In my case, Airplay Handoff to and from iPhones would not work. I rebooted devices, cycled the setting, unpaired my speakers, repaired my speakers... I tried everything I could until the only thing left to try was to give up and try factory resetting the speakers. Both bricked.
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New 13.2 Update Bricking Some HomePods [Update Pulled by Apple]
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So one DFU restores the firmware on this device the same way one does on the aTV 4k?
1. Print shipping label.
1. Print shipping label.
It's incredible why a service port wasn't user facing on this. Likely a great reminder of why and how dumb the design was on these. Wishing I could go back 24 hours in time right now....
Don't factory reset or remove from Home app.
Unplugging it from the wall (Power recycle) should be ok
Well, it shows that the configurations they are using in QA don't mirror the Real World. This isn't an isolated problem with flash corruption, this sounds like a widespread problem with lots of people's devices. This probably means a failure rate of >5%, which is horrible.
Problems like this can still pop up - if you suck at your job. I mean, Apple has all this telemetry for a reason. They can pull the configs off of almost every HomePod in the field. They can come up with representative configurations if they want to.
The only excuse is incompetence, which isn't really a great excuse for a multi-billion dollar company. I mean, it's not 737-Max level incompetence, but it's close.
It is utter madness. If all the port has to do is rescue firmware, bit banging from the SoC is enough to make a USB connection. iPhones did this (and jailbreakers exploited it.)
I would hope Apple send out new units from unsold stock, take a write-off, and have a lot of refurbs to sell cheap.
granted my HomePods are setup with the same account details. But nine out of nine all bricked at the reset. So that is a 100 percent failure rate of those attempts at factory reset. Anyone that didn’t have this occur was either. It resetting or didn’t catch the update.
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they are sending replacement units which are refurbished or assembled from defective or parts binned units.
even in the face of messing up royally, they still push for cost savings. Bite the bullet and replace new for new. Take it out of the team budget who caused this
No problem, but it’s customary to use a wink or emoticon of some kind to indicate your post is in jest. Without vocal cues it’s too easy to be misinterpreted as serious otherwise, unless the sarcasm is blindingly obvious, which in this case I don’t think it was.
I remember when I examined one at the Apple Store and it had no ports of any sort on it. Not even a service port. I put it back down and stopped considering it because I've had experience with non-service-port equipment getting bricked in the past.
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Ahh so it sounds like this was a perfect storm of a buggy update + Apple Music not working.
Still, you'd think doing a reset would be among the functionalities tested.
I was in the same boat. While it was downloading the update I turned off automatic updates, so 13.2 was downloaded and sitting there but not installed. Unfortunately I don't think there is a way to remove the update except to reset the device (which you can do by just removing the device from the Home app). This will reset all of the settings and I think should remove the downloaded update but I haven't yet confirmed this myself. I removed my HomePod from the Home app to reset it but haven't yet added it back in.
EDIT: @chinanderm -- I can confirm this works. Re-added my HomePod back to the Home layout and it's still on 12.4 with no sign of 13.2
For me I just killed the home app on iphone. Then went back in and turned off auto updates. That stopped the process for me. Now my MacOS tried to install a bit which was freaky but when I looked auto update in the home app there was already off.
Mine still shows there is update available and it requires download to install so I will just ignore for now till fix is officially announced and I let others try first LOL
It's the most basic you would test yes. And I think internal pressure made them push this out faster than it should have. And given all the delays with iOS 13 to date, this is pretty big. It wasn't even when it was in a state of updating either is the kicker. So all the variables that make this risky weren't even in play.
I honestly didn't even think this update was going to be pushed yesterday. There was zero beta testing during the 13.2 beta phase. It was one last feature that could have waited. Still, they pushed it out on everyone and pretty much infected every homepod with a virus, so to speak.
Same for mine! Luckily I read on here that the automatic update can be removed. I immediately went into the Home App to disable the features, lo and behold, the update started downloading 🙄. I have yet to press the Install button and I have no plans to update until there’s a fix AND if the download is wiped first!
I don’t plan on bricking my HomePods in order to install a fix!
Not much apparently. But my guess is that the Supply Chain Guru at the top does not see a need to test apple software. After all, "It just works!"
These software bugs are especially bad after Mojave and iOS 12 both being so good in their initial release.
I guess the iPhone XSS really took a lot out of them...
Yep gonna wait also til official update is clearly out/announced and will even be cautious and watch what happens for early adopters of the fixed update ;-). The new features are not anything I really need for my Homepod
I did the same last night. Mine still shows an update available for them, which I can't seem to clear....just ignoring until Apple get's it straighten out.
So before hearing about all this I had tried to update last night and even this morning. It kept going from downloading->installing->update available in the Home app. So it never actually installed? This morning I noticed that it stayed on update requested for a quite a while before it gave up. HomePod shows still on 12.4 and it works fine as far as I can tell.
So what now?
So what now?
Yeah, maybe they do, but if we don't complain as loud as possible, the manufactures will figure no one cares or understands that they could do better and therefor they will not.
The difference with Apple is that we pay more because traditionally they were better. Now we pay more and get the same. Time to stop paying Apple's tax, its just not worth it anymore.
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Unplug them and put them in the closet where they belong.
Your HomePods are still on 12.4 firmware, Apple pulled the update. "So What now?....Wait until Apple provides the update that does not brick units.
I mean HomePod can do every single thing I bolded. The HomePod doesn't have a screen, but your phone can perform the task your Echo Show did. Outside of the weather report, what you are describing is really no different than what HomeKit/Siri can do. There might even be a way to tie a weather report into a scene, but I haven't looked into it.
This doesn't take away from this disaster they have caused with 13.2 though.
Mine updated last night without an issue.
I manually updated through the Home App on an ipad pro running ipadOS 13.2.
Two stereo paired first day release grey Homepods previously on Homepod OS12.
Both working today, handoff works both ways - phone to Homepod and Homepod to phone.
Obviously not reset today!
I manually updated through the Home App on an ipad pro running ipadOS 13.2.
Two stereo paired first day release grey Homepods previously on Homepod OS12.
Both working today, handoff works both ways - phone to Homepod and Homepod to phone.
Obviously not reset today!
It feels like Apple has followed lockstep in Microsoft's approach, which was to gut the software QA dept and "replace" with public beta program.
Seems like I recall reading that Microsoft layed off around 3000 software QA testers.
Sad times, but a wise person will disable all automatic updates for all Apple devices and wait a few days before taking a big point update.
As far as major version upgrades, best to wait on those as well if possible.
Seems like I recall reading that Microsoft layed off around 3000 software QA testers.
Sad times, but a wise person will disable all automatic updates for all Apple devices and wait a few days before taking a big point update.
As far as major version upgrades, best to wait on those as well if possible.