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

[Stella]

I have never used Google Assistant, but i guarantee I’m not missing anything. Google makes ugly products and their
assistant sounds like it’s still in its alpha stages.

The quality between Google Assistant and Siri is day and night. I suggest you try it before saying "I guarantee... blah blah", and you'll find out the significant shortcomings of Siri.
[doublepost=1517933442][/doublepost]

-----

Does Homepod integrate with IFTTT, and other such workflows to extend its capabilities?

 

[OllyW]

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.

I think that was posted in reply to another member asking whether any results had been published listing the frequency response of the HomePod to compare against conventional speakers. I think we will have to wait for specialist reviewers to get their hands on the HomePod before we get to see that level of detail in a review.

 

[neutralguy]

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

I assume you had the same response when Apple boasted about animoji.. and wanted people to buy a 1000$ phone to use that feature.

 

[DNichter]

I am content with my Echo for now, but will keep a close eye on the HomePod. I might be interested in one someday, but have already bought into the Echo for smart home stuff.

 

[neutralguy]

Agree. When Alexa was introduced, especially in beta, I had more useful paperweights.
I will be happy if the homepod is a speaker first and whatever else second.
The Sonos play 1 and echoplus will be ready for comparison.

Something tells me this is just the beginning of something great.
I am hoping for an wireless charging ipad mini that will be mounted to a wall as a home automation control panel.
HP will play into that for me.
One thing I hope to see is, Siri facetime grandson from TV, then the apple TV turns on the facetime app and camera.

For now I just want a small better sounding speaker in my home office, not a system but a good sounding speaker.

Nope.. this is it!

 

[bgro]

not having true multi-user features is ridiculous

 

[neutralguy]

Customer: I like this little speaker. It's awesome sounding. I want to buy this. How do I play music on this?
Best Buy/target sales guy: well, you need to buy an iPhone/iPad.

Customer: ok then.. and walks away.

 

[Keirasplace]

Sounds like you haven't tried Google and Amazon's offerings. They are truly incredible at interpreting voice queries.

Huh, No, and I have tried them, I've tried them all many times in fact.
Funny how people say this crap like there is no way for me to verify it.

They're all quite flawed, some a bit more flawed, some a bit better in some areas. But, nothing to write home about.

 

[neutralguy]

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.

Then pray tell what is a HomePod?? Not a smart speaker, not a Bluetooth speaker, not even a normal speaker that I can pkug into my AV system.. what is it????

 

[Keirasplace]

What HiFi have reviewed it.

Sounds like on of the lamest review I've ever heard, are these people professionals? Doesn't seem like it. The verdict itself is a big non sequitur...

 

[Vaporbaked94]

Siri works fine for me 99% of the time. The only issue I have is that occasionally it thinks I said “Hey Siri” even if what I said didn’t sound remotely like that. It gives me my weather, traffic, turns off my lights, and that’s all I need it to do. I don’t need to make calls from my speaker so I don’t care about that, nor do I care about everyone’s gripes with Siri if it serves me well, as it has. I will be buying one once I move into a house later this year and possibly more for every room.

 

[richard371]

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

 

[neutralguy]

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.

You must have the iPhone throttling enables..

 

[Nabby51]

Except it doesn't. You can set it to let or not.

Yes it does. If the feature is turned on anyone can trigger and use it. If it is turned off then no one can use it. Meanwhile Google recognizes different users. In a multi user environment it will present each user with their own information when they ask the assistant.

Alexa has the it does so much stuff it can become overwhelming problem.

 

[Baymowe335]

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.

Just did the 6 minute timer...perfectly executed.

Not sure what's wrong on your end. That is a BASIC task she has literally gotten right every time for me on my X.

 

[Keirasplace]

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..

Right.. Like you were ever a buyer for this... You don't have WIFI at home? Sucks pretty bad down there it seems. And yes, feeding Amazon's data and it feed you back, bravo for understanding why the device is there in the first place.

 

[mdelvecchio]

this piece leads with quotes by Nilay Patel and Joanna Stern, two pro-trolls. Cute.

 

[Keirasplace]

Just did the 6 minute timer...perfectly executed.

Not sure what's wrong on your end. That is a BASIC task she has literally gotten right every time for me on my X.

Yes, setting a timer is 100% accuracy on well, anything. Set a time... Asks for how long, tell it the number and bang it's done.
Can also be done directly, Hey siri set a 20 seconds timer.

I really wonder how on earth are they using Siri for it to fail those basic phone/home automation tasks, that's basically where it shines most.

 

[Baymowe335]

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.

What kind of questions are you asking that Siri displays web results? I honestly can't think of complex questions I'd want to ask a voice assistant. If it's a person, place, etc...Siri knows it. If you ask her about Hawking Radiation, you might want to read about it on a screen anyway.

Again, voice assistant are for simple tasks and trivia type questions like, "Who was the 32nd president."

If you ask any voice assistant something open ended, it's obviously going to struggle.

 

[anson42]

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

Haha. Screw all that, I'm picking up mine on Friday to judge for myself. I don't have measuring equipment but for my ears so will be curious how the "full room" sound measures out. That should be interesting given that there isn't really a conventional sweet spot and the active room response means you could have quite the varying (or similar) frequency chart at different spots in a room.

 

[the future]

eh!?

a scroll through these pages confirms that Siri's lack of comprehension is evident to many!

.... what about when siri repeatedly tells me to look at web results rather than reading me an answer...?

Alexa tells me things as she should do ... siri tells me to unlock my iphone and have a look!

And I and many others have no trouble at all. Anyway, that was not the question. The question was what Alexa can do that Siri cannot. Concrete, real-world examples, please. I‘m geniously curious as I have never owned an Alexa device. What are all those amazing „skills“?

 

[wigby]

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.

If you apply the same "skate to where the puck is going to be" mentality that Apple is famous for, they are actually right where they want to be. Alexa smart speakers were everywhere at CES last year but 3rd party implementation disappeared. Yes Amazon sold millions of speakers direct already but they're making money off data, not hardware sales. That is not Apple's model. This year it was Google's turn at CES.

Do I wish Siri was better? Sure. Does Siri need to be better for a smart speaker? Not really since people just listen music and set timers. They will do more in the future but right now most smart speaker customers are unhappy with their experiences. Apple swoops in and fixes poorly implemented and marketed technology so they cannot really do too much until their competition fails and they learn what users really want. But I wish they didn't even bother releasing HomePod this year because it's still a hobby for them.

 

[Baymowe335]

Absolutely agree. Most intelligent post I’ve read here in a while. People here seem to bash just to bash. If Apple is so horrible, why do these people continually buy the products?

Thanks. I think it honestly comes down to groupthink and it's probably mostly in a discussion forum scenario. I am constantly bashed as an Apple apologist, but I just look at my own experience and the numbers from Apple.

Tim Cook himself can say the X has been the best selling smartphone since release and even through January and you have people here saying it's still a flop.

 

[MrX8503]

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:

View attachment 750111

That’s nice, but I’m buying the HomePod for sound quality and integration with Apple products. That’s what the HomePod is being marketed as.

 

[Keirasplace]

The quality between Google Assistant and Siri is day and night. I suggest you try it before saying "I guarantee... blah blah", and you'll find out the significant shortcomings of Siri.
[doublepost=1517933442][/doublepost]

-----

Does Homepod integrate with IFTTT, and other such workflows to extend its capabilities?

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.