HomePod

NabyLadistheman · 23-01-2018 3:52pm #1

https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2018/01/homepod-arrives-february-9-available-to-order-this-friday/

So HomePod is finally coming & is available from the 9th Feb. $349 seems pricey! Whose going to be getting one?!

peteeeed · 23-01-2018 8:46pm

Ill wait for reviews

bluemachaveli · 23-01-2018 10:10pm

Depends on Siri really. I'm still pissed it doesn't work on Apple TV

Zhane · 24-01-2018 12:01am

I'm gonna wait till more updates are issues and if they bring out the next one. I very rarely buy first gen products.

duridian · 24-01-2018 12:49am

If they do as good a job on the speaker as they did with the smaller ones in iPad Pro, then this should sound spectacular for the size.
Siri could be a bit of a weak point though. Google Assistant and Alexa have a bit of a jump on them in that regard, and Apple need to improve it if they want this to be a real big hit.

peteeeed · 25-01-2018 7:53pm

Quick review here
http://www.refinery29.com/2018/01/188840/apple-homepod-speaker-quality

faceman · 25-01-2018 9:28pm

As much of an Apple fan I am, they’ve missed the mark by miles on this one. The competition have better products at better prices.

Sonos are now selling 2 of their Sonos One speakers with Alexa for the same price of 1 HomePod.

Plus Siri is crap as an assistant.

Zhane · 25-01-2018 11:34pm

faceman wrote: »

As much of an Apple fan I am, they’ve missed the mark by miles on this one. The competition have better products at better prices.

Sonos are now selling 2 of their Sonos One speakers with Alexa for the same price of 1 HomePod.

Plus Siri is crap as an assistant.

If I had a €1 for every time some says they've missed the mark....

And Sonos offering that promotion is simply in retaliation. They can see that the Homepod will be a competitor.

I trust Apple have a plan for the Homepod. They are not stupid, they know what the competitors do and they know what Siri is not capable of right now. This might be wishful thinking, but i think Junes WWDC keynote will be very Siri focused. That being said, I'm still not getting this version.

faceman · 26-01-2018 9:09am

Zhane wrote: »

If I had a €1 for every time some says they've missed the mark....

And Sonos offering that promotion is simply in retaliation. They can see that the Homepod will be a competitor.

I trust Apple have a plan for the Homepod. They are not stupid, they know what the competitors do and they know what Siri is not capable of right now. This might be wishful thinking, but i think Junes WWDC keynote will be very Siri focused. That being said, I'm still not getting this version.

Homepod only supports a premium Apple Music account. Sonos, Echo and Google support numerous music streaming options.

Far overpriced compared to its competitors.

Siri vastly inferior to what it offers.

For now, gen 1 of HomePod is dead before it’s out.

Oafley Jones · 26-01-2018 11:08am

faceman wrote: »

Homepod only supports a premium Apple Music account. Sonos, Echo and Google support numerous music streaming options.

Far overpriced compared to its competitors.

Siri vastly inferior to what it offers.

For now, gen 1 of HomePod is dead before it’s out.

It's a throughly un-compelling product. It's doesn't seem to have any single feature that'll give it an advantage over the competition. I know Apple feel they can't cede the sitting room to Amazon and Google, but they've show **** all ability or interest in leveraging Siri and this seems so half arsed. As an assistant it just seems to get worse every year for me. I just worry that this will launch and exist in that space of the new Mac Pro/Hifi and just languish around until they kill it.

duridian · 26-01-2018 11:50am

faceman wrote: »

Homepod only supports a premium Apple Music account. Sonos, Echo and Google support numerous music streaming options.
...
For now, gen 1 of HomePod is dead before it’s out.

Didn't realise that. In that case things are looking pretty grim. I thought you would be able to use other services, Play Music, Spotify, Deezer, etc. Very much a one trick pony so.

Creamy Goodness · 26-01-2018 11:58am

I wouldn’t say it’s dead before it comes out, based purely on the fact people said that about the iPhone (can’t do video), the iPod (doesn’t play certain formats) and the watch (bigger in revenue than Rolex).

But even then I’m struggling to want a HomePod. It looks beautiful and will probably sound it too but I still think all voice assistants are weak.

Alexa is fine, but only recently came to Ireland (this week, I know there were ways around it but still), but the physical device looks ugly.

Google assistant is the best out of the lot, but again ye hardware doesn’t look nice and I’m not hugely in the google ecosystem for reasons.

Siri is good at simple things, has way more languages than any of the others but gets things wrong far too often. What’s worse is when it’s wrong it’s too sassy about it and it frustrates the living hell out of me.

So a HomePod that’s focused on music with Siri on the side is fine, but when it was delayed for so long, and he two main audio features (airplay2 and multi-channel audio) don’t even ship day one you’ve got to wonder.

The HomePod does have an A8 SOC on board though and has multiple speakers and loads of microphones so perhaps it’s something that will get much better overtime.

At €249 I’d take a punt, but €349 is a bit too rich right now considering what it does right now.

peteeeed · 26-01-2018 12:19pm

i have apple music so i will probably get one at some stage

faceman · 26-01-2018 1:46pm

peteeeed wrote: »

i have apple music so i will probably get one at some stage

Sonos supports Apple Music too. I’d be politely steering you in that direction instead tbh.

murpho999 · 26-01-2018 1:47pm

peteeeed wrote: »

i have apple music so i will probably get one at some stage

I have Apple music too but that would not make me get it.

Firstly, Siri would have to catch up with the competition. I use it a good bit and it is handy but it does mishear a lot and it needs to be able to do more.

Also, a speaker like this will be used by more than one person. So my wife has Spotify through her Vodafone contract and she would not be able to use the speaker which is just wrong.

I think Apple should open that up.

€349 is a ridiculous price as well.

peteeeed · 26-01-2018 2:11pm

to me i would mainly use it for listening to music no until full reviews are out i'll not be buying it

Bob24 · 27-01-2018 6:30am

I'll wait for reviews from audio equipment websites, but I am cautiously positive about it since initial impressions seem to indicate their sound quality blows other smart speakers out of the water and it has a hi-fi feel. If I was to buy HomePods it would be to listen to music in good quality throughout a room, I don't care for Siri.

One potential issue for me though is the lack of line in connector. What do people do if they want to output the audio of their TV/gaming console to the HomePod?

glideslope · 27-01-2018 10:17am

HomePod has Airplay ( Airplay 2 is on the way ) so if you have Spotify you can use the HomePod to play your music like any other Airplay speaker. Siri on the HomePod will only work with Apple Music.

The question is though - if I buy one of these HomePods in the UK, will Siri work here? Siri on the Apple TV is currently not supported here so will it be the same case with the HomePod?

murpho999 · 28-01-2018 1:29pm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAYm688TMo

https://youtu.be/-kAYm688TMo

Link also provided as you tube tags appear not to be working.

This guy summarises it pretty well. Apple are charging a premim for a beta product at launch with updates to follow months later

flexcon · 05-02-2018 10:20am

glideslope wrote: »

HomePod has Airplay ( Airplay 2 is on the way ) so if you have Spotify you can use the HomePod to play your music like any other Airplay speaker. Siri on the HomePod will only work with Apple Music.

The question is though - if I buy one of these HomePods in the UK, will Siri work here? Siri on the Apple TV is currently not supported here so will it be the same case with the HomePod?

Yes I can confirm it works. I have a close friend who was lucky enough to test this as an employee in Apple. You need a UK Apple ID ( Very simple to create ).

This works for both Apple TV and Homepod.

One downside to this though, Since its a UK Apple ID you will need to have a UK sub of Apple Music for the full experience.

bluemachaveli · 05-02-2018 10:39am

flexcon wrote: »

Yes I can confirm it works. I have a close friend who was lucky enough to test this as an employee in Apple. You need a UK Apple ID ( Very simple to create ).

This works for both Apple TV and Homepod.

One downside to this though, Since its a UK Apple ID you will need to have a UK sub of Apple Music for the full experience.

Changing the region is an absolute pain tho. I can't change my main account due to having a family share setup. There's no point in using a throwaway account as you won't have Apple Music, Homekit etc.

It baffles me how Siri can be on the iPhone here and not on the Apple TV & Homepod (potentially).

whippet · 05-02-2018 10:50am

can you change your AppleID to a UK one?

bluemachaveli · 05-02-2018 11:00am

whippet wrote: »

can you change your AppleID to a UK one?

You can, but you lose any credit you might have on the account. You may also lose some purchases if they are not available in the region you are switching to.

https://support.apple.com/en-ie/HT201389

flexcon · 05-02-2018 11:03am

whippet wrote: »

can you change your AppleID to a UK one?

instead of changing you should create another new one for the UK

AFAIK you don't need to change the region anymore on Apple TV and the Homepod. They removed that part. Just the UK Apple ID

whippet · 05-02-2018 11:34am

flexcon wrote: »

instead of changing you should create another new one for the UK

AFAIK you don't need to change the region anymore on Apple TV and the Homepod. They removed that part. Just the UK Apple ID

if I create a UK ID, how will that affect my music subscriptions etc?

glideslope · 05-02-2018 11:34am

flexcon wrote: »

Yes I can confirm it works. I have a close friend who was lucky enough to test this as an employee in Apple. You need a UK Apple ID ( Very simple to create ).

This works for both Apple TV and Homepod.

One downside to this though, Since its a UK Apple ID you will need to have a UK sub of Apple Music for the full experience.

Thanks for the info. That’s unfortunate though as I don’t want to use a uk Id. Will have to wait until it’s launched here.

flexcon · 05-02-2018 12:37pm

whippet wrote: »

if I create a UK ID, how will that affect my music subscriptions etc?

They won't be related.

In the case above, you need to cancel your Irish subscription and start a UK one on your UK Apple ID.

In other words - if you have playlists built up on your Irish one, no point in doing this

davo2001 · 06-02-2018 1:47pm

Can you purchase a Sonos play3 (not just the play1 or Sonos1) and an amazon echo dot or google home mini for the same price as this.

And there is no way in hell the Homepod will be able to match the sound quality of a play3 given it's size.

flexcon · 06-02-2018 3:26pm

davo2001 wrote: »

Can you purchase a Sonos play3 (not just the play1 or Sonos1) and an amazon echo dot or google home mini for the same price as this.

And there is no way in hell the Homepod will be able to match the sound quality of a play3 given it's size.

While that is true, I think you have to remember that once you are invested in an ECO system it's expensive to get out and get the equivalent

for example if I did the above, then that would be literally mean all my existing home kit is a mess.

If starting from scratch, then yes - But that goes for any Apple Device.

Oafley Jones · 06-02-2018 5:56pm

davo2001 wrote: »

Can you purchase a Sonos play3 (not just the play1 or Sonos1) and an amazon echo dot or google home mini for the same price as this.

And there is no way in hell the Homepod will be able to match the sound quality of a play3 given it's size.

I’ve a play 3. It’s the oldest product Sonos sell and while it’s still fairly decent, I’d take a pair of the new Ones in stereo over it. Tempted to do this at the living room at the moment actually.

Bob24 · 06-02-2018 9:31pm

Reviews round-up: http://appleinsider.com/articles/18/02/06/homepod-review-roundup-apples-smart-speaker-sounds-incredible-but-siri-is-lacking

Basically the consensus seems to be great audio quality as a speaker but but as good at the smart part and restricted to the Apple ecosystem.

I'll have to give it a try bit depending one how great the audio quality is I might actually be interesting as I am in the Apple ecosystem anyone and don't care for "smart" features.

HomePod

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