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HomePod's Multi-Room Audio and Stereo Features Will Not Be Available at Launch
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"Disappointments?" Yes. "Flops?" LOL. Yes, all of us want everything right away, but Apple still has the Midas touch. AirPods were late, but the hit of the tech world and they are selling tens of millions and still have a tough time making them as fast as people want to buy them. Mac's were later than folks wanted, but new MacBook Pros sold at record levels they were only PC manufacturer to show big increase in YOY sales. iMac Pro later than folks want, but now receiving universal praise from reviewers. iPhone X later than hoped, but best selling new phone again, with many tens of millions sold already. iPad update later than hoped, but sales blew away the market, again.
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No, Airplay 2 just needs a little more work. Airplay2 is important for much more than Homepod and will be one of most significant technologies in 2018 and moving forward and Apple wants/needs to get it right.
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Apple has become industry leader with streaming and doesn't want to screw that up with problems with Airplay 2. Disappointing that we have to wait a bit longer, but understandable that with the central role wireless plays in their future that they are taking the time to get it right.
Sonos can because it's a passive system. If Apple's system were passive, it would be available at launch too.
Apple has really been botching feature releases lately, and they need to get it in gear. They’re products are still great — but they seem to come in piecemeal now. Why?
It’s like buying a dresser but the drawers are “coming later this year.”
It’s like buying a dresser but the drawers are “coming later this year.”
First, the system isn't "passive", the two speakers are in sync and communicating. The aspect in question is the tuning, there is no reason Apple couldn't release with this so-called "passive" method at launch and add the auto adjustments later.
That said, the auto tuning is a gimmick. Most people aren't moving these speakers around. Making the tuning done by TruePlay closer to how people use it. They place the speaker, tune and leave it alone. Sonos does release updates to the tuning and that is where auto-adjustment would be good.
Trueplay requires a secondary device for set-up. After that set-up, the speakers aren't actively monitoring or changing anything during playback because they're not capable of it. It isn't really the same thing at all in terms of functionality.
So what? Sonos does it today. And did it years ago. HomePod does not. The fact that HomePod is active doesn’t matter. The feature isn’t available. Like I said, give it up already.
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And probably isn’t necessary either. Once you set a room up, how much really changes that effects sound?
I haven’t seen any mention of AirPlay 1 being implemented, and I don’t see why they would take the time if it’s just a stopgap measure. It’s concerning that Apple TV isn’t listed as being compatible on the specs page.
If it’s able to play audio from an iPhone it has to be doing something though. There’s just not enough information on what it will be able to do at launch to make an educated guess. Perhaps it will have AirPlay 2 but just without multi room audio features enabled? Hard to say.
I’m going to pick one up and return or resell it if it doesn’t work out of the box.
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It's passive in terms of what makes the difference vs. HomePod, i.e., there is no active monitoring and directing of sound waves for reflection/cancellation etc. during playback. It's not capable of doing that. Once you do a Trueplay setup, the speakers just passively play any type of audio you put through the system without anything else happening. It's one size fits all beyond that point.
Not even sure what you're trying to argue at this point. Apple has passive stereo reproduction in their entire product line. HomePod is a different form of technology that neither Apple nor Sonos has ever offered. The question you should be asking is how long it will take Sonos to have something beyond a passive system.
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Sonos: sound is in sync, nothing else happening.
Homepod: sound is in sync, system actively monitors sound waves/reflections and makes adjustments.
I’m sure as soon as HomePod can stereo pair they’ll get right on it. So they’ve got a year or so.
But seriously, they can’t even get this system out the door and you’re steady leaping to this being required for a speaker system. We don’t even know if it will provide any benefit.
Apple are handicapping themselves here.
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HomePod won’t do that out of the gate though, so again to drive it home for you, Apple is releasing a product that doesn’t match competitors.
Isn't Trueplay supposed to be a benefit? And that's a less sophisticated version of what Apple is doing, so the odds seem rather good that it will be a benefit vs. a one-time action with the microphone on a mobile device.
A good rule of thumb: don't buy a product based on what the company promises the product will be able to do eventually. Buy a product based on what it is able to do today.
What do you mean? The app is just a remote control of sorts. The Sonos speaker / hardware itself is what connects to the streaming server and streams the audio. So yea, obviously to use Sonos speakers you need to use Sonos speakers...
Actually, that's not an accurate representation of Sonos. With their TruePlay tuning (which has been out for about a year, as I recall), you walk around a room using your phone as a microphone and it measures how sound waves bounce off the walls in the space and then it tweaks the speaker(s) settings accordingly for the space.
Theoretically, if the speaker doesn't move (which most speakers of this type probably won't), I don't think the sound settings shouldn't need to be constantly adjusted as sound is playing. Granted, I'm no audiophile; but I can't imagine that a stationary speaker needs to be adjusted constantly. Sonos's approach to tuning makes a lot more sense to me -- tune it once and it's done unless the speaker is moved to a different room. Apple's approach to tuning seems like overkill with little to no practical benefit.
I’m assuming it has partly to do with how the beam forming works. It (theoretically) would time delay the sound bouncing off your walls so the sound from the rear speakers and front speakers would reach your ear at the same time.
I'm not normally one to complain about things like this. But come on.. Why do almost every new product and operating system release seem to be announced prematurely? If we go a few years back Apple was one of very few in the market to normally have whatever new product or software available moments later after the announcement. But lately we have had a "sneak peak" on a bunch of products that seems to never release on schedule? We had the sneak peek on the new Mac Pro, then the Apple Watch, Apple AirPods, somewhat the iMac Pro even-though it managed to get released on schedule and now the HomePod.
In terms of software we still have things like iMessage in the Cloud and AirPlay 2 being MIA and Tim Cook have already promised battery health reporting and the capability of disabling power management in iOS with a feature update to iOS 11. Dolby Atmos for tvOS etc..
And when it comes to all these hardware announcement never arriving as scheduled it almost always seems to be related to software/firmware? Why is software development in such a rough spot these days?
Why rush the HomePod to market when you have half its features not available at launch? Whats the point and why the rush to get it released? You wont convince the market and lure people away from Google Home and Amazon Echo with half-baked software.
In terms of software we still have things like iMessage in the Cloud and AirPlay 2 being MIA and Tim Cook have already promised battery health reporting and the capability of disabling power management in iOS with a feature update to iOS 11. Dolby Atmos for tvOS etc..
And when it comes to all these hardware announcement never arriving as scheduled it almost always seems to be related to software/firmware? Why is software development in such a rough spot these days?
Why rush the HomePod to market when you have half its features not available at launch? Whats the point and why the rush to get it released? You wont convince the market and lure people away from Google Home and Amazon Echo with half-baked software.
I think the idea is similar to the ideal EQ settings not being the same for every type of music. Different audio tracks are going to have different sound wave patterns and different complexity, so the system can actively monitor how to improve the way the audio is being distributed/reproduced in the space.
Yeah, no multi-room is killing its potential and seems like a huge oversight to not have available at launch. Its a small, supposedly good sounding speaker. Its the perfect thing to place in multiple rooms due to its size and supposedly good audio. Much like Sonos speakers.
But having no multi-room really kills all of this as you wont be able to utilise multiple at once. Considering AirPlay (1) was able to do multi-room using iTunes ages ago I can't for the life of me understand why this is not available at launch? Its a huge blow to the entire product.
Apple needs to convince the market from the get-go and this doesn't sound all that convincing at all. Unless it completely blows the current smart speakers out of the water and gives the Sonos Play 5 a run for its money I can't really see the appeal.
Also Apple has yet to disclose exactly what the aim is with his speaker. Are they going after Sonos aiming for customers to have these in every room of the house just like Sonos? Do they plan to tackle the living room like Sonos making it possible to use them with TV and hopefully get some sort of Dolby Digital support when placing 4 of these in the same room? The communication from Apple on this product is really lacklustre.
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One way for Apple to tackle the living room would of course be AirPlay 2 and the Apple TV. If the HomePod could seamlessly communicate with the Apple TV in order to perfectly match music in multiple rooms, including whatever you have in your living room as long as you have a Apple TV connected in the living room that would be decent way to do it without making the HomePod into something that could work as your living room speakers themselves.
They are the #1 or #2 company on the entire planet. They don’t need defending. They are doing very well!