I'll buy. If the sound isn't really nice, or there is something else about it that feels bad, I'll send it back.
Fingers crossed.
Fingers crossed.
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HomePod Should Launch 'Soon' as Inventec Begins Shipments to Apple
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Bingo. At the end of the day, what is a speaker for? To listen to audio, be it music, movies, tv, etc. If you can get better sound for cheaper, why not. Assuming folks have an iPhone, as far as we know, there is nothing that Homepod can do that an iPhone + better sound system can't do.
Don't get me wrong, I like my Apple stuff, but this HomePod I see no use for. I already have my Bose 5.1 Soundbar setup, much better sound and it connects to the TV, Mac/PC, iPad and iPhone easily.
Yes. You can do it now using the AudioBridge app.
If you want a better solution, Airplay2 is coming soon to Sonos.
If you want a better solution, Airplay2 is coming soon to Sonos.
My father-in-law bought me an Echo (2nd gen) for Christmas, and while it's a fine voice assistant, it absolutely sucks as a speaker. It also has a tendency to try to sell you things on amazon at every possible turn. I can't wait to replace it with the HomePod, and I think it will prove to be well worth the price.
The smart speaker market because Apple makes better products than anyone.
Too expensive is relative. People like quality and music. When they hear it, they will want it.
People paid $300-$400 for Beats (more than a Homepod) and they aren't even good headphones.
The iPod HiFi was highly rated for its sound and definitely offered less at a similar price point. If HomePod sounds as good today as that did then, along with wireless access and AirPlay 2, I think a lot of people will be interested and pleased. Like me.
I do have high hopes for Siri improvements, but thats not really my primary reason for the purchase. More like a spotty added bonus.
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To me it comes down to this: is it only an attempt to sell more of their streaming music service or what I hope for will it play nicely with my collection I have in iTunes through Airplay from any iOS or macOS device? Couldn't care less about the voice assistance.
We've got the same thing with the Google Home Mini. And Google Assistant beats Alexa most days of the week, and twice on Sunday. And we're not tied to Amazon which is a great thing. The integrations with GHome are great and it can do as much as if not more than Alexa.
I don't see how Apple is competing in the same market as Google and Amazon here. HomePod is an in-home smart speaker. Google Home and Alexa are in-home smart spies. While I am pretty intrigued by the former, I just don't think I'm in the market for the latter.
Quoted for future reference like Watch, AirPods, iPhone, etc.
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It's a fair criticism, but Apple isn't going to release this product without good Siri integration for its purposes. We don't know how well it will perform music tasks in particular or if there will be updates to Siri for improved commands with HomePod.
I honestly don't think Siri is nearly as bad as people make it sound here.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯. I'm happy with my Echo
i do believe the first iPhone was 1 millions units in 70 days......
and here are sales from the get-go....
https://www.statista.com/statistics/263401/global-apple-iphone-sales-since-3rd-quarter-2007/
Well I know. I wouldn’t pay $350 for an overpriced speaker. You can get a better quality speaker at an electronic store. There are many of us that don’t need anything more than an assistant like the dot.
My user scenario is quite similar And I will probably get one for our kitchen/dining room. Maybe also for the second floor if it is as good as it seems
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.
Don't know, it seems that apple is stating that you can only stream Apple Music. I could be wrong about that though.
I'm sure these will sell, but at $350 that is probably the top 1% of this market. Apple needs a ~$100 and a ~$50 little puck so they don't completely cede this baseline part of verbal cloud access infrastructure to Amazon and Google.
If they were thinking they'd marry the $100 one in with an updated version of the wifi routers they're abandoning or move to a mesh wifi design with the $50 puck's integrated so you have verbal access everywhere you have your mesh wifi's placed.
If they were thinking they'd marry the $100 one in with an updated version of the wifi routers they're abandoning or move to a mesh wifi design with the $50 puck's integrated so you have verbal access everywhere you have your mesh wifi's placed.
Right, you make my point for me or rephrase them,
1. Apple makes some products better than others, but it's history with speakers is limited. And there already exist lots of fantastic small wireless speakers.
2. Too expensive IS relative, but in this case relative IS: compared to it's competitors in the general smart speaker market.
3. Headphones are not a voice controlled speaker. Headphones are a personal, portable product intended to stay with one person wherever they go. The HomePod is neither. As I said before, HomePod is great IF you live in a one room studio apt. If you live in a 9 room house, then you need 3-4 or so HomePods -- $1200! The average consumer is not going to spend that much on smart speakers.
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??