Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
HomePod Should Launch 'Soon' as Inventec Begins Shipments to Apple
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
You’re right, my wife and kids shouldn’t be able to control anything in the home we share.
That would be a terrible solution as often your phone is nearest to you but you might want to dictate to the speaker which could be at the other end of the room.
With Google it just seems to work it out, I'm not quite sure how but my Pixel never gets confused and take over. I think basically if you have a smart speaker in that room it takes priority and that works fine.
[doublepost=1516357618][/doublepost]
The biggest problem with Siri is just how often it either doesn't understand or just gets things wrong or just opens a website instead of giving you an answer.
I've not used Alexa, but Google is brilliant and understands me 95% of the time. Siri is infuriating when you ask it to play music etc. Google's integration with Spotify is really strong and you can ask for pretty much anything and it will work it out even if you don't have exact artist or / song name.
If Apple can get their act together and develop a functioning Siri I'm sure they will eventually be successful, but that is currently a big if.
Last edited:
That would be good. I'm assuming we'd just use our phones essentially as remotes to play music from from AM. All we really need to do is hit play on a radio station on the phone, and it play through the homepod. Find out soon enough - its my birthday soon, so might make a nice present to myself.
The Echo is not a decent speaker. If Apple's speaker is as good as people expect for the price, that will be its USP.
I disagree, I think the Echo speaker is very good. I'm quite happy with music from it
Not sure that I trust Apple as far as sound quality goes. Beats headphones are middle of the road quality, not bad, but you can get the same or better at a cheaper price. Forcing people to Bluetooth is definitely not a quality of sound improvement. They were slow to adopt higher bit rate audio files, although that is a mid 2000’s complaint and not something recent.
Sonos had a lot invested in Apple hardware but I’ve heard that they are already using Alexa on their new stand-alone speaker, and I’m willing to bet it’s because Apple isn’t allowing Siri to be used because of the upcoming HomePod. Sony tried to be exclusive with the BETA VCR format and then with their proprietary audio MP3 format in the early 2000’s and they went from leaders to not even on the map. Apple needs products that use Siri and that means selling it to 3rd party vendors.
I haven't bought any of the 'smart' speakers yet. I'm getting a HomePod because of the microphone array that allows you to speak to it from any direction + Apple Music + Siri.
I bet Apple out-sells Amazon + Google combined by year end.
FYI: Even the inexpensive Echo Dot has seven beam-forming microphones. HomePod has six.
Echo’s ability to pick out your voice from across the room even while playing music, or with it sitting on a shelf right next to a loud TV, is astonishing.
Prime Music and Alexa are great, too.
Last edited:
Obviously they should – if you give them permission. Privacy and security should be your number one concern with anything in your home connected to a network.
[doublepost=1516574558][/doublepost]
I’m terrified of what my friends and family might do while asking Alexa to turn on the lights in the kitchen.
Nope. Read more on the HomePod. Aside from both making sound they are fundamentally different speaker designs.
[doublepost=1516621114][/doublepost]
Read more about beam forming. It isn't perfect and Apple may not have gotten it right but the technology is maturing and it can do some pretty magical things that should seems possible. It is more than just bouncing sound.
If you have an Echo device, you can ask it right now to play music on your Sonos.
Prime Music is inferior to Apple/Google music because they cancelled the locker feature. I have thousands of songs in my local library that are not part of any online catalog, so a locker is essential for me.
I’m not fearful or uncertain about this, thanks. Just literally describing how Siri works and comparing it to Alexa. If you’re able to have the audio you’re listening to continue uninterrupted when a timer goes off or when you invoke Siri I’d be keen to know how to achieve that.