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Leaker: HomePod 'Mini' Close to Launch, But No Second-Generation HomePod This Year

The HomePod needs support for apps. And as a UK based person, it's mad that to get BBC radio you need to airplay it from your phone to the speaker.

As a minimum Apple should do whatever it takes to get every BBC and commercial national DAB/FM radio station with an internet stream onto the HomePod.
 
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My guess :
HomePod Mini for $99 & at its release,
Original slashed to $199

“somehow” same profit with “zero” r&d cost
 
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gnasher729 said:
Being allowed to buy 10 HomePods at 50% rebate means an employee can actually make a few hundred dollars extra money by buying $299 HomePods for $150 and selling them for $200. So it's a little bit of tax free income.
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Apart from this would inevitably mean that person losing their job, not worth the risk whatsoever and also against our terms of employment to use personal benefits for profit.
 
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IMO Apple need to do the following to make the existing HomePod great.
-Enable Bluetooth audio support. For those that want to use it with non apple devices.
-Enable Broadcast - Alexa and Google have this. You can just say, "hey Siri broadcast, can someone answer the front door, "Hey Siri broadcast, dinner is ready". And it plays your voice automatically to all other smart speakers in the house.
-Enable default app for services such as Spotify. - This is coming soon....
 
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Hey Apple, please rollin' firmware for Mac user to be used as standalone system wide speaker for HomePod. Yes I know it would be glorified bluetooth speaker, but having extra functionality besides smart speaker are not hurt.
 
Marbles1 said:
The HomePod needs support for apps. And as a UK based person, it's mad that to get BBC radio you need to airplay it from your phone to the speaker.

As a minimum Apple should do whatever it takes to get every BBC and commercial national DAB/FM radio station with an internet stream onto the HomePod.
Click to expand...

I’m pretty sure you can ask it play bbc radio. It plays lots of uk stations directly (absolute radio 90s being the best). I’ll have a check later!
 
Remy149 said:
A mini would be great for my bedroom I already have a homepod in the kitchen and living room. I just can’t justify the cost of the full sized one for that area
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I want a pair on my nightstands for my bedroom TV. The room is too small to justify the full sized ones.
 
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Apple really missed the boat on the Homepod. The smaller more affordable version is a little too late. They had an opportunity to break into the Alexa/Echo home automation market and all the bennies that come with it. Siri still can't hold a candle to Alexa and Amazon is basically giving the entry Echo away. The Alexa app is SO powerful in terms of home automation. I don't think Apple's strategy was purely sound quality and the homepod falls short there in terms of value. My home has 9 Echo's spread throughout my very smart home and I walk around telling Alexa what to do, ie. turn on the TV, turn on the fireplace, close garage door, preheat my air fryer, open my garage door when I pull in the driveway, etc. Siri, Homekit, HomePod = Fail.
 
Hopefully the mini won't have overpowering base like the bigger HomePod has. Whoever at Apple tuned the HomePod before release must have been working for Amazon (Sabotage).

I hate the HomePod so much due to the way it sounds, but i am still going to try the mini though as i really want an Apple smart speaker. Hopefully they will have tuned the mini a lot better.
 
MrJM said:
I’m pretty sure you can ask it play bbc radio. It plays lots of uk stations directly (absolute radio 90s being the best). I’ll have a check later!
Click to expand...

You can't play live BBC radio apart from via AirPlay, the BBC confirm that here. I think the reasoning is the same as they gave when they pulled their content from TuneIn as explained here "When we make our programmes available via third parties, we ask that those platforms either allow you to sign into your BBC account – or provide us with meaningful data directly. Unfortunately, TuneIn doesn’t do either of these, so we couldn’t reach a data sharing agreement with them". While I understand the BBC want to capture listener data, it seems a bit ridiculous commercial radio stations are happy to make their content available without it whereas BBC (whose radio stations do not rely on ad funding in the UK) won't.
 
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gnasher729 said:
Being allowed to buy 10 HomePods at 50% rebate means an employee can actually make a few hundred dollars extra money by buying $299 HomePods for $150 and selling them for $200. So it's a little bit of tax free income.
Click to expand...
From what I’ve been told, employees can’t resell anything they buy on discount for one year, so it wouldn’t be a quick profit!
 
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