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

[mytdave]

Siri has struggled with "smart" for quite some time now. Actually, it's a little embarrassing for the richest company on the planet.

 

[mazz0]

...but don't leave out key detail: You can just play off your iTunes library via Airplay

If OP wants Siri voice control for their library, they need an Apple subscription (AM or Match).

If OP is OK with Siri-less Airplay, they can accomplish the same with a number of OTHER Apple products even TV, where Siri voice-control already exists.

Do you mean iTunes library as in stuff you've added yourself (say ripped from CD, or torrented, for example), not just stuff bought from iTunes? Yeah, for that he'd need an iTunes Match subscription, but that costs bugger all so why not. For stuff he's bought in iTunes it'll just work, no AirPlay or iTunes Match or Apple Music required.

 

[neutralguy]

In a corner is exactly where you shouldn't put traditional speakers, because that's where they sound worst.

One market will be all those people who want decent sound quality, while the housewife doesn't want any big, ugly box in the living room.

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

This. The more I read about HomePod, I feel like I am reading the marketing leaflet of Bose Accoustimass.. or whatever they called for those tiny speakers. Their marketing has been WAF and also look the speakers are so tiny, yet they give you full sound!!

 

[anson42]

I'm actually only a little bit curious how HomePod stacks up with conventional speakers, mostly for the frequency response aspect – like does it have a mid bass suck out, a 5KHz spike that is fatiguing, etc. – but the single speaker, active room response and portable nature of the speaker almost makes the comparison moot. The fact that I can use HomePod in rooms where I don't want to anchor a stereo sound system makes for different utility. Basically, this thing doesn't need to sound like a $349 stereo pair of speakers (minus the cost of amplification and streaming source) to be considered a useful product; it just has to sound good for how I'd like to use it. Your mileage may vary, yada yada...

 

[mazz0]

Stop calling it "Smart speaker" when in reality, this is just another bluetooth speaker. Siri is anything but smart.

Updated: Just found out, you can't even use it as BT speaker.. It fails at the basics. I will keep my Alexa for now and keep ordering Uber/Pizza/grocery... etc..

Not being usable as a bluetooth speaker would only be a case of "failing at the basics" if it was a bluetooth speaker. Which it's not.

 

[DoctorTech]

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.

I am not familiar at all with Bixby but I own 5 Echos and I can say from first hand experience that Alexa is much "smarter" than Siri.

For starters, the speech recognition on Alexa is better than Siri. I would estimate <1% of the time I have to repeat a question to Alexa but >10% of the time I have to repeat a question to Siri.

But I think the bigger difference is that Alexa was originally designed to be voice response only (no screen) while Siri was originally designed to work with a screen. Whenever I ask Alexa a question, the vast majority of the time I get a specific answer to a specific question and on rare occasion I get some variation of "I don't know that". With Siri, at least half the time I ask a question I get a response of, "here is what I found on the web" and a list of links appear on my iPhone screen which allows me to interact with some links to try to find what I was looking for. If I am in a situation where I can look at my screen and use my hands, this is may be helpful as compared to having to type a question into a search engine. However, I would greatly prefer Alexa's approach of telling me the answer she found rather than helping me search for it on my own.

 

[TonyC28]

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.

They have. I just think their approach is a mistake.

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

The watch has more of an ubiquitous use case and is very different than this. With how focused we are as a society on health and accessibility, the watch obviously will have a better fit for people on a day to day basis. Price point it was also accessible.

On the other hand, this speaker seems to be attracting and targeting a very specific niche of Apple users (if evident on this forum). Most people who know audio will probably not care for this as a replacement for any home sound setup. Many people already have Alexas/Homes and don't really have a need for this outside of it being a speaker.

So exactly what void are they filling here other than trying to catch up to the competition in this space? I think I would've been happier if Apple would just focused on pricing a decent speaker without Siri to be honest.

Don't be confused. I'm no big fan of this particular Apple product myself (I was mostly hoping it would drive a big Siri (brains) upgrade that might move to all Apple products). Regardless, if there was a casino for this, I'd bet this thing will outsell the Watch. Yes, I understand your points about the watch but it too has a pretty heavy dependency on buyers owning an iPhone. I'd say, check the numbers by even this time next year (post holiday season) and HP may have more units in use than the Watch (with a couple of year's head start). Yes, that may be too optimistic but follow this up with a more flexible & smarter HP 2 product and my confidence in that bet would spike.

 

[Romy90210]

Not being usable as a bluetooth speaker would only be a case of "failing at the basics" if it was a bluetooth speaker. Which it's not.

So its just another Airplay speaker ? is Siri going to tell me to do a seach on Google when i have a question like it does on my iPhone x???

 

[neutralguy]

WhatHiFi gave it 5 out of 5 stars.

Yup.. that's why the website is called "whathifi".. the name itself questions the concept of HiFi..

 

[MarkB786]

Who is leading development of the HomePod? Sounds like another single-base hit by Apple. When will the next home run happen? Time to bench the current exec team. They are too rich to care anymore. No hunger. Lots of unrealized potential.

 

[Delgibbons]

Ask a simple question....siri replies "I found this on the web"

Load of crap.

Try asking "who owns Tommy hilfiger." For example. Google assistant finds and reads the actual answer, saying "pvh and dickson concepts."

Siri just does a glorified web search listing:

 

[neutralguy]

That Brian Chen review is bizarre. He actually says Google/Amazon had better "play some music" functionality because they would always default to playing the last thing he had on Spotify. Huh? That doesn't sound particularly "smart" to me. It will be interesting to test out whether his claims of Siri not choosing songs related to the Apple Music account it's registered with are really accurate. That part of his criticism sounds more like he never really set-up Apple Music to his personal tastes or even used it that much to generate recommendations.

Yes..bit only support HomePod without any question.. also find fault in any reviwer who has anything little negative to say about HomePod.

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

Do you mean iTunes library as in stuff you've added yourself (say ripped from CD, or torrented, for example), not just stuff bought from iTunes? Yeah, for that he'd need an iTunes Match subscription, but that costs bugger all so why not. For stuff he's bought in iTunes it'll just work, no AirPlay or iTunes Match or Apple Music required.

Right. Your own ripped (from CD) music is invisible to Siri unless you have an AM or Match subscription. But everything purchased via iTunes should be visible.

 

[OllyW]

So it fails to do even that ???? SMH Apple...

It doesn't fail to do it, it wasn't designed to stream over Bluetooth in the first place. You should read the reviews to get an idea what it actually does.

 

[Romy90210]

It doesn't fail to do it, it wasn't designed to stream over Bluetooth in the first place. You should read the reviews to get an idea what it actually does.

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.

 

[cardfan]

If we see Apple come out with a sub and soundbar for tv with two homepods in the back, then I might bite. Honestly I think they should've focused on speakers with apple tv in mind. No need to have that awful remote for siri.

 

[bozzykid]

I have no idea what you are talking about. HomePod has best privacy features of any smart speaker. It will clearly ask you if you want it to handle your messages or not. What's so hard here?

The "best privacy features"? Alexa and Google Assistant verify users with voice matching. HomePod will let anyone send/receive messages. And btw, the second question during the setup has a massive button to enable the feature and a small link to disable it. Apple is clearly making sure everyone enables this feature.

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

I'm actually only a little bit curious how HomePod stacks up with conventional speakers, mostly for the frequency response aspect – like does it have a mid bass suck out, a 5KHz spike that is fatiguing, etc.

Patience. The real reviews by the AV sources will come AFTER they can possess one. These "real reviews" are still hand-picked by Apple to receive pre-release HPs for early reviews. The AV reviewers after 2/9 will really pound these and share answers to those kinds of questions.

 

[indychris]

I read the headline of this and I thought "well yeah, that's exactly what we expected isn't it? Everyone know's Siri's rubbish as a means of gathering information" but then when I read the article I was surprised at some of the obvious omissions. You can't initiate a call from it? Are we sure that's not just a security feature that's set by default but can be changed?

Good question, but honestly, Siri is virtually useless to me regardless. I’m neither uncomfortable with the technology, nor unfamiliar with it, but Siri just doesn’t seem to like me. Often doesn’t understand what I say. I speak in public often and have never had anyone mention that I don’t speak clearly (too fast sometimes, yes!), but Siri doesn’t seem to get me. If I can’t speak naturally, then I’m really not interested. I also encounter the issue frequently (although most of the time I just disable Siri now) where my phone or watch suddenly say, “What was that?” Or “Sorry, could you please say that again?”—when I didn’t even say anything in the first place. The last thing I need is a speaker making calls to people indiscriminately when it thinks I’m talking to her, LOL.

 

[nwcs]

I seem to recall Apple saying they prioritized the sound experience and threw in Siri to control it. So it’s really solving a different type of problem than the Echo and Home. For most people, it will probably be good enough. I’ve got 2 Echos at home and they’re fine. I have no reason to upgrade, but Alexa can be just as annoying and problematic as Siri. When I tell Alexa to turn off/on a set of lights, often I’ll hear “There are several devices with the name {what I said}, which one do you mean?” And I’ll literally repeat it and she does it. Happens with my wife as well and we both did the speech training on the Echo. Most of the Echo skills are useless and trying to remember them is painful and how you invoke them is painful.

I’m not interested in the HomePod and Echo does just fine for my needs but, gee whiz, none of them are all that smart right now.

 

[DotCom2]

I would hope a speaker that costs $150 more than Sonos One sounds better.

The fact that it’s comparable says a lot about the value in Sonos One.

Or even better...Two Sonos Play One's as Stereo and an external Alexa for approx. the same price!

 

[anson42]

Wait you can’t even use Bluetooth to connect to the speaker? Is Apple on crack?

But it's not meant to be a Bluetooth speaker. First, AirPlay can and will stream higher quality than current BT. Second, this is a product meant for customers within the Apple Ecosystem where Bluetooth is not required. All Apple devices can stream music via AirPlay so why would this thing need to promote Bluetooth connectivity? Plus this is a cloud streaming device first and foremost where AirPlay support is secondary.

Now I do acknowledge that without Bluetooth this speaker is closed to non-AirPlay devices, closed to non-Apple consumers, thus limiting its possible market share. But since HomePod is tied closely to Apple properties, why would a non-Apple consumer want to spend $349 on this when they can spend much less for acceptable BT sound?

And no, I don't want my Android toting friends trying to connect to my HomePod anyways. Ha

 

[deanthedev]

It's funny how the narrative regarding HomePod reviews went from:

"We need to wait until actual reviewers get to try it outside of Apples controlled listening tests."

to

"We need to wait until we get reviews from actual audio testers, and not regular tech reviewers who don't understand audio."


Nothing like moving the goalposts so people can continue to question the audio quality of the HomePod.

 

[0982786]

...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.

ALL THE TIME. And secondly, Siri is an it, not a she.

"Hey Siri, set a timer for 6 minutes" <display slowly shows Siri transcribing what I said....then nothing happens>

While I'm waiting I also shout "Hey Google, set a timer for 6 minutes" and it happens immediately.

A couple of weeks ago I said "Hey Siri" to my iPhone and nothing happened. I gave up and went back to whatever I was doing. About 90 seconds later my phone lit up and now Siri was now listening.