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

[deanthedev]

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...

Where did I say all 4" drivers are equal? My original point still stands - speakers with a 4" driver can easily go well below 100Hz (which is what the poster I replied to claimed).

If you're looking for cheaper versions I suggest checking out Kanto, Plugable or Edifier for examples of self powered speakers in the $150 range (for a single speaker) that can also go well below 100Hz.

 

[vipergts2207]

Where did I say all 4" drivers are equal? My original point still stands - speakers with a 4" driver can easily go well below 100Hz (which is what the poster I replied to claimed).

If you're looking for cheaper versions I suggest checking out Kanto, Plugable or Edifier for examples of self powered speakers in the $150 range (for a single speaker) that can also go well below 100Hz.

I’m convinced the HomePod will not only go lower still, but will have greater output.

The above, is the point I was responding to. You seem to think the cheaper woofer in the HomePod will be able to outperform the more expensive one in the PSB (at least in low-end FR and output), which is almost certainly not going to be the case. Hence why I posted examples of more expensive woofers of the same size going lower than cheaper ones. More money is there to use better, more capable materials. Not to mention, much of HomePod's cost is going into electronics, taking away available funds from the drivers.

 

[Uofmtiger]

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.

It shouldn't be too hard to switch some of them to the Podcast app. I mainly use the Podcast app for video podcasts that I watch on the AppleTV, so I have mainly used Overcast for the stuff I listen to on my iPhone. I will just put a couple shows that I regularly listen to into the Podcast app. It has been so long since I used the Podcast app directly, I may actually benefit from switching to it. The ability to use Siri with Carplay will be a nice addition. Right now, I have to do a lot of fiddling with the touch screen to get to a podcast if I don't already have it playing.

I have a small Airplay speaker in my kitchen that retailed for $299 when it first came to market. It is called the Phillips SoundRing, so paying $350 for a HomePod really isn't that ridiculous even if it was just being used as an Airplay speaker....especially since it will soon have Airplay 2 which will make the Airplay speakers seem old in comparison.

That being said, this product is really aimed at Apple Music subscribers at this point. That is a pretty large base of 36 million and growing they can focus on for now. I do think they will add some additional Siri features down the road, but like I said, I am not sure I will ever add very many of them because of the inherent security/privacy issues of this type of device compared to the iPhone. For Apple Music, Airplay, and Homekit, it will be great for my needs, though.

 

[dallas112678]

It seems odd that it took an overpriced stereo speaker to publicize the fact that Siri is extraordinarily lame. Surely those reviewer knew that previously.

I'm sure they did, it's just with a "smart" speaker there aren't many other redeeming factors compared to a phone, etc...

 

[raghu8912]

Apple's ignorance on Siri's development in recent years is really starting to show up. Siri has become the Village idiot among smart assistants.

That's because Tim is obsessed with privacy, which is both good & bad, Siri, Google Now, Alexa need data to accurately answer the questions, and this data comes from users.
[doublepost=1518043793][/doublepost]

Stop and breathe for a second.

1) They could be working on a massive update to be released soon.
2) Siri is not as bad as you read here.
3) She can answer frequently asked questions and perform basic tasks flawlessly.
4) Most of Siri's criticisms are vague, "She sucks" and "Google is better" but no one specifies at what.
5) Siri works very well for what I need in a voice assistant. TRYING to trick voice assistant in arbitrary testing is not real world relevant. I don't care if a voice assistant can talk politics or rap better than Siri.

What exactly do you ask Siri that she can't answer? I have use Siri all the time and never have such obvious problems.

I haven't use other AI (Alexa, Google), but the problem i have is below.
1) Siri call XYZ (from my contacts)
2) Which phone number ?
3) Mobile
this is where it fails, i don't know why, may be Siri is not listening, i see all phone numbers on the screen for that contact, is Siri expecting mw to tap on the phone number ?

Siri should either know most called number for that contact & call that number if i don't specify, or be in listening mode when i say Mobile or Home.

 

[Commentist]

Exactly. I always wonder what amazing things Alexa supposedly is able to do, but when asking for real world examples, there are always crickets.

SO, ALEXA ENTHUSIASTS, GIVE US REAL-WORLD EXAMPLES OF THE AMAZING THINGS IT CAN DO THAT SIRI CAN‘T.

Controls my heating, outdoor lights, coffee machine, and entertainment system (all non-Apple devices that don't have Homekit integration). Consistently understands what I and my wife say to it, with only occasional hiccups. Acts as an intercom. Allows me to keep an eye on elderly relatives.

I have tried Siri a few times, but I've not found it to be very useful or accurate. There are also Alexa skills for a lot of home automation devices. That means I can use cheap and effective solutions rather than being limited to a few manufacturers.

 

[vipergts2207]

Controls my heating, outdoor lights, coffee machine, and entertainment system (all non-Apple devices that don't have Homekit integration). Consistently understands what I and my wife say to it, with only occasional hiccups. Acts as an intercom. Allows me to keep an eye on elderly relatives.

I have tried Siri a few times, but I've not found it to be very useful or accurate. There are also Alexa skills for a lot of home automation devices. That means I can use cheap and effective solutions rather than being limited to a few manufacturers.

I’ve never had too many issues with Siri, especially with regard to home control. The thing HomeKit has the Alexa doesn’t is a robust built-in automation system. Alexa, at least to my knowledge, requires IFTTT for some of the functionality that’s built into HomeKit. I used IFTTT in the past and there seemed to be some latency that doesn’t exist with HomeKit.

 

[Zeke92]

I just did.. It's an Airplay speaker. I will wait for version 2/3 or for when Apple decides to release a Smart AI speaker.

It's not only an AirPlay speaker. It streams over wifi as its main functionality. Airplay is used when you have another music source. For example, when you stream from your phone. Spotify for example. This speaker streams from the wifi network itself when playing from apple music. Go look at what Sonos does. I have a Sonos, but this will honestly improve in about 6 months time. It's mostly lacking from the software standpoint.

 

[ErikGrim]

To be quite honest, it's not even an AirPlay speaker. It streams over wifi. Airplay is used when you have another music source. For example, when you stream from your phone. Spotify for example.

Huh? It does both.

 

[Michael Goff]

Huh? It does both.

People sure are quick to try to correct, often to their own detriment as you see with the person you quoted.

 

[Zeke92]

Huh? It does both.

I'm responding to the the other person's comment in which they call it an AirPlay speaker. Airplay is a functionality of the speaker as a whole. I'm attempting to defend the HomePod. The original poster, in my opinion, was attempting to downgrade the functionality of the HomePod by calling it an AirPlay speaker. If it was only an AirPlay speaker, that would imply that you had to always use an outside source to push the music to the speaker instead of the speaker having the ability to stream the music directly.
[doublepost=1518053780][/doublepost]

People sure are quick to try to correct, often to their own detriment as you see with the person you quoted.

No, both you and the person who quoted just misunderstood my admittedly poorly written comment. Please see comment above.

 

[ErikGrim]

I'm responding to the the other person's comment in which they call it an AirPlay speaker. Airplay is a functionality of the speaker as a whole. I'm attempting to defend the HomePod. The original poster, in my opinion, was attempting to downgrade the functionality of the HomePod by calling it an AirPlay speaker.

Right. Person is on my ignore list so I didn’t see that it was a reply, hence my confusion.

 

[Michael Goff]

I'm responding to the the other person's comment in which they call it an AirPlay speaker. Airplay is a functionality of the speaker as a whole. I'm attempting to defend the HomePod. The original poster, in my opinion, was attempting to downgrade the functionality of the HomePod by calling it an AirPlay speaker. If it was only an AirPlay speaker, that would imply that you had to always use an outside source to push the music to the speaker instead of the speaker having the ability to stream the music directly.
[doublepost=1518053780][/doublepost]
No, both you and the person who quoted just misunderstood my admittedly poorly written comment. Please see comment above.

Mea Culpa.

 

[missyagogo]

This reminds me of the good ole days of Betamax vs VHS.

"Google Home vs Amazon Echo vs Apple Homepod."

Wish Homepod was more open.

The most open technology may win this race.

 

[Michael Goff]

This reminds me of the good ole days of Betamax vs VHS.

"Google Home vs Amazon Echo vs Apple Homepod."

Wish Homepod was more open.

The most open technology may win this race.

A) There’s no winning a race that never ends.
B) Linux on the Desktop?

 

[KeithJenner]

I haven't use other AI (Alexa, Google), but the problem i have is below.
1) Siri call XYZ (from my contacts)
2) Which phone number ?
3) Mobile
this is where it fails, i don't know why, may be Siri is not listening, i see all phone numbers on the screen for that contact, is Siri expecting mw to tap on the phone number ?

Siri should either know most called number for that contact & call that number if i don't specify, or be in listening mode when i say Mobile or Home.

Outside of controlling our lights, what you describe is probably the thing I use Siri for the most, and it works fine for me pretty well every time.

I agree that it really should have noticed that I always phone the wife on her mobile, but I’ve rarely (if ever) any problem with the secondary question.

 

[Bacillus]

They don't let other companies dictate their standards.

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

Every Apple device carries numerous licenses and Apple's overabundant appraisal of their own screens immediately ceased after licensing OLED.
So corporate arrogance can be overcome. When it comes to Siri - with billions of users being affected every moment by one of the greatest fiasco's in IT - finding an alternative has become indispensable. Apple may become inspired when finding out HomePod sales become impeded by Siri (which may affect them more than the customers' experience)

 

[Hiran]

Can't wait for some real audio reviewers to review these devices.

"Real audio" sounded familiar. Gosh I'm getting old.

 

[Black Tiger]

People are upset that a speaker designed to play music doesn’t notify your when you have new messages? Call me old fashioned but the last thing I want when listening to music is for the speaker to be interrupted by some alert sound. I am thoroughly amazed that people can’t get over Apple’s refusal to play by the “rules” set by other companies. Were these the same people who complained about the elimination of a physical keyboard on the original iPhone and said it would fail? Or the ones who said the iPad would fail because it was “just a big iPhone”? Or that the Apple Watch would fail because it had to be charged each day? Because I’m losing track of all these failed predictions of doom hurled at everything Apple does by people who should have learned better by now.
[doublepost=1518091627][/doublepost]

I’d argue this is Apples entry into home audio, not home assistant. I’m not saying they shouldn’t compete there, or extend HomePod to include home assistant features beyond HomeKit. They should. But they have been pretty clear about their initial focus.

Bingo. Why compete in a market when you can create a new one instead? Watch all of these competitors copy Apple’s approach in a year or two.
[doublepost=1518091935][/doublepost]

This reminds me of the good ole days of Betamax vs VHS.

"Google Home vs Amazon Echo vs Apple Homepod."

Wish Homepod was more open.

The most open technology may win this race.

History shows that Apple’s approach has worked just fine for them. The Apple Watch is a companion product just like HomePod, and has sold very well. I’m all for open standards, but not if the proprietary ones are superior. Apple has traditionally embraced standards that are good (USB c for example) and rejected the bad.

 

[mlody]

The Verge's review is spot on. Not having ability to support multiple users/family this device is no go for me no matter how good it sounds!

Is Apple really expecting each family member to have its own speaker? This is dumb and there is nothing smart about it.

There should be a web interface or iOS app to pair this speaker with multiple icloud accounts. Those accounts then should have access to all data that Siri has access to and respond to their respective owners. If they have this, then I can call this a smart speaker, otherwise, at this point it is as dumb as a rock and Siri on HomePod does not provide a single benefit compared to Siri on iPhone as far as I can tell.

 

[jeffself]

On the other hand, still no reviews comparing HomePod to quality traditional speakers.

It's pretty obvious this isn't going to replace my surround sound system with speakers from 2001. That will sound far better than the HomePod ever could. The only reason I'd consider getting this is to work something like a sound bar for my TV in my home office. It would be nice to have a better sound in that room. But there's no way it replace what's in my family room.

 

[scotth23]

So here's a question:

My iTunes purchases are all under an old address I bought things from before MobileMe came out. I have since had to keep purchasing from that account and since Apple won't let people merge their iTunes accounts with their iCloud accounts, I'll have to keep it that way for the foreseeable future.

However, I have used my iCloud account for everything else related to my iOS devices and Mac. Recently, I had to switch myMessages sync across devices from my old iTunes email address to my iCloud account.

So my question is... will people who do all things iTunes on email addy's that are not their iCloud accounts have issues using the HomePod?

 

[DaveOP]

Every Apple device carries numerous licenses and Apple's overabundant appraisal of their own screens immediately ceased after licensing OLED.
So corporate arrogance can be overcome. When it comes to Siri - with billions of users being affected every moment by one of the greatest fiasco's in IT - finding an alternative has become indispensable. Apple may become inspired when finding out HomePod sales become impeded by Siri (which may affect them more than the customers' experience)

Not sure why you quoted me here, your response seems to have very little to do with my comment.

 

[Supereditor]

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.

[doublepost=1518129350][/doublepost]I bought a Google Mini over Christmas and am often surprised by the interesting things you can successfully get it to do. When I have tried to get Siri to duplicate the tasks, there’s about an 80% failure rate. Is Siri constantly failing to do things I ask? No, because I’ve learned that there’s not much she can do and have stopped asking for anything but music and weather.
[doublepost=1518129684][/doublepost]

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.

I blast Google for not working with Apple Music. I prefer Apple Music, and the only thing preventing me from filling the House with Google Home devices is that it doesn’t work with Apple Music. I may still buy a HomePod when it gets to the point that you can stream the same thing in multiple rooms, but if Google adds Apple Music control first (unlikely) that won’t happen.

The fact that they are all entrenched in their proprietary systems is a pain and each company deserves to be bashed for that.

 

[ErikGrim]

So here's a question:

My iTunes purchases are all under an old address I bought things from before MobileMe came out. I have since had to keep purchasing from that account and since Apple won't let people merge their iTunes accounts with their iCloud accounts, I'll have to keep it that way for the foreseeable future.

However, I have used my iCloud account for everything else related to my iOS devices and Mac. Recently, I had to switch myMessages sync across devices from my old iTunes email address to my iCloud account.

So my question is... will people who do all things iTunes on email addy's that are not their iCloud accounts have issues using the HomePod?

No. I have separate iTunes and iCloud accounts and never had any issue with iOS devices or AppleTV. I don’t foresee HomePod being any different in this regard.