HomePod provides voice controlled playback of my “iTunes in the Cloud” library. Because I subscribe to iTunes Match, HomePod to stream from my entire personal music library of about 7,000 songs.
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Siri on HomePod Correctly Answered 52.3% of Queries in New AI Test
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"Munster broke this information down further, stating that Siri is good for "local" and "commerce" queries, like asking about nearby coffee shops..."
So an Apple product is good at helping one to locate a Starbucks?
Go figure...
No kidding. “Siri, play Kashmir by Led Zepplin and where can I get a box of Cheerios.”
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Google Assistant on a phone blows Siri away on the iPhone too.
Actually, you can achieve a lot by modifying what's _in_ your room. For example, if one side has heavy curtains and the other side a bare wall, then you have asymmetry that will be very bad for your sound experience. Using either curtains that swallow less of the sound, or putting plants on the other side of the room, will improve things.
But absolutely that kind of nightmare room is where HomePod should not exactly give you the best possible sound quality, but should come closest to much more expensive traditional speakers.
The HomePod is the first device that I've ever pre-ordered. I'm not typically an early adopter. My first smart phone was an iPhone 4s, I've never owned (or desired) an iPad, and I have no use for an Apple Watch at this point.
Machine learning is a significant aspect of my job, so when I first learned of the HP, I thought, "Of course! That's brilliant! Why didn't I think of that?!?"
Having purchased and owned eight Apple devices over the past 15 years, my experience is that Apple generally produce high quality devices at good value, with unmatched customer service. Further, I knew exactly what problem the HP could solve for me that no other device could solve. After reading the overwhelmingly positive reviews from Apple's demo (after the embargo was lifted), I decided it was a low risk purchase and pre-ordered.
And you know this how? From Shiller & Co's marketing blather? Much of what you describe above is impossible because the HP doesn't even have a remote microphone to gather data on the room acoustics.
I hear ya.
But that trend goes way back to the Steve Jobs era. Like when he introduced the MacBook Air in 2007. With one USB port, 2 GB of RAM, an 80 GB spinning hard disk, a TN-based LCD panel, and an underpowered CPU that still managed to cause overheating issues. All for the price of $1,799.
We're similar customers, hence I lack the machine learning background.
So I'd assess the HP just on performance.
Travelling to an AppleStore will take me a day, so I guess I can save that trip, rather pre-order and evaluate in my own living room ?
I don’t think Siri is very good at voice recognition. I probably would have bought the HomePod to try out if the demonstration wasn’t so typical Siri taking multiple tries to get a simple command. I could care less if the speaker is good for navigation, but if it sucks at responding to and understanding what it was designed to do, what’s the point?
I agree. Altering room treatments can be very helpful for acoustics. Unfortunately, many audiophiles share living space with spouses/partners/roommates who are less than eager to sacrifice room aesthetics for room acoustics. Even if they're okay with it, changing room decor can get expensive (at least compared to the price of a HP) pretty quickly if one isn't careful, and room shape will remain a limiting factor.
I agree. It's been almost 7 years since Siri was released and there have been few improvements besides better voice recognition, voice synthesis and the always on functionality.
On simple tasks, like playing a song, it fails to understand what song it should play, even though it is in a play list or you played it recently.
I only use Siri for setting the alarm or calling a person, which it actually does pretty well.
Same here. And that was because I knew from years of experience listening to various audio devices in typical San Francisco Bay Area Apple Stores (that are incredibly noisy with loads of people in cavernous highly reflective spaces), there was no way an accurate assessment of HomePod audio quality could be made. And, that my home listening environment is somewhat unusual.
Much better to pre-order HomePod, pick it up at the local Apple Store, and then try it out where I live, taking advantage of Apple's generous return period.
I suppose I could mention that I used to live in Urbana, Illinois, where the HAL-9000 was built. It understood Dr. Frank Poole's voice perfectly, even as degraded by a layer of (apparently analog) radio transmission noise, and murdered him anyway.
The HomePod is extremely good at voice recognition, as good as Alexa or Google - if not better. Siri on phones however is not nearly as good. Not sure what environment this demo was in but it works very well in a home.
A remote microphone isn't needed (or particularly desirable) to understand room acoustics, except for a completely dumb device that is trying to optimize sound for a single point in space.
I have yet to encounter a single issue interacting with HomePod Siri for typical music-related activities; i.e. finding/playing music I want to listen to, adjusting volume, pausing/starting, playing news from a local NPR radio station (KQED), etc.
So far, with respect to music-playing related requests, Siri is batting 1,000. And those requests come from me being about 12 feet away from HomePod, using a normal speaking voice, while Siri is playing music at any volume level ranging from low to loud.
Also, I've used Siri for taking phone calls from my iPhone with Siri across the room, and that works incredibly well.
I'm very pleased with the experience so far.
I don’t have Google or Alexa. I saw it at the local Apple Store, demonstrated by Apple employee and myself. I found the voice recognition to be just like Siri on the iPhone. My first song request was Dire Straights, Walk of Life. Siri came back with some nonsense about Detroit Lions. Sometimes hey Siri worked on the first try, other times it took 2-3 tries to activate. And it seemed like you had to yell at it to get it to work. Very un-Apple like, but typical Siri experience.
I thought Apple is not always first but when they do something, it’s done right?
They’ve had years to perfect Siri but still lag behind.
They’ve had years to perfect Siri but still lag behind.