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New 'HomePod' With 7-Inch Display, A18 Chip, and More Reportedly Launching Next Year
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Still wondering what the added value would be over a second hand iPad Mini and maybe a HomePod Mini if sound quality is an issue. Apple must be cracking something unexpected or else it's another failure - and an incentive to people selling cases to turn an old iPad mini into a homepod-with-a-screen.
Yes, they recognise good ideas, try to make them even better and all too often they do quite succeed in that, and then they make them exclusive. Next, they make you believe you need their solution and yes, they'll sell you the solution for quite a high price. Bad part of the story afterwards: in many cases you cannot imagine yourself without having that solution. What would I do without my iPhone, without my retina MacBook Pro with that ridiculously large trackpad, and without macOS (yes, I have been using Windows and Linux a lot)? What would my household be like without that good old 1st gen Apple TV 4K and HomeKit? Just the HomeKit integration with my heating system saved me a huge amount of money over the last couple of years, just with enabling geofencing. Yes, I might migrate to Home Assistant for home automation though but will first wait what Apple brings with that homepot-with-a-screen (it sure requires a better name).
Better a good copy than a bad invention.
Please don’t include me in your “we”.
The EU isn’t forcing Apple to make iOS open source, it’s looking into the fact that Apple is blocking every other company to use their API’s for integrating their gear with Apple. That’s blocking competitors and monopolistic behavior.
Funny you say that, because most of the time you speak of “we” when you mention “I”. I’ve said that to you before and now you’re using it against others? 🤔
Affordable and Apple are two words that should never be used together. 🫤
Yet they are. Best value ultra light laptop, iPhones are often cheaper than Android phones, Apple TV are great value, Mac Mini.. Well…. Best affordable mini computer money can buy. Upgrades are expensive, that’s it. You get what you pay for I guess. Wanna cheap out? Feel free to buy every 2 years.
Sure it will have Apple Intelligence, so let me guess it won’t be compatible with any older devices. Another convenient way to push people to update their iPhones, Macs and iPads.
Absolute shame they don't make some sort if iPad Dock to turning older iPads into some sort of home accessory. At least give iPad's a standby mode like the iPhones.
Too little too late, Siri isn’t good and HomeKit just fails to work with my security cameras or my lights, Alexa is already working….. so it will have to be amazing on day 1 if I will even look at it…
Apple just seem to followers now….
Apple just seem to followers now….
A lot of people have Echo Shows or Google devices on their counters in the kitchen. My wife has a Show and she’s been wishing Apple would come out with a screened homepod device since we got the mini’s (which are also in the kitchen and are cheaper AirPlay 2 devices). She doesn’t trust Amazon but its utility as a kitchen screen outweighs the privacy issues for her.
I like my eero system since it’s coverage area is good and it’s reliable but its UI is not my favorite and it lacks some obvious things that would make it better (better QoS control, auto blocking/quarantining new devices until cleared, UI that makes sense, being able to permanently split 5GHz from 2.4GHz and not just pause 5GHz for 10 min).
I had the last AirPort Extreme model before they discontinued it and that thing was rock freaking solid and the UI was great. I can’t say I’d switch over to an Apple mesh system the day it came out with WiFi 7 but making HomeKit and Matter rock solid would absolutely do it.
Since that doesn’t seem to be something Apple is interested in getting back into sadly, when it’s time for an upgrade I’ll probably jump to Ubiquiti since it was started by a former Apple networking engineer and they work great at work.
When I built my Dream Home (only in my dreams--it had 4 floors, made of concrete and steel, and had a lazy river that came indoors), I envisioned an iPad mounted in every room where the light switch would be. It would be running custom software so a single tap would toggle the lights, but it could also control every light, thermostat, camera, etc., in the house.
The wall-mounted control center sounds as if it could fulfill that dream in the modest house I currently own.
The wall-mounted control center sounds as if it could fulfill that dream in the modest house I currently own.
I’ve seen multiple references to kitchen use in threads about this possible device, and my own wife sometimes uses tech in the kitchen so I don’t question that some find value in that.
What I’m not sold on is the form factor (including similar devices from Amazon and such) that includes a screen. When my wife uses something in the kitchen, she props up her iPad (with the help of the case it is in) wherever it is most convenient from where she will be spending most of her time in the kitchen. The location varies based on the nature of the task. She’s not limited by access to an outlet, or power cords, or anything else and enjoys a decent size screen, probably larger than what some of these devices have or would have. Sometimes all she wants is to play her music, she places her favorite portable bluetooth speaker nearby, and iPhone/iPad are not even in sight. She does this when doing things inside, or out in the yard.
The point is, this still sounds to me like a relatively static device that performs functions that would be easily done in mobile devices we already own.
Just visited my mum, who bought an ‘Amazon Echo Show’ wow, what hot garbage that thing is! It’s basically a billboard in your house that plays non-stop adverts. She used the photo display function and it turns out it siphoned all the photos and videos off her phone to Amazons cloud service without her really understanding what it did. I tried to disable most of its nefarious ‘features’ as best as I could.
With competition like that it’s hard to not be better, but yeah, you know Apple will charge $550 - i.e. $50 less than buying an iPad mini + HomePod mini
With competition like that it’s hard to not be better, but yeah, you know Apple will charge $550 - i.e. $50 less than buying an iPad mini + HomePod mini
No one here knows what it will be. It's just a load of conjecture and speculation based on essentially nothing more than an artist's conception illustration. Which until recently was even depicted as an iMac G4 from 20 years ago.
Rather than assume Apple and its system engineers and managers are stupid, and, that it'll be an automatic flop like every other new Apple product introduction/release (iPod/iPhone/iPad/Watch/etc), why not keep an open mind and speculate about all the potential interesting possibilities?
Rather than putting effort into getting people to withhold posting what they actually think, be that what it may, why not simply post what you think might be great about the device described in the rumor, if that is what you think of it?
Did you have an actual counterpoint to the post you quoted? That would have been far more constructive that this.
if you think it's going to be anything more than a Nest Hub, you're fooling yourself. These are features that can be integrated into the Home App on iOS / ipadOS. Apple's better off creating a HomePod speaker dock so that when you attach your iPad, it displays the homeOS UI.
Why?
Everything that we know about this device:
•likely a cheep, lower quality 6 inch square LCD display.
•Built in speaker, but with the option to add a speaker dock for better sound.
•massive bezels.
The iPad 10 is currently $249 at most Apple authorized retailers in the US, and we know this “HomePad” will have a worse display and have a less capable operating system.
The current HomePod is $299, and obviously is going to have better sound than this, which sounds like it will require a docking station to have even equivalent sound.
From descriptions, it sounds like this display might not even have as good as sound as the $99 HomePod Mini, especially if you’re mounting this thing on the wall with no docking station connected. I wouldn’t even be surprised if it just has iPad like speakers by default.
All of these things point to this thing being a $99-199 product, maybe with some additional super pricey accessories.
Maybe the display on its own is only $149, but if you want the docking station with HomePod level sound that’s another $199 and if you want to mount it to your wall, that’s another $99.
But I don’t think the basic device on its own is going to cost iPad 10 level prices.
And for the record, from the same report that gave us the screen size and what it will look like, came the report that it will also have a rechargeable battery.
So everyone complaining about it being completely stationary could be totally wrong.
We’ve also heard rumblings about external accessories that you can connect to it, I would assume magnetically. Wall mounts, additional more high-quality speakers, away to set it on your desk or nightstand.