing in tech right now).
there's a difference in licensing a component to make a product and licensing a service that will basically admit their products are inferior. Apple is not about to license anythign from Amazon to replace a service that they have continually promoted as being superior. Actually no company will talk up about great their service/product is and then turn around and license the competitors, that's very poor business
Actually makes you wonder if this is part of the real reason they didn't want a line-in jack on the HomePod (which would have made it far more useful over the longer term of its potential life).
I'll bet a fair number of people (not even close to a majority though) would have just plugged an Echo dot/Google option into the thing and actually had a good AI experience.
Siri is such a joke. They need to load up on making it so much better, so much faster.
I can't remember the exact questions as I don't use Siri very often but most of the time when it happened it was either an entertainment question (when was a certain movie released or when is a certain new movie going to be released) or it was a more detailed travel question such as "how far is it from here to (some point of interest such as a restaurant or business). In any event, you are correct, the questions were more complex than looking up a simple fact like the 32nd president or the height of Mt. Everest. They were questions that would require a little more "intelligence" in understanding a natural language question then finding an appropriate response.
This is not a deal breaker for me, I will probably still get a HomePod for my living room and over time I will probably upgrade all my automated lights to controls that are HomeKit compatible. As others have pointed out, my main use of my Echos is to turn lights and TV on and off or change the thermostat. However, even after getting a HomePod I will probably keep my Echos for questions that Siri can't answer. I use Echo for playing music on occasion but I expect I will listen to music much more often on the HomePod because of the higher quality sound.
But Apple was never going to try and compete with an Echo Dot or the cheap, terrible sounding Echo and regular Google Home (which I have a few of). If they are going to do any type of speaker, they're going to keep it at their standards. This is no different than not competing with $300 laptops at Best Buy, or $200 Android phones. They don't let other companies dictate their standards.
So all 4” drivers are created equal? Not at all.
Here’s a Klipsch bookshelf with a 5.25” that goes down to 48 Hz.
http://assets.klipsch.com/product-specsheets/RP-150M-Spec-Sheet.pdf
Here’s another (cheaper) Klipsch bookshelf with a 5.25” driver that only goes down to 62 Hz.
http://assets.klipsch.com/product-specsheets/R-15M-Spec-Sheet.pdf
I wonder if the higher price of the first one allowed them to use better materials and a higher priced woofer to achieve those results, ala PSB vs HomePod...
They know that Spotify has been around for a lot longer (2008 vs 2015 is a lifetime in the tech world), had a built in client base already, have a freemium advantage, etc. Apple has their ecosystem to compete with all of these things. It would be dumb from a management stand point to not use all of their advantages when they are so late to the streaming game. The problem is that many people wouldn't have even tried Apple Music if they didn't give it advantages inside their ecosystem, so any "merits" would be irrelevant.
Personally, I don't see the HomePod, even if it isn't as successful as they want it to be, to change their overall focus of building up an Apple-centric ecosystem around their iOS devices.
As for Overcast, it is my podcast player of choice, so it would be nice for it to work with Siri. They could have exclusives down the road, but Apple has their own podcast app that will work with HomePod out of the gate, so I will probably segregate out a few podcasts for their app (since I mainly listen to podcasts away from the house). Not ideal, but it will still work better than the Echo's approach to podcasts...which is non-existent.
BTW, I think they can and will make Siri better. Though, I think there will be limitations to the HomePod in that area because it doesn't have the same level of security as a watch or phone. Personally, I won't even have messages or notes turned on. I just don't think this type of access is needed on a speaker that anyone can access while I am home.
That's basically all I care about too (3rd party apps in general) as I don't use any of the streaming services, but I do listen to a TON of podcasts.
For a user similar to me, the HomePod is just a fancy AirPlay speaker for now. Maybe I'll be interested if it ever grows in its capabilities, but it currently has no advantages on my existing speakers all over the house wired into AirPlay right now.
I have a high quality HiFi set up in my living room and can stream my iTunes library through it on an old Apple TV with that magical little optical out into a high end Arcam DAC which makes it sound absolutely splendiferous. That won't change. My Homepod is going in the kitchen so that I can have decent quality audio in a small discreet package and stream my nicely Matched iTunes library. I couldn't care less about Spotify, don't use it, no need to.
Siri will give me someone to shout Ramsay'esque obscenities at when I'm cooking and rockin'.
I suspect that there are a lot of old farts like me, already in the Apple ecosystem, happy there and who care about music quality at what in HiFi terms is still low cost.
Might even add Apple Music now...
Siri will give me someone to shout Ramsay'esque obscenities at when I'm cooking and rockin'.
I suspect that there are a lot of old farts like me, already in the Apple ecosystem, happy there and who care about music quality at what in HiFi terms is still low cost.
Might even add Apple Music now...