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Siri sucks. I don’t think I’ve used it in over a year.
Or ever. I only tried to use siri sparingly and she either could not understand my question or gave me wrong answer. No, what I asked was as simple as “play a song” followed by a name, or local weather.
 
That’s what we get for Apple keeping our information private. I feel like it’s a very small price to pay and I am not surprised at all that Google leads the way here. Their sole focus as a company is mining your data for advertising. Ultimately, it doesn’t affect me as I don’t use voice assistants this way. Smart home stuff and music is really hit. I’m sure the HomePod works well for these.

Depends on what you do. I am sure HomePod as smart home stuff will be big fail. Apple's Homekit has yet achieve any significance yet. HomePad will probably only work with products that is designed for HomeKit and nothing else.

So in term of this, HomePod will not able to compete with Google home or Amazon Alexa. Not motion this thing is powered by Siri.....
 
Yes. Google feeds all of its data into its AI algorithms. They understand how people use machines better than anyone.

Google has done lots of research with AI and AI algorithms. It is not just about mining information from you and me. Google's DeepMind has done some excellent work on AI and AI Algorithms. Google is so far ahead of AI research, Apple just cannot compete with Google. In terms of AI research, Apple is behind than Google, Microsoft and Amazon.

Siri loss AI battle isn't that much of surprise to me.
 
So basically as long as query/command is something HomePod can possibly do, it does it. Why include data for commands that HomePod simply cannot accommodate? Is this to feed the “Siri sucks” chior?

When the Apple employee demoed the HomePod for me yesterday Siri struggled in the same way it does on the iPhone. It was far from smooth and highly accurate.
 
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This is, in a word, pathetic. As a speaker sound quality is obviously important but Siri NEEDS to get smarter. I fully expect (that is, I hope) Apple to update Siri this year.
 
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Music, Home Automation, Siri just fine. Want more, Siri not the best choice. Integration with legacy entertainment systems, nonexistent. If looking forward, a year or two, HomePod and Siri will do very nicely. A massive shift towards streaming. The DVR, DVD, massive home audio systems, moving out of main stream. HomePod and Apple TV type devices will be the mainstream. My investment in audio systems will change significantly in the next few years. Apple future vision seems to be correctly focused on audio.
 
Boy I love Apple and I want to be clear upfront that I am enjoying my Homepod mostly so far, but a spade just has to be called a spade here and I have to just come clean with the fact that Siri is borderline stupid on this device. I'm holding judgement for a software update that might fix this but here are just a few of the walls I've hit:

"Hey Siri, play Smooth Criminal by Alien Ant Farm" - Siri "...I can't find Alan Andrefarm in Apple Music"

"Hey Siri, rewind 10 seconds." - Siri "...Hold the line please.......hold the line please.......hmmmm....this is taking longer than I thought."

"Hey Siri" - Siri "................................................." No answer at all

Sometimes my audio will just randomly stop and I can't figure out why or how to start it back up or if I should try to ask Siri if she can please press play or whatever.


Now, it probably sounds like I hate this thing. Quite the contrary. It sounds amazing in my office, and when Siri works like it should, this thing shows real potential.

But yeah, those few caveats are annoying.
 
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Then, of course, Apple is marketing HP as a music speaker but it does not even have stereo sound (and when it gets it I suspect it will be inferior to regular stereo systems because HP was not really designed for stereo)

The HP offers 7.1 stereo, in a single cabinet. The seven tweeters, plus one woofer, provide multichannel sound in a single package. While the HomePod is capable of working in pairs (when Airplay 2 is released), that in no way implies that the sound from a single HomePod is not stereophonic.
 
The excuses made for Apple in this thread are hilarious, especially considering they come from the same members who would most certainly celebrate and gloat as if it was a personal achievement if Siri had come out on top.

Nice misinformation there. Google doesn't sell your personal data any more than Apple does.

That's not what he said either.

It's true that Google makes money on advertising however, when they do it they sell to the advertisers access to your eyeballs and ears not your private information. I have yet to come across a single individual who would claim that his personal information was sold by Google. For some reason, the most (and, perhaps, only) citizens concerned about privacy and Google are Apple fans. Never Google customers.

This is being claimed frequently on these forums. Or, not so much that it happens to the actual people claiming it since these people are 'smart enough to not use the Google'...

I think of it this way. Google's primary source of income is ad money. They should be way more concerned about your privacy than, say, Apple because if they lose the trust of the customers their revenues will be gone in no time. So I expect that they are much more careful about your privacy than any other company.

Not only that, but if external parties got their hands on Google's data, Google would lose the very thing that they use as incentive for advertisers to buy their services.

Of course not. Google rents it out. If you go to website X and then get tons of advertisements related to X, that's because Google takes your information and tells ad servers in realtime what ads to send to you.

The point is that information about individuals make up Google's business secrets and never gets out of their realm. They base their entire business on the fact that no one but them has this information and that this enables them to offer services that no one else can. The information isn't "rented out" and this assertion doesn't even work as an analogy.
 
So basically as long as query/command is something HomePod can possibly do, it does it. Why include data for commands that HomePod simply cannot accommodate? Is this to feed the “Siri sucks” chior?
Did you read the article? It says, "Removing navigation, calling, email, and calendar-related queries from our question set yields a 67% correct response, a jump from overall of 52.3% correct. " In no way does that imply what you said.

They included commands that smart speakers can handle. Siri couldn't handle navigation, just like Cortana couldn't handle commerce. Should the speakers only be judged on what the HomePod can do?
 
My HomePod is great, exactly what I expected, maybe exceeded expectation in audio quality, but it's high time Apple invested more resources in Siri for greater functionality.
 
Boy I love Apple and I want to be clear upfront that I am enjoying my Homepod mostly so far, but a spade just has to be called a spade here and I have to just come clean with the fact that Siri is borderline stupid on this device. I'm holding judgement for a software update that might fix this but here are just a few of the walls I've hit:

"Hey Siri, play Smooth Criminal by Alien Ant Farm" - Siri "...I can't find Alan Andrefarm in Apple Music"

"Hey Siri, rewind 10 seconds." - Siri "...Hold the line please.......hold the line please.......hmmmm....this is taking longer than I thought."

I just tried the above two commands with my HomePod. Both worked perfectly the first time.


EDIT: And just tried the above a few more times. Worked fine each time.
 
I measure the success of any purchase by the price / years of use.
There's nothing in the Home Pod that can't be improved upon over the next year or so that requires new hardware.
In that respect the Home Pod is a clear success. The software, and AI, are fixable.
Can you say the same about the other smart speakers?

At least with the other speakers you can use Bluetooth or a line in to connect to them. Sheesh.
 
Got my HomePod today. After 30 min still cannot figure out how to set it up. It also forced me into 2-factor authentication which I absolutely do not want. So far it's a dud. Even MS would not be that bad. Something is majorly wrong with this product.... Do not buy ...
 
Got my HomePod today. After 30 min still cannot figure out how to set it up. It also forced me into 2-factor authentication which I absolutely do not want. So far it's a dud. Even MS would not be that bad. Something is majorly wrong with this product.... Do not buy ...
It shouldn't be

The set up process is the easiest part about this product.
 
Google has done lots of research with AI and AI algorithms. It is not just about mining information from you and me. Google's DeepMind has done some excellent work on AI and AI Algorithms. Google is so far ahead of AI research, Apple just cannot compete with Google. In terms of AI research, Apple is behind than Google, Microsoft and Amazon.

Siri loss AI battle isn't that much of surprise to me.
The game isn’t over. Truthfully, all AI is still basically crap.
 
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If you want a speaker that only tells you the correct answer 50% of the team. First of all then it is not smart and second just get a regular speaker.
The HP is a smart speaker. The Echo and Google Home are smart microphones attached to dumb speakers. (To be fair, Google Home Max is a not-completely-dumb-but-also-not-terribly-smart speaker.) The HP is a different category of device than Echo and Max. Informed consumers won't be choosing among them, because they are not similar devices.
 
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Got my HomePod today. After 30 min still cannot figure out how to set it up. It also forced me into 2-factor authentication which I absolutely do not want. So far it's a dud. Even MS would not be that bad. Something is majorly wrong with this product.... Do not buy ...

Sorry to hear that.

My HomePod set itself up transferring AppleID and WiFi info/passwords/etc automatically from my iPhone in about a minute. I was stunned how easy setup was.
 
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