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HomePod's Sound Continues to Receive Top Marks After Listening Demos in New York and London
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So day four of pre-ordering... and STILL available to pickup or ship on launch day.
They either made a hell of a lot of them and shipped then out or demand just doesnt seem to be there.
Wanna guess which?
I'm liking this new product announcement system better. Perhaps Apple could stop the rumour mill (ecccckkkkk!!!) and announce now what the September phones will be. Then they can build lots of them and be available to everyone on launch day who wants one.
Seems if you give people enough warning, rational thinking starts to kick in and people decide they can't justify the asking price. Sales are much better when scarcity and emotion are in play
They either made a hell of a lot of them and shipped then out or demand just doesnt seem to be there.
Wanna guess which?
I'm liking this new product announcement system better. Perhaps Apple could stop the rumour mill (ecccckkkkk!!!) and announce now what the September phones will be. Then they can build lots of them and be available to everyone on launch day who wants one.
Seems if you give people enough warning, rational thinking starts to kick in and people decide they can't justify the asking price. Sales are much better when scarcity and emotion are in play
So day four of pre-ordering... and STILL available to pickup or ship on launch day.
They either made a hell of a lot of them and shipped then out or demand just doesnt seem to be there.
Wanna guess which?
I'm liking this new product announcement system better. Perhaps Apple could stop the rumour mill (ecccckkkkk!!!) and announce now what the September phones will be. Then they can build lots of them and be available to everyone on launch day who wants one.
Seems if you give people enough warning, rational thinking starts to kick in and people decide they can't justify the asking price. Sales are much better when scarcity and emotion are in play
Well, they also did a very controlled launch, 3 countries and they're NOT launching during crazy time (3 last months of the year) when they have 10 other things going on which probably helps logistics a lot.
They also had a lot more time fixing manufacturing issues (considering it is software that likely was the big hitch this time).
The Homepod also has very little variance (2 colors, that's it) compared to the Iphone or Watch which helps a lot in stocking the appropriate amount. Switching production from one color to the next is also pretty easy compared to changing the color of the Iphone or watch since the frame is not bolted to the device.
The HomePod supports streaming FLAC from iOS. iTunes has ALAC. ALAC is way more widely supported than FLAC.
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No, but you can buy from HDTracks in ALAC (Or FLAC, or AIFF).
Apple last week invited select reporters to one-hour-long HomePod listening demos in New York City and London, resulting in several first impressions of the speaker's sound quality being shared online over the past few days.
We've rounded up all of the first impressions we've come across so far, and highlighted some excerpts that we thought were interesting below. If you spot an article not listed here, let us know in the comments section.
o Business Insider
o TechCrunch
o CNET
o Engadget
o iMore
o Mashable
o TechRadar
o Digital Trends
o Tom's Guide
o Expert Reviews
o Wired UK
o iNews UK
o Huffington Post UK
o Vogue UK
o Refinery29
o Gear Patrol
o Stuff.tv
o Alphr
o Lance Ulanoff
o T3
The consensus is that the HomePod sounds very good, although some felt the quality isn't exactly worth the price. A few reporters were more impressed by upcoming stereo sound capabilities of two HomePods in the same room.
Keep in mind these listening demos were conducted by Apple in controlled environments, so we'll have to wait for more in-depth reviews once reporters and customers get the speaker into their hands and try it out.
Business Insider's Avery Hartmans
Wired UK's Jeremy White
TechCrunch's Brian Heater
CNET's David Carnoy
iNews UK's Rhiannon Williams
Apple began accepting HomePod orders through its online store and Apple Store app on Friday in the United States, Australia, and United Kingdom, with the first deliveries to customers estimated to arrive Friday, February 9.
Update: A user on the audiophile subreddit who claims to have been present at Apple's listening demo believes the HomePod, based on its size and price, is significantly better than most bookshelf speakers under $1,000.
Article Link: HomePod's Sound Continues to Receive Top Marks After Listening Demos in New York and London
I'm confident that it sounds great... but no Spotify? No Thank you. Apple Music does not cut it.
I think eventually it will allow third party control, but like we said.. this is a marketing strategy for AM. And it will be effective.
Hey, I love Apple Music--got it the first day. I also like the playlists that Amazon Music puts together. I never liked Spotify, but someone wanted to know if the HomePod could play Spotify, and I had just read a review that explained that it could if you used Airplay to stream it from your iOS device.
Do you also not buy an Xbox because it doesnt support Playstation games aswell?
Why would Apple want to bake a competitor's music service into its own product when its trying to sell its own (Apple Music) service?
yeah they aren't going to promote their biggest competition to their own music service.
for me Apple Music is a no brainer. 6 months free from EE is a nice touch
You began with:
And tried to support this allegation with:
So I Googled and linked to said article, pointing out that its list of intents mentions nothing about streaming control. It's even glaringly absent in the executive summary: "With the intelligence of Siri, users control HomePod through natural voice interaction and can conveniently access iOS apps that support SiriKit Messaging, Lists, and Notes."
Now you're pointing to a forum thread on Spotify that mentions a hack—not an API—for track control, and one that's even more hamfisted than URL schemes, as the poster himself emphasizes:
With even minimal reading comprehension, it should be obvious that this (a) has nothing to do with SiriKit (Siri, yes, but not SiriKit), and (b) there's nothing programmatic about it.
Until someone can show me a list of SiriKit URIs for legitimate streaming control endpoints, the HomePod's UI remains an Apple Music silo, entirely by Apple's design.
Lossless is lossless. The bitrate is exactly as much as needed to have perfect reproduction of the source.
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No.
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This will play. Including all the songs you’ve uploaded.
Sadly for me, DJ sets are ineligible to upload to iCloud Library from the length and size limitations
There are lots of other options if all you want to do is use AirPlay to send Spotify to a speaker.
Personally, I’m enjoying Google Home which can:
1. Play Spotify instantly just by asking it.
2. Match individual Spotify accounts to the person’s voice.
3. Play personal Spotify playlists
4. Add the playing song to your Music Library
5. Identify what artist / song is playing
6. Stop playing, Next song, etc
All just by using my voice.
#2 is a HUGE one - we don’t even know if HomePod will do multiple Apple Music accounts! Not only does Google Home do it - it is awesome how it just matches your voice and automatically plays from the correct account!
I really wish people would stop suggesting that “Airplay is an acceptable alternative to just talking to the speaker.
You can play from iTunes Match.
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No, they are comparing it to bigger speakers, including high end bookshelf speakers.
Where have you seen that? All the reports I’ve seen so far say that iTunes Match doesn’t work.
That’s a new one, I hope it’s true.
I still can’t understand why can’t Apple list this type of information on the product page.
Why mention Apple Music thenMaybe because they beleive it went without saying... obvious... But seemingly not
I read somewhere (but can't remember where) that although you can be either an Apple Music or iTunes Match subscriber in order to stream music via the HomePod, you can't stream uploaded content, only the content that was actually purchased from iTunes.
Also there's an article on Business Insider pointing out some other things it can't do which include checking/amending your iCloud calendar (weird considering you can do this with an Echo) or making hands free calls, so seems very restricted at launch but will hopefully end up being fleshed out as time goes on.
There’s a lot of conflicting information out there because Apple have been so vague about it’s functionality, hopefully it will all get cleared up when we get to read the proper reviews.
they will tell you just ANYTHING to sell you their products
I hope it won't be similar to "it's by far the best macbook we have ever created" ... liars