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planning to get two, initially. One for the living room, one for the kitchen. If the wife can say “Hey Siri, play some Gordon Lightfoot”, she’ll be delighted.
Might eventually get another for the living room, for the stereo capability.
Bedroom is another possibility.
 
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Same as it has worked with iOS devices for 18 months or so now: Only the device nearest to you activates.
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.
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Apart from basic tasks what else do you really need an assistant for? As you can still control lights, heating with home kit so for that there’s not much difference.

What things do people generally do with google and Alexa that you don’t do with Siri?
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.
 
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If it has airplay it can stream well anything. Not sure if you order Siri through the speaker to get another device to stream or being able to a internet radio by itself (not sure what Apple Music offers in that regard which the speaker will directly support).

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 design looks nice, the speaker technology is probably the best out on the market but what's stopping me is the price. What I mean, is that I can get a more capable voice assistant, in a decent speaker setup for 80 dollars from Amazon, or spend 350 dollars be locked into Apple Music and deal with Siri's short comings.
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.
 
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.

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.
 
Too late.

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.
 
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.

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.
 
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You’re right, my wife and kids shouldn’t be able to control anything in the home we share.
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.
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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.
Sorry, I should have said "the device that makes the most sense”. Obviously if you are in a room with a HomePod it should give the HomePod the preference.
 
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.

I’m terrified of what my friends and family might do while asking Alexa to turn on the lights in the kitchen.
 
You only get the HomePod if you don't know the Libratone Zipp exists. Which is portable. And has literally all the features the HomePod will.
Nope. Read more on the HomePod. Aside from both making sound they are fundamentally different speaker designs.
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Surround sound?? It's one speaker that radiates sounds in 360 degree. Unless Apple has Dolby/DTS processor inside, you won't get anything. Plus I don't know why people buy sound bar to experience surround sound. How is it even possible? I understand the ginmic of using sound reflection. But really?? A sound bar replaces 5 speakers??
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.
 
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I agree. I'm really tempted to sell my Sonos One and buy the Pod when released.

But with Airplay 2 (and possibly Siri) on the Sonos One, do you think we'll be able to use voice control to select songs in our itunes play lists on the iPhone or iPad by asking Alexa?

If you have an Echo device, you can ask it right now to play music on your Sonos.
 
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.

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.
 
Never had this issue, but keep spreading your FUD.
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.
 
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