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Sonos Makes a Spotify Playlist for Apple's HomePod With Hidden 'We're Going to Be Friends' Message
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The HomePod can't replace all of the home audio equipment Sonos offers. Sonos offers a wide range of products that serve different purposes. People buy into Sonos because it offers a complete solution. The HomePod is just one part of the puzzle and Apple doesn't offer the rest yet.
To celebrate the official launch of the HomePod, Sonos, one of Apple's major competitors in the speaker market, made a "Welcome to the Party" playlist for the new device with a hidden message.
Shared on Twitter, the playlist features 21 songs, with each song selected for its title to send a secret note to Apple. Here's the song list:
Hello / Apple / Something About Us / Together / Feels Right / Even Though / You're Crazy / For This / Home / POD / Remember / Two Is Better Than One / Just Playing / It's a Party / Everybody's Coming To My House / Even You / Come As You Are / Fruit Machine / No Matter What You're Told / We're Going To Be Friends / Over Everything
Sending messages through Spotify playlists is a phenomenon that was popular for a brief time right around April of 2017, due to the way Spotify playlists can be arranged and displayed linearly on both the web and within Spotify's apps. The practice is less common now, and though Sonos is using it to send what appears to be a friendly message, it's also a jab at Apple.
The Sonos Spotify playlist made for Apple can't be played natively on an Apple HomePod because the HomePod is limited to content played from Apple Music or iTunes. It can, of course, be played using AirPlay from a connected Mac or iOS device, but that's less convenient than the native playback available via Sonos speakers.
Sonos hasn't had much competition in the high-end connected speaker market, and for years, it's been the go-to brand for high-quality multi-room sound, so it's not surprising that the company feels somewhat threatened by the HomePod.
The launch of devices like the Amazon Echo and the Google Home likely didn't concern Sonos because of the lack of focus on audio quality, but many new HomePod owners have discovered that the HomePod sounds just as good or better than Sonos speakers.
Back in October, Sonos launched its Sonos One, a speaker that directly competes with the HomePod thanks to the combination of Sonos sound and Amazon Alexa smarts.
Sonos kept the price of the Sonos One low at $199, and when the HomePod went on sale, as an attempt to lure Apple customers, Sonos kicked off a deal offering two of its Sonos One speakers for $349, the same price as a single HomePod.
While Sonos and Apple are now direct competitors, the HomePod and the Sonos One can peacefully co-exist once Apple's AirPlay 2 protocol officially launches. Sonos has promised to add AirPlay 2 support to the Sonos One, and with AirPlay 2, a person who owns both a Sonos One and a HomePod will be able to play music to both devices at the same time over-the-air.
Article Link: Sonos Makes a Spotify Playlist for Apple's HomePod With Hidden 'We're Going to Be Friends' Message
LMAO seems like someone over at Sonos took a queue on how I make my music playlists: Make each song title into a sentence expressing an emotion, yet each son fits in the playlist based on that emotion. I did mine about a decade ago subconciously and posted it on macrumors much more recently.
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/post-what-you-are-listening-to.1391816/page-46#post-23319149
Still Sonos is screwing around playing fun at Apple instead of being VERY precisely clear WHICH models will get AirPlay 2 support. It's ok I'll sell my Play:1 regardless since they keep playing around.
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It's not bad at all for good sound, more impressive than one might think for a Play:1. Yet if you're after great quality and have been used to larger spaces with higher end sound systems ... you'll need to pay for a Play:3 or a Play:5 to equal what the "supposed" reviews are saying about HomePod.
All Sonos speakers are uni-directional (speakers firing in one direction).
I have a 980 Sq Ft Apartment and the Play:1 doesn't even fill up my living room as well as it does my bedroom and I don't have any carpet or hardwood furniture.
LOL ... this is the same for anytime you switch platforms:
Records
8-Track
Cassette
Radio
CD
MiniDisc/Hi-MD
iTunes/iPod/iPhone
sorry first two didn't allow for playlists. Google Music .. I have to use their App (a container just like Cassette/Radio/CD/MiniDisc are), just like Spotify on iOS, Android, or Mac / Chrome OS / Windows or through the browser. You're still using a container of sorts in order to access the playlist. It's not just magically there in another platform.
Sonos will be around.
Keep in mind they did a huge set of layoffs in 2016-2017. They're a private company thus R&D is limited, but I do like that they stand for music lovers ... yet they're already playing around with a LOT of their user base which had major support by Apple in their stores.
Also ... ONLY the Play One gets Alexa, etc (Alexa delayed in Canada) ... non of the other systems get "smart" until new products are announced.
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My point is that in a discussion of a voice-controlled speaker, AirPlay does not really count as any meaningful form of "integration".
Feels like you were born yesterday which may well be true when you post things like that.
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Also people overlook one small detail that AM is only available since june 2015
If you extrapolate this over time Spotify is done.
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I went with the two Sonos One for 349 deal. So happy with them I bought another pair. They sound amazing, with stereo pairing out of the box, support for Amazon music, Spotify and Apple Music, and Alexa works very well... though some features of the echo dots are not yet supported.
I’m usually an “everything Apple” guy, so quite proud of myself for thinking different!
I’m usually an “everything Apple” guy, so quite proud of myself for thinking different!
Ha ha ha..... Apple revolutionized the music industry with paid digital downloads and the iPod. They sold millions of music devices at a time when SONOS didn't even exist as a company yet.
I have two Play 1’s paired in Stereo configuration at a cost of £300. Linked to my Echo as I have Amazon music and they sound great. (Plus wife friendly as installed on the wall out of the way).
I’m sure the HomePod sounds superb and looking forward to a listen.
I’m quite open minded and wouldn’t rule out buying one next for another room and subscribe to Apple Music for that speaker.
Competition is great but Sonos will no doubt up their game with updated products so don’t write them off. Apple need pushing else they get lazy.
I’m sure the HomePod sounds superb and looking forward to a listen.
I’m quite open minded and wouldn’t rule out buying one next for another room and subscribe to Apple Music for that speaker.
Competition is great but Sonos will no doubt up their game with updated products so don’t write them off. Apple need pushing else they get lazy.
Good for Sonos. I love their products. Everything works slick and they sound great - to my non-professionally untrained ears
Just a few months ago, I was asked to participate in a survey from Sonos. It was geared towards the launch of the homepod with their questions. The only that stood out was along the lines of 'how important voice control' is. I said it was huge. For me, I use it on my phone and now my Mac. I love having a personal assistant.
From what I understand, the SDK is available for developers to incorporate adding Siri to the Sonos app - I am NOT a developer so I'm a little clueless on the subject so don't slam me.
But I think Sonos needs to add that to solidify their product offerings.
Cheers,
Brian
Just a few months ago, I was asked to participate in a survey from Sonos. It was geared towards the launch of the homepod with their questions. The only that stood out was along the lines of 'how important voice control' is. I said it was huge. For me, I use it on my phone and now my Mac. I love having a personal assistant.
From what I understand, the SDK is available for developers to incorporate adding Siri to the Sonos app - I am NOT a developer so I'm a little clueless on the subject so don't slam me.
But I think Sonos needs to add that to solidify their product offerings.
Cheers,
Brian
The sudden overnight crop of audiophile Apple fanboys clearly know nothing about Sonos (or the speaker market in general). HomePod competes with a single Sonos product, their cheapest product. The fanboys are utterly delusional if they think the HomePod is going to kill Sonos. It’s rather laughable. Could Apple develop HomePod into a family of products that can truly compete with Sonos? Sure, but that will take years and I seriously doubt Apple intends to do that. We should all hope they don’t. The last thing we need is Apple to lose focus even further.
The HomePod launch perfectly illustrates why so many people mock Apple fans. I’ve seen posts from people saying things like “I don’t care about a smart speaker. I only care about great audio”, as if every speaker ever made is total garbage compared to a HomePod. Ugh. The truth is, and I say this as a 35 year Apple user, the HomePod cheerleaders don’t care about audio quality at all. If they did, they’d already have a good setup. They only care about the Apple logo. They have no interest in a particular product until Apple gets into the market and then, suddenly, they become full throated evangelists for Apple’s offering, despite the fact that they had no interest in that type of product the day before. Laughable, transparent, and rather sad if you ask me, but as a longtime Apple shareholder, I have to appreciate those folks.
You're right. It is your point. Your point only. You can't claim it was my point or that I implied anything related to it. I didn't. You trying to make a point doesn't give you license to make false claims about something I didn't say.
Spotify support is a very easy problem to solve, if Apple really cared about it.
Apple already has a framework for integrating 3rd-party Apps in to Siri; it's called SiriKit. That's how you can rent an Uber over Siri, or use it to search for TV shows on AppleTV (even ones not from iTunes). SiriKit does not support music at the moment, but Apple already has a template from TV shows about how they could integrate it. So that's basically Apple's side of the deal: they provide the interfaces.
Spotify would then have to create a HomePod App. It appears to run a variant of iOS, so all of their DRM/streaming code should "just work". SiriKit integration would provide most of the UI.
But I'm not sure Apple really care about Spotify support. Reports show that they might soon overtake Spotify in the US for paid subscribers, and if there are great devices optimised for Apple Music, that will just make the service more attractive and harder to switch from. They could push it harder by including a 6-month voucher with the HomePod, or offering a discount for Apple Music subscribers. That is: HomePod might become a "feature" of Apple Music, rather than a standalone "great smart speaker".
Apple already has a framework for integrating 3rd-party Apps in to Siri; it's called SiriKit. That's how you can rent an Uber over Siri, or use it to search for TV shows on AppleTV (even ones not from iTunes). SiriKit does not support music at the moment, but Apple already has a template from TV shows about how they could integrate it. So that's basically Apple's side of the deal: they provide the interfaces.
Spotify would then have to create a HomePod App. It appears to run a variant of iOS, so all of their DRM/streaming code should "just work". SiriKit integration would provide most of the UI.
But I'm not sure Apple really care about Spotify support. Reports show that they might soon overtake Spotify in the US for paid subscribers, and if there are great devices optimised for Apple Music, that will just make the service more attractive and harder to switch from. They could push it harder by including a 6-month voucher with the HomePod, or offering a discount for Apple Music subscribers. That is: HomePod might become a "feature" of Apple Music, rather than a standalone "great smart speaker".
Bingo. HomePod is not Apple's home audio solution, nor is it a proper smart speaker (yet). It's an Apple Music accessory, another way to strengthen the ecosystem and keep the service revenue growing. My feeling is, they've done all they intend to do when it comes to third party services. Those services use AirPlay.
AI assistants and voice interfaces are definitely the future. For HomePod to really take off, Apple needs to greatly improve the "smart" features. Audio quality isn't a deciding factor when it comes to a speaker like this. There are plenty of very good speakers for under $500. Any true "audiophile", not the sudden crop of overnight HomePod audiophiles, already has a great sounding setup. And any aspiring audiophile isn't looking at HomePod for his or her system.
Apple's narrow focus for version 1 makes sense: make the Apple Music experience great and sell a few million to Apple Music subscribers and HomeKit users. Long-term, however, they are going to need to improve Siri in ways that differentiate "her" from Alexa and Google. Apple needs to bring their secret sauce to the voice assistant market and so far they have failed to do so. If they can't, they risk the same thing happening to them that happened to Microsoft when Apple launched the iPhone. In many respects, its already happening. Apple was first with Siri, but Alexa and Google have surpassed Siri in every sense. These things are still gadgets now, but it won't be long before we're using a voice-assistant interface more than we're swiping or clicking. Apple can't afford to fall any further behind in this area or they risk being next decade's Microsoft.
I read one review that found that two Sonos Ones sounded better than a single HomePod unit. Of course, that brings things up to price parity.
It's very understandable that Sonos is upset about Apple's HomePod.
In a recent review of the HomePod by Ben Lovejoy:
"Finally, a head-to-head with the Sonos Play 5. This is a single speaker, but much larger than the HomePod. The Sonos also costs $150 more [$499 US versus $349 US].
Here, I was even more surprised. This was much closer. I toggled back and forth between the two speakers multiple times, before finally concluding that the two are not only in the same league, but rank really closely within it. And if I had to give the edge to one, it would actually be HomePod.
Sorry, Sonos, but for iPhone owners at least, Apple just killed the Play 5 – not just the Play 3 Apple preferred to use as its basis for comparison."
In a recent review of the HomePod by Ben Lovejoy:
"Finally, a head-to-head with the Sonos Play 5. This is a single speaker, but much larger than the HomePod. The Sonos also costs $150 more [$499 US versus $349 US].
Here, I was even more surprised. This was much closer. I toggled back and forth between the two speakers multiple times, before finally concluding that the two are not only in the same league, but rank really closely within it. And if I had to give the edge to one, it would actually be HomePod.
Sorry, Sonos, but for iPhone owners at least, Apple just killed the Play 5 – not just the Play 3 Apple preferred to use as its basis for comparison."
They’d should sound better (2 vs 1). That said ... neither can do (natively) routing of sound from PC (other apps outside dated Sonos app) or phone speaker phone or other phone apps to Sonos Play:1/3/5/One. Not without another hardware purchase.
SONOS just broke it's app and 8.3.1 is a disaster, forced sign ins, all settings and playlist gone.
Friends I am no longer with SONOS - considerable investment made their equipment now I feel like smashing the lot (4 speakers two pairs).
At the same time Home POD explodes onto the market.
Stupid SONOS. I will never buy anymore of your hardware and I will never recommend you hardware all because you have borked your app and controller and regressed. Who owns the hardware?
Apple has an established eco system of computers products. You don't have to sign in on your Apple ID to enjoy the functionality say of your laptop. Having to sign-in just to play some music on a speaker you already own... going backed to wired or bluetooth is the solution.
Having also a SONY X33, that's the way forward if you just want to listen music (I see they have newer larger models too) and it's portable with a battery you can charge off USB.
SONOS = still tripping over cables (yea I know!) and constant setups and re-setup all the time.
+ this is not a pitch to buy HomePOD on no, but it's a mess for SONOS considering the timing.
Stay away from SONOS at this point (and maybe this kind of product as it really might not suit) and just to underline the reality that my experience turns out to by wholly common you may witness many users making exactly the same points by venturing over to the SONOS support forum -
Why do I need to sign in? - https://en.community.sonos.com/controllers-software-228995/why-do-i-need-to-sign-in-6788687
New App Sucks - https://en.community.sonos.com/controllers-software-228995/new-app-sucks-6292388
You all thought Apple had QA problems - SONOS just made Apples job a lot easier.
Friends I am no longer with SONOS - considerable investment made their equipment now I feel like smashing the lot (4 speakers two pairs).
At the same time Home POD explodes onto the market.
Stupid SONOS. I will never buy anymore of your hardware and I will never recommend you hardware all because you have borked your app and controller and regressed. Who owns the hardware?
Apple has an established eco system of computers products. You don't have to sign in on your Apple ID to enjoy the functionality say of your laptop. Having to sign-in just to play some music on a speaker you already own... going backed to wired or bluetooth is the solution.
Having also a SONY X33, that's the way forward if you just want to listen music (I see they have newer larger models too) and it's portable with a battery you can charge off USB.
SONOS = still tripping over cables (yea I know!) and constant setups and re-setup all the time.
+ this is not a pitch to buy HomePOD on no, but it's a mess for SONOS considering the timing.
Stay away from SONOS at this point (and maybe this kind of product as it really might not suit) and just to underline the reality that my experience turns out to by wholly common you may witness many users making exactly the same points by venturing over to the SONOS support forum -
Why do I need to sign in? - https://en.community.sonos.com/controllers-software-228995/why-do-i-need-to-sign-in-6788687
New App Sucks - https://en.community.sonos.com/controllers-software-228995/new-app-sucks-6292388
You all thought Apple had QA problems - SONOS just made Apples job a lot easier.
So what is the advantage of Spotify over Apple Music ? Is there content on Spotify that Apple Music doesn’t have?
(Leaving aside the fact that the HomePod can use AirPlay to receive music from just about any other music server, including Spotify.)
Let me fix that for you Apple is a 42 year old technology company. You do realize that Tomilisom Holman works for Apple? As in the guy who developed THX sound..
When Sonos makes it into its 4th decade then let’s talk.
Lmao!
‘Ooooo-nooo baby please don’t goooo’
Ok I’ve NEVER zone who the artist of this song is or owned it but always heard it in malls or Canadian Tire while my dads car was being repaired or tires changed.
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Im also on 8.3.1 yet not experiencing what you are. Maybe due to me not signing into Sonos since ver 8?
To others just glancing at the links, note these are issues first sprung up 1yr and 1month ago respectively and now happening again.
If Sonos was straight up about which of their products would get AirPlay2 support and when precisely or a seasonal time frame I may have stayed. Yet I don’t like such tactics from any company trying to upsell a product with vague notions of a feature. Buh-bye Sonos.
Hi,
Sorry if this has already been answered.
Does anyone know if the HomePod is going to be integrated with Sonos. So for example, If I have the HomePod in the kitchen and Sonos everywhere else in the house will I be able to ask Siri to play music in the living room or bedroom?
Thanks,
Mike
Sorry if this has already been answered.
Does anyone know if the HomePod is going to be integrated with Sonos. So for example, If I have the HomePod in the kitchen and Sonos everywhere else in the house will I be able to ask Siri to play music in the living room or bedroom?
Thanks,
Mike