tvOS 17.4 Allegedly Hints at HomePod With Display

[joecomo]

Because I'd like to get rid of my Amazon Echo Show devices and replace them with similar Apple devices. That means a smart speaker with a screen on it.

Same with me - but I could live without the HomePod functionality for the smart display (have built in Sonance Speakers)

 

[joecomo]

it will probably be cheaper and more effective to get the iPad 9th gen and use it as a picture frame. So it's a picture frame and an actual functional tablet.

not really optimized for Wall mounted usage - had a wall-mounted iPad Pro for a long time and it is not optimal.
In principle the echo 15 has the better usage concept - if it were not Alexa focused.

 

[joecomo]

Yep. The screen has to be at an angle that makes it possible to see from the front, like an Echo Show. Some sort of cylindrical shape (with the ends of the cylinder on the left and right) would make this possible.

Yes indeed - I would still prefer a flat display without Speaker

 

[Smartass]

Why would you need a screen on it? You already have it on your phone(or your apple watch). Just another brilliant idea, deriving from boredom and total loss of creative ideas in Apple. Somebody had to put some idea out by some deadline, and this was probably it.

 

[svish]

Expecting to see the new device latest by WWDC this year

 

[Cwoods]

I really wish I could be as inaccurate at my job as these Apple insiders. So much less stress when you can just make up stuff.

 

[AppleIsEveryWhere]

I really hope this time is HomePod mini! But it doesn’t make sense to upgrade the mini version rather the original HomePod with new features and design, we saw that when apple released the 1 HomePod mini with humidity and temperature sensor! I wouldn’t be surprised!

 

[nuckinfutz]

Impressive ....just a half decade late.

 

[stocklen]

With the U1 chip...
Does it not make more sense to have an iPhone or an iPad, when in close enough proximity to a HomePod to pop up with a toggle that would temporarily switch the display into a 'HomePod display' in the same way standby mode works....
You can do whatever you feel you need to do on the screen, then revert back to the phone/ipad screen.

 

[luckypierre78]

The only reason I haven't bought a HomePod mini is the lack of an ability to show the time. I want it to be my bedside alarm clock, although granted if I had the standby mode of the newer iPhones can also do that. But that would be a reason for a screen on a HomePod mini specifically. For a regular HomePod, maybe it's a dedicated FaceTime device for older people to make phone calls?

 

[clayj]

Here's what I want:

5" - 7" touchscreen, angled for easily visibility, to show photos, sports scores, weather forecasts, etc.
front-facing camera for use with FaceTime (including Continuity with Apple TV)
speakers (they don't have to be awesome)
some kind of tailored OS designed for this form factor (could be a modified version of iOS / iPadOS or tvOS, but optimized for landscape orientation and that screen size)

This should NOT cost anywhere near as much as any iPad. $250 max.

 

[bodhisattva]

Just thinking how nice it will be to glance over at my kitchen pod and see the weather, or any other useful widget updating me as I make coffee. Have several, and kinda like this news.

 

[Andromeda_Andy]

I was about to make a similar point.

Although I will be sticking with HomePods.... there is something seriously wrong with the software which remains unresolved to this day.

I feel that perhaps I have too many! Someone once mentioned there was a 6 unit limit (unofficially but acknowledged by Apple apparently) and any more than that in a single home and things become very unstable.

I have a single HomePod at my office, and it works flawlessly.

At home my 8 HomePod setup is incredbily frustrating. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesnt. Sometimes a stereo pair will not play out of both sides and sometimes it stutters. Multi room music is where things really fall apart with the experience being rather unpredictable.
I had a period of stability which was good but in the last 2 weeks trying to play some music around the house at once is like pulling teeth.


Anyway back on topic here - not sure how a HomePod with a screen is going to add much to the equation but I would urge Apple to do something about the software before they start introducing more models. At the very least if there is some mystical limit to the number recommended in a home then be honest about it and dont just let people add more and more in the incorrect assumption that 'it just works'

I have the same exact thing, having 8 homepods, 3 apple TVs causes many issues.
As a tip, I found they worked MUCH more reliably if you group them into zones in your house and as you say have a max of 6 in the zone. So I have a "Main House" music Zone I ask it to play in which will be the kitchen, upstairs hallway, bedroom and wardrobe room. It tends to play much quicker and group with less lag this way than "play everywhere" and waiting for it to group 8 homepods together.
Also, I have unlinked it from my TV in the kitchen (as the living room has a dedicated amp/surround setup so not needed) and since unlinking from the Apple TV as a speaker it has also been much less buggy when grouping with others.

I was going to ask do you have the new gen homepods? I am wondering whether to upgrade my OG ones to see if they are any faster / more reliable but not sure if wasting my money. The homepod mini does seem to work quicker than the first gen.

Even though frustrating, they do have great audio and I'm hoping the Siri rework will improve her reliability at least too.

 

[stocklen]

I have the same exact thing, having 8 homepods, 3 apple TVs causes many issues.
As a tip, I found they worked MUCH more reliably if you group them into zones in your house and as you say have a max of 6 in the zone. So I have a "Main House" music Zone I ask it to play in which will be the kitchen, upstairs hallway, bedroom and wardrobe room. It tends to play much quicker and group with less lag this way than "play everywhere" and waiting for it to group 8 homepods together.
Also, I have unlinked it from my TV in the kitchen (as the living room has a dedicated amp/surround setup so not needed) and since unlinking from the Apple TV as a speaker it has also been much less buggy when grouping with others.

I was going to ask do you have the new gen homepods? I am wondering whether to upgrade my OG ones to see if they are any faster / more reliable but not sure if wasting my money. The homepod mini does seem to work quicker than the first gen.

Even though frustrating, they do have great audio and I'm hoping the Siri rework will improve her reliability at least too.

Oh thats interesting.
Great to hear other perspectives.

So, for me I have a stereo pair of Gen 2 HomePods. I have 2 stereo pairs of minis, and 2 stand alone minis.

In the home app, I have 2 zones - 'upstairs' containing the gen 2 pair and a mini pair... and 'downstairs' containing a mini pair and 2 stand alones.

ALSO, I have 2 Apple TVs, a Sonos Arc, and an LG TV. All of these also appear as airplay speakers too.

So, when I ask to play 'everywhere' I know that also plays though the Sonos ARC but no idea/didnt consider that the AppleTVs were there 'playing' too. The LG Tv doesnt turn on because its always on standby when im playing music in this way.

So, your suggestion regarding zones is interesting. As zones are defined at room level - I dont see how I can have a zone just containing the HomePods as the other devices reside in the same room.... can you elaborate how you've set this up?
How does your 'main house' zone which encompasses your kitchen, upstairs hallway, bedroom and wardrobe room manage to not include any Apple TVs when presumably you have an appleTV in the bedroom too?

 

[freedomlinux]

I wonder if it'll just be like the Echo Show 10 which is a tablet attached to a speaker basically.

That design reminds me of something...

iHomePod G4 please

 

[Andromeda_Andy]

Oh thats interesting.
Great to hear other perspectives.

So, for me I have a stereo pair of Gen 2 HomePods. I have 2 stereo pairs of minis, and 2 stand alone minis.

In the home app, I have 2 zones - 'upstairs' containing the gen 2 pair and a mini pair... and 'downstairs' containing a mini pair and 2 stand alones.

ALSO, I have 2 Apple TVs, a Sonos Arc, and an LG TV. All of these also appear as airplay speakers too.

So, when I ask to play 'everywhere' I know that also plays though the Sonos ARC but no idea/didnt consider that the AppleTVs were there 'playing' too. The LG Tv doesnt turn on because its always on standby when im playing music in this way.

So, your suggestion regarding zones is interesting. As zones are defined at room level - I dont see how I can have a zone just containing the HomePods as the other devices reside in the same room.... can you elaborate how you've set this up?
How does your 'main house' zone which encompasses your kitchen, upstairs hallway, bedroom and wardrobe room manage to not include any Apple TVs when presumably you have an appleTV in the bedroom too?

So it may be different with me since I don't use the homepods as TV speakers anymore.
When I ask siri to play everywhere, it doesn't play on the apple tvs in those rooms, it ONLY groups the homepods. But I noticed when paired with an apple tv, it would often turn the tv on and start playing or it would flat out refuse and say "sorry something went wrong". The temp fix would be to restart apple tv and homepod, but it would hit the bug again eventually.
It seems to really struggle at times unlinking from the tv (even when the tv is off since I dont think the apple tv is ever really 'off') and grouping with the others. It will also more frequently fail if you do the request with that homepod vs the request coming from another room which then links it (so another homepod being the controller).

For me, the sonos beam (gen1) or my other airplay 2 devices never group with the "play everywhere" siri command. I'm not sure why tbh, they will link if I do it manually but it always just prioritises the homepods.

I just assign multiple zones and then assign the rooms. So e.g. I have a "shower zone" and I can say "play this in the shower" and it will play bedroom/hallway/wardrobe rooms and it does so much quicker than the "play everywhere" command.

Thanks for letting me know your setup, so it looks like the bugs are still there even on gen2 homepods and the mini's. It has to be 100% software related then not just the apple watch chip in gen1 being too slow to cope.

I'm really hoping the new rumoured siri in ios18 is also included in the homepod OS.
I love my homepods as speakers, but the bugs are far too frequent, failing to complete requests 40% of the time.

 

[stocklen]

So it may be different with me since I don't use the homepods as TV speakers anymore.
When I ask siri to play everywhere, it doesn't play on the apple tvs in those rooms, it ONLY groups the homepods. But I noticed when paired with an apple tv, it would often turn the tv on and start playing or it would flat out refuse and say "sorry something went wrong". The temp fix would be to restart apple tv and homepod, but it would hit the bug again eventually.
It seems to really struggle at times unlinking from the tv (even when the tv is off since I dont think the apple tv is ever really 'off') and grouping with the others. It will also more frequently fail if you do the request with that homepod vs the request coming from another room which then links it (so another homepod being the controller).

For me, the sonos beam (gen1) or my other airplay 2 devices never group with the "play everywhere" siri command. I'm not sure why tbh, they will link if I do it manually but it always just prioritises the homepods.

I just assign multiple zones and then assign the rooms. So e.g. I have a "shower zone" and I can say "play this in the shower" and it will play bedroom/hallway/wardrobe rooms and it does so much quicker than the "play everywhere" command.

Thanks for letting me know your setup, so it looks like the bugs are still there even on gen2 homepods and the mini's. It has to be 100% software related then not just the apple watch chip in gen1 being too slow to cope.

I'm really hoping the new rumoured siri in ios18 is also included in the homepod OS.
I love my homepods as speakers, but the bugs are far too frequent, failing to complete requests 40% of the time.

I have now pretty much cracked it.... but in a very roundabout way.

So, what I noticed is that using SIRI on the phone works far more reliably than addressing the HomePod directly.

So I recently got used to picking up my phone and saying 'Siri play music everywhere' etc and more often than not it would work fine including SONOS speakers. It seems invoking airplay multi room music is far more reliable under iOS than HomePod directly.

That said, I have created a robust and so far 100% reliable workaround.....
I usually listen to RadioX in the morning... and when I wake up I ask my HomePods to 'play RadioX everywhere' - this rarely works with various errors and speakers not connecting... and dont get me started on try reliability of using the alarm function on the HomePod with a Tunein radio station as the alarm audio!

So, noticing that the phone works better..... I created a shortcut on the phone... and that shortcut has the following simple steps:

1. Set the airplay destination to 'bedroom'.
2. ADD the hallway to the airplay destinations.
3. ADD the kitchen to the airplay destinations...
.... ADD, ADD, ADD one step per destination until you have all the devices including homepods and SONOS speakers.
final step: Play RadioX

Next, I automated the shortcut - running it every weekday morning at 7am.

Now, the radio starts reliably, and on all my speakers throughout the house and so far hasnt glitched once.

So, moral of the story is... dont rely on Siri on the homepods for multi room music.... for now it's still a bit rubbish.