Trust issue is because Apple screws us sometimes. Not often, but sometimes quite rudely when they do.
The sound from Minis sucks. Adding (the existing poor-sounding) Minis to the excellent Homepods would just denigrate the sound. I tried adding Minis to my HomePods and it was awful; the Minis were returned to Apple.
I disagree. What you call the competition that was primarily all about voice response was the sucky sounding but cheap Amazon Echo, which is why we got the sucky sounding HomePod Mini.
Original HomePod speakers are definitely not "expensive yet medicocre". My guess is that you do not own them, so perhaps you should not make comments about something you have not real-world tested.
The competition was indeed sucky sounding. It was and still is absolutely awful sounding. But it does have great voice response and people don't just by HomePod for the audio - at least I don't. I have plenty of great HiFi kit if I want to spend time listening to great audio, and it's really nice to have great audio from the HomePod, too. But I'd also really like it to have more voice response utility.
I doubt if Apple will (or could) make Minis sound like HomePods; neither enough size nor room for individual speakers of various ranges. No doubt Minis could sound better, but not what HomePods do. My hope is that Apple again offers an excellent-sounding pricey 7" HomePod, but with modern HomeKit features to help justify the price. And also a less expensive Mini with similar HomeKit tech but without the high end sound (better however than the current Mini's sound).
Rear speakers that produce a lower quality and “smaller” sound…wouldn’t exactly be something new.
My Siri does everything you say you do with Alexa. Except for the thermostat because I don’t have one. Consider also that Siri understands my horrible English pronunciation.
Your point is well taken. The sound from current Minis is (IMO) too poor to fill that role, but a new Mini could and should be made that could do so.
Let’s also remember that these speakers aren’t intended to replace true surround system that costs well into the thousands.
Indeed. IMO the size of the space enters into the analysis, and Apple fails to educate folks in that regard. Original HomePods excel for moderately sized indoor spaces and paired-speaker setups. Minis are voice quality only. Neither is engineered for large spaces, for outdoors or for surround sound. Apple needs to communicate those facts to customers instead of letting customer ignorance lead to misuse.
The original HomePod sold poorly because Minis were not created yet so the full-size HomePod was force-fit into competing in the low end Echo mass market, and therefore was too expensive as you observe. But it could exist at the higher end with the Mini at the lower end mass market.
My HomePods have lost synch ~3 times in years and it was easily restored. They probably have 12 months error-free going right now.
I just don't understand why lately when I ask a question, she says she will send it to my phone. Did she always do this and I missed it? And inconsistency is the other issue. When she works, it's great, but suddenly she can't turn a light on or off.
The phone does this already. Too many times to be coincidence that people have said they were talking about stuff without any app opens, and the next time they go on an app, the thing is showing in an ad or such.
There's nothing worse than when you're having a group of friends over and the streamed music glitches somehow and it's a pain to get it going again. The 3.5 mm input as a backup would be a great idea.
