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HomePod Turns Two, Lower-Priced Model Might Launch Later This Year
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The current HomePod is worth $99 at the best. It’s basically a mono speaker with a very dumb smart assistant. If you want hifi music you can buy good quality speakers for less, if you prefer a smart speaker you can find Alexa speakers for much less. If you want both you can buy a good pair of speakers and connect them to amazon dot and still save money and achieve better music quality and a smarter assistant.
Bought HomePod two months ago as a temporary solution before buying more serious stereo setup. Everyone who visited my living room and heard it, smiled as nobody expected such a great sound from a small wireless Apple speaker. HomePod fails as a smart speaker, but I never use it that way so I dont mind. But I can understand that its failure in smart/Siri segment made it flop with wider audience/consumers.
Thats because you're not using a HomePod, that is actually a loaf of bread you are talking to.
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HomePod stereo pairs superbly (not sure where you got your info, 2-year old post?), and Siri does everything normal people need a speaker to do (OK, if you want a kids toy to do stupid stuff, yah it fails at that), and even has multi-user support which is excellent. Truth is, go with what you like, but HomePod is an excellent product.
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or the definition of "Smart speaker" is not ironclad. Siri works great for me and everything I want to do while talking to an appliance. you know: play this, volume up, what's the weather?, set alarm, .....
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but the sound totally sucks, it is not a "speaker" in the same class as HomePod or Home Max, or even Sonos. If you want it for what it does, go for it, just don't expect it to play music well
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It really is subjective. I’ve only heard the HomePods in store settings, and sound it very muddled.
So did the customers that were standing beside me.
Frankly, I find my old $200 Harmon Kardon Onyx Studio 2 better with brighter highs and just cleaner sounding even in the lows.
So did the customers that were standing beside me.
Frankly, I find my old $200 Harmon Kardon Onyx Studio 2 better with brighter highs and just cleaner sounding even in the lows.
It was released two years ago for God's sake. For it still to not be available in a large number of countries certainly gives the impressionis that Apple is not treating it very seriously. Does Apple want to sell them or not? This is not a mom and pop operation making them in their home basement.
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Exactly. Countries more advanced in many ways than where Apple is based and the product is no where to be found. Residents of these countries are fortunate to have been spared the possibility of paying a ridiculous price for this product. Tim's lack of action saved us a nice wad of Euros
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I picked up a Homepod in a sale just after xmas. I already have a Google Home, so I really didn't need one, it was more out of curiosity. I realised pretty quickly just how staggeringly useless Siri is compared to Google Assistant. Beyond very basic stuff, such as timers, Siri is pretty much brain dead. Any food related question (I have both the Homepod and Google Home in the kitchen) Siri can't answer, but Google Assistant can.
With all of Apple's resources it's quite remarkable how little effort has gone into Siri. It's languished for years and is truly laughable compared to Google's offerings. The sound quality is of course superior in the Homepod, unless you're a Spotify user.
For me the device is best thought of purely as a wireless speaker. As an assistant, it's abysmal.
With all of Apple's resources it's quite remarkable how little effort has gone into Siri. It's languished for years and is truly laughable compared to Google's offerings. The sound quality is of course superior in the Homepod, unless you're a Spotify user.
For me the device is best thought of purely as a wireless speaker. As an assistant, it's abysmal.
I‘m sure it works nicely as a speaker, but as a home assistant it’s too expensive and....well...there’s Siri. I think Apple badly missed the home assistant market. The competition has buried them so far.
My HomePod sounds fantastic. As soon as they go on sale again, I’ve been given the “ok” to purchase two more for our home.
You believe it’s normal for a set of expensive speakers to have a useful life of five years?
The multi user voice detection STILL does not work for us. Do you have to have an Apple Music family plan as opposed to an individual plan for it to work??
Dogs are more expensive, and as you mentioned require constant upkeep. I never need to take Siri to the vet. 🤷♂️
Forget it. WAY too little, way too late.
No one, including all-Apple users, have any reason to buy a HomePod. Alexa products, especially Sonos models with Alexa, beat it in every way.
No one, including all-Apple users, have any reason to buy a HomePod. Alexa products, especially Sonos models with Alexa, beat it in every way.
I'm going to get my second homepod. For my use case Homepod is better than the competition.
One shoe size in anything not the best option. The interesting aspect of Apple’s decision, they own a speaker line, Beats. Not sure why they did not leverage this line of products by adding Siri.
Additionally Apple once again created an island. Essentially an impossible task to integrate HomePod into existing systems. The option is to integrate another speaker into a HomePod, very limited choices. Many of us have already invested in various speakers. Scrapping the whole system not only costly but why do it. The point, something as expensive as HomePod should have more options.
Apple really needs to rethink their smart speaker strategy. Unless they are happy with a small niche product. Not for me at this time. Will see how it goes.
Additionally Apple once again created an island. Essentially an impossible task to integrate HomePod into existing systems. The option is to integrate another speaker into a HomePod, very limited choices. Many of us have already invested in various speakers. Scrapping the whole system not only costly but why do it. The point, something as expensive as HomePod should have more options.
Apple really needs to rethink their smart speaker strategy. Unless they are happy with a small niche product. Not for me at this time. Will see how it goes.
Apple needs to aim for £79 and cut down the quality as it just increases the price and for the average consumer sound quality is not a priority they just want something that sounds great and a low price,
Apple could just have two the cheaper version and a higher version that becomes the pro model for those that are financial over sound
Apple could just have two the cheaper version and a higher version that becomes the pro model for those that are financial over sound
Using Chromecast to stream your audio is exactly like using Airplay. Unless your also hardwiring other devices too.
Siri isn’t perfect. None of them are.
My iphone 4, 10 years old, still works. The useful life of the HomePod is going to be at least that, if not more, imo. More than the competition.
I got a home pod for Xmas when it was at its lowest price. The sound is good. No better then my sonos ones but I’m also not a audio guy. For those on the fence ask yourself these questions before buying.
1.how important is a virtual assistant because Siri is awful and it doesn’t support Alexa or google.
2. How important is playing Spotify with voice commands? Not native support on Spotify, just airplay.
IMO if I was spending the money I would start investing ina sonos system. While the HomePod sounds great and it’s easy to set up. It’s not worth the extra money vs it’s competition.
1.how important is a virtual assistant because Siri is awful and it doesn’t support Alexa or google.
2. How important is playing Spotify with voice commands? Not native support on Spotify, just airplay.
IMO if I was spending the money I would start investing ina sonos system. While the HomePod sounds great and it’s easy to set up. It’s not worth the extra money vs it’s competition.
Question... Do you need a device (a phone, tablet, or computer) in order to control and play Spotify music through Sonos?