Before adding features that are likely to destroy the product (IE. no speaker is designed to be "touched", they are designed to be listened to), how about we handle the plethora of problems that plague the current HP? For example, mine will play music - and I have no clue where it gets it's music from - it's nothing in my Library. Mine is connected via Bluetooth to the AppleTV that sits a whopping 24" away. Generally, it will stay connected for about 3-5 days, before it forgets that it's entire purpose in life is to be the "upgraded TV speaker" for my downstairs TV.
At this single job - it only rates as mediocre. Why? Is it capable of being truly remarkable? Absolutely. Is it? Not even close, it's a marginal improvement over my 2007 Panasonic Plasma TV speaker. And "marginal improvement" is being kind. There is a reason why EVERY Home Theater receiver on the market has multiple EQ settings for Music, Theater, Sports, Concert, Action Movie, Western Movie, etc. Because there is no such thing as "One size fits all" when it comes to EQ settings.
Apple understood this for the iPod, iPhone, Itouch and iPad - but this capability is missing on the HP. Why? As a single $200 TV speaker, vocals are often muddled and difficult to understand, music streamed through the iPhone sound great - but Netflix, HBO GO, AT&T Now, Prime TV, Hulu TV all sound muddled. Why make a speaker that can connect wirelessly to the AppleTV, when the connection is unreliable, and the EQ can not be set to match the source material? This is a half-baked idea.
Yikes, so many problems with what you said.
- Your ATV isn't using Bluetooth to connect to your ATV, it's AirPlay.
- It will only play what you instruct it to play -- whether that's via voice, via the ATV UI, or via an iOS device UI. You're doing it, even if you don't understand what you're doing.
- Sound is well above mediocre. For this size and price point, it excels and this has been noted in numerous reviews and comparisons. Combined with the convenience factor, it was enough for me to sell my expensive Anthony Gallo system and use these instead.
- I also have a Pansonic plasma TV (love the set) and the difference between them is night & day -- you must be deaf. The Panasonic has absolutely no bass, at the very least.
- We don't find it muddled, tho it's not as good as a home receiver with a dedicated center channel, which is to be expected. But we use it for movies & TV every day (HBO, Netflix, Amazon, etc). Be sure you don't have it tucked into an enclosure with no space above it, as that's the direction the woofer points; I did originally and it sounded muffled when there was no room around it.
Future HPs should include more robust i/o for a wider reach imo. BT playback and 3.5mm aux jack should be a minimum.
This makes no sense to me:
The aim appears to be that a HomePod user will be able to touch any side of the speaker to perform at least basic volume control. This could be more convenient than having to reach the top of the speaker, for instance if the user has positioned the HomePod atop shelves.
More convenient how? If you're close enough to reach the side, aren't you close enough to reach the top? It's not like the HP is a dimensional behemoth. It's a small device that can be held in one hand. If the HP is on a high shelf, you're still reaching just as high to touch the side. At that point wouldn't a Siri command make more sense? Control center command from iPhone or iPad?
Haptic fabric would seem a kinda meh addition to the HP
It needs a 3.5mm jack, eh? Why stop there? Why not a FireWire port and an Ethernet port? Maybe some 8-ohm speaker connectors so you can strap ‘em onto your 1973 Marantz amplifier? Yes, while everyone else zigs toward wireless smart speaker functionality, Apple could zag HomePod into a wired utopia and seize the retro market while no one’s paying attention!
Can we say "straw man"?
A consistent core philosophy at Apple is that, while they do create innovative devices that combine other functions into something where the whole is greater than the sum of the parts (see iPhone v. cellphone+PDA+GPS+iPod), they fastidiously do not create devices that are intended to be all things to all people (see MacOS devices that don't support swapping out internal hardware for third-party, nonstandard "cutting edge" bells and whistles). HomePod was never intended to serve as an audio output device for third-party sources, and that's very unlikely to change.
A software update could likely enable bluetooth playback on all existing HomePods, yet that's still unavailable. Why? They're not interested. Adding holes into which you can stick wires connected to other devices? They're even less interested in that. Any expectation that Apple would add these things is silly. My examples of FireWire, ethernet, and speaker wire connectors are really only slightly more absurd, but offering them up helps make the point of the silliness of the original proposition. So, reductio ad absurdum, not so much straw man.
Exactly. People complaining about generalist use cases aren't understanding that Apple devices aren't competing in that space and have little interest in doing so.
Future HPs should include more robust i/o for a wider reach imo. BT playback and 3.5mm aux jack should be a minimum.
This makes no sense to me:
The aim appears to be that a HomePod user will be able to touch any side of the speaker to perform at least basic volume control. This could be more convenient than having to reach the top of the speaker, for instance if the user has positioned the HomePod atop shelves.
More convenient how? If you're close enough to reach the side, aren't you close enough to reach the top? It's not like the HP is a dimensional behemoth. It's a small device that can be held in one hand. If the HP is on a high shelf, you're still reaching just as high to touch the side. At that point wouldn't a Siri command make more sense? Control center command from iPhone or iPad?
Haptic fabric would seem a kinda meh addition to the HP
It needs a 3.5mm jack, eh? Why stop there? Why not a FireWire port and an Ethernet port? Maybe some 8-ohm speaker connectors so you can strap ‘em onto your 1973 Marantz amplifier? Yes, while everyone else zigs toward wireless smart speaker functionality, Apple could zag HomePod into a wired utopia and seize the retro market while no one’s paying attention!
There's a difference between choosing something that is immensely popular with zero delay, and throwing everything but the kitchen sink at it. Airplay is too unreliable and laggy to use the HP with any video output. No problem with a 1/8" jack.
Nonsense. We use dual HPs for video stream audio output every day. That’s our primary use case. There is no lag. This is done via ATV native apps as well as iOS device beaming to the ATV.
The only issue I run into is with the very poor YouTube app, ported from some other platform, which breaks ATV platform conventions, and also fails to use the HPs unless I manually select them first. All other apps work as expected.
Yes because your experience with Apple gear - which oddly enough is absolutely flawless every time even if a problem is affecting every single other person - is indicative of everyone. It's not nonsense. It frequently lags behind the video by half a second or more. There are many people here and on Apple's own forums complaining of this. It's not the network either, I can ping the HP and there is <0.5ms delay.
But I do agree that the YT app is utter garbage.
My experiences aren't absolutely flawless every time, as of course that isn't the world we live in, for any tech or any product. But as I often chime in -- these products work for me, and that absolutely is the norm and that's what they're built to do. AirPlay 2 is absolutely fast enough for audio & video sync to work, and that's the norm. If for some reason you're experiencing otherwise, that's not the norm. I certainly have issues in google's piece of utter shit YouTube app, where it sometimes begins the audio or the video out of sync, requiring me to use the back/forward edge-click to jump 10 seconds and force a re-sync, but that is not the norm, nor is indicative of AirPlay 2.
But please, tell me which issues affect every single person in the world except me? That would certainly be mysterious. (Thankfully, it's also untrue, you just made it up)
What I would like to see is a “dot” like device that can be connected to a Stereo or other powered speaker. These things are not anything I - or apparently anyone else - wants to buy. I know tons of people who own an Apple product or multiple Apple products, but nobody who owns one of these things. Not trolling, but they sound hideous, are ugly magnets for dust and stains and are essentially unrepairable.
Before adding features that are likely to destroy the product (IE. no speaker is designed to be "touched", they are designed to be listened to), how about we handle the plethora of problems that plague the current HP? For example, mine will play music - and I have no clue where it gets it's music from - it's nothing in my Library. Mine is connected via Bluetooth to the AppleTV that sits a whopping 24" away. Generally, it will stay connected for about 3-5 days, before it forgets that it's entire purpose in life is to be the "upgraded TV speaker" for my downstairs TV.
At this single job - it only rates as mediocre. Why? Is it capable of being truly remarkable? Absolutely. Is it? Not even close, it's a marginal improvement over my 2007 Panasonic Plasma TV speaker. And "marginal improvement" is being kind. There is a reason why EVERY Home Theater receiver on the market has multiple EQ settings for Music, Theater, Sports, Concert, Action Movie, Western Movie, etc. Because there is no such thing as "One size fits all" when it comes to EQ settings.
Apple understood this for the iPod, iPhone, Itouch and iPad - but this capability is missing on the HP. Why? As a single $200 TV speaker, vocals are often muddled and difficult to understand, music streamed through the iPhone sound great - but Netflix, HBO GO, AT&T Now, Prime TV, Hulu TV all sound muddled. Why make a speaker that can connect wirelessly to the AppleTV, when the connection is unreliable, and the EQ can not be set to match the source material? This is a half-baked idea.
The HomePod connects to your Apple TV for the purpose of syncing with the speakers connected to your TV so that you can play Apple Music simultaneously in multiple rooms of the house. The HomePod is neither designed nor intended to serve as the speaker for your TV. It drops the link after a while because, when used for its intended purpose, it is desirable for it to eventually revert back to its default, which is being an independent speaker device.
I have a home theater system, with a surround-sound amplifier connected to the TV, powering wired surround speakers. There are some HomePods in other parts of the house. When watching Netflix on the AppleTV, I'm listening through the amp and surround speakers. It sounds great. Sometimes I want to play music in the whole house. I can play Apple Music through the amp and wired speakers in the TV room, and then use AirPlay to add on the HomePods elsewhere. The AppleTV has a tool in the settings for measuring any delay created by pumping sound through the TV room amp and speakers. Once that's set, Airplay syncs up those with the HomePods perfectly, resulting in outstanding whole-home audio. (I've always wanted that, but never wanted to go through the pain of installing the wiring for traditional satellite speakers.) It works great. It's also good that when I finish with the whole home audio experience and shut things down, the ATV will eventually revert to default and disconnect from the HomePods, even if I've forgotten to do it manually. This is desirable, because I probably don't need the sound from watching TV later to blast the whole house.
This is the intended purpose of HomePods connecting to your AppleTV. It's not for using a HP as your primary TV speaker. A corollary to this is the fact that the HomePod sets its own EQ based on active reading of the acoustics of the room it's in. It's an incredibly advanced feature that results in clear, balanced audio that fills a whole room with no dead spots, and they're not interested in users defeating that by manually screwing around with EQ. This is a fully-baked idea, when the device is used as intended.
As noted in my previous post, Apple is not interested in producing devices that are all things to all people. You can be mad at them if you want for not making it easier for you to use a HomePod as your TV speaker, but that was never the intended use of the device. There are already other excellent devices available out there that are designed for that purpose, and you might be well served to choose one of those for your TV speaker. You could be mad at your car manufacturer because your car doesn't work very well as a power generator for your house, but that was never the intended use of your car. Get a dedicated TV speaker and move your HomePod to another room, and you'll probably find that things work much better for you.
Caveat -- I actually did that, got the Sonos Beam sound bar and put that on my TV. It didn't sound that great. So I got two HPs, and it sounded better. I did A:B blind tests with friends and family and they voted the same. Returned the Beam and kept the dual HPs.
They seem to remain connect to the ATV as the default audio end-point. But if you send another source to the HPs, they will disconnect from the ATV in order to honor the request from your phone or whatever. Then you'll need to re-select them next time you're using the ATV...Thankfully this is super easy, because there's a big icon for it right on the sidebar menu in tvOS 13.
What I would like to see is a “dot” like device that can be connected to a Stereo or other powered speaker. These things are not anything I - or apparently anyone else - wants to buy. I know tons of people who own an Apple product or multiple Apple products, but nobody who owns one of these things. Not trolling, but they sound hideous, are ugly magnets for dust and stains and are essentially unrepairable.
Right. You don't own one, nobody owns one, and somehow you know what they sound like and how dusty they get, and you're not trolling. O.K., then.
What I would like to see is a “dot” like device that can be connected to a Stereo or other powered speaker. These things are not anything I - or apparently anyone else - wants to buy. I know tons of people who own an Apple product or multiple Apple products, but nobody who owns one of these things. Not trolling, but they sound hideous, are ugly magnets for dust and stains and are essentially unrepairable.
Right. You don't own one, nobody owns one, and somehow you know what they sound like and how dusty they get, and you're not trolling. O.K., then.
That guy is always trolling with BS so I blocked him, but from your post I see he's still add it. HPs don't sound hideous they sound great, and they aren't magnets for dust or, uh, stains...(what are you doing with your speakers, guy!?). More bullshit from the hater choir.
Future HPs should include more robust i/o for a wider reach imo. BT playback and 3.5mm aux jack should be a minimum.
This makes no sense to me:
The aim appears to be that a HomePod user will be able to touch any side of the speaker to perform at least basic volume control. This could be more convenient than having to reach the top of the speaker, for instance if the user has positioned the HomePod atop shelves.
More convenient how? If you're close enough to reach the side, aren't you close enough to reach the top? It's not like the HP is a dimensional behemoth. It's a small device that can be held in one hand. If the HP is on a high shelf, you're still reaching just as high to touch the side. At that point wouldn't a Siri command make more sense? Control center command from iPhone or iPad?
Haptic fabric would seem a kinda meh addition to the HP
It needs a 3.5mm jack, eh? Why stop there? Why not a FireWire port and an Ethernet port? Maybe some 8-ohm speaker connectors so you can strap ‘em onto your 1973 Marantz amplifier? Yes, while everyone else zigs toward wireless smart speaker functionality, Apple could zag HomePod into a wired utopia and seize the retro market while no one’s paying attention!
The current HP is an ecosystem locked device. I'm sure it made sense to Apple at the time. Probably thought it would help drive Apple Music sales, who knows. There's no denying even minimal i/o like a 3.5mm jack and/or BT playback would have increased the reach and sales of the HP. Pretty much all wireless smart speakers have BT playback capability and/or a 3.5mm jack because they want to be as accessible to as many people as possible.
I'd be willing to bet if there's another HP speaker it will not be "garden restricted".
I doubt very much they designed the HP hardware in order to drive Apple Music sales. Rather, they designed it to what they believe is the best featureset for Apple customers. Eg, Airplay > Bluetooth. AP is higher bandwidth and sounds better, making use of the high-end speaker design. If I'm on my iPhone I don't need to BT audio to a HP, because it's already an available AirPlay end-point. Similarly with 3.5mm analog jack -- that just isn't the use case Apple is building, they prefer wireless. It's an Apple-ecosystem speaker, not a general home audio speaker.
That's the part people seem to struggle with -- Apple builds for its ecosystem, not for general use cases. And that's perfectly OK. More than OK really, since it generally means they can optimize for the use cases they have in mind, rather than supporting all sorts of other devices and use cases. It's ecosystem tailored, not ecosystem locked.
I doubt very much that we'll see 3.5mm analog jacks on the next HP.
They might not have designed it to drive AM sales, hence the probably and who knows. That best feature set for Apple customers logic doesn't track at all. If it did, the Homepod wouldn't be the only Apple device lacking BT playback. Instead, it's the only one. 3.5mm logic doesn't track either. Apple still includes the port on all MBAs, MBPs, Mini's, iMacs, and MPs. Current iPhone and iPad are the only devices besides the Homepod without a 3.5mm jack.
The struggle seems to be with some Apple fans who are used to the old closed garden paradigm. Anyone paying attention would clearly see Apple is consistently reaching beyond the garden in an attempt to monetize more than just the faithful. It seems Apple sees Services as a conduit to a wider market. It's why their products like Apple Music and ATV+ are basically platform agnostic. You don't even need an Apple device to enjoy those Apple services. Your view of Apple and my view of Apple are clearly different and that's okay. As for ecosystem tailored vs locked... tomato-tomato. Regardless of the wording you still end up with a device that has a more limited appeal to a smaller audience than it could have. You doubt a jack on the next HP? Fair, your opinion has just as much a chance to be right as mine does. I think we'll get 3.5mm jack and BT at a minimum. Time will tell.
Future HPs should include more robust i/o for a wider reach imo. BT playback and 3.5mm aux jack should be a minimum.
This makes no sense to me:
The aim appears to be that a HomePod user will be able to touch any side of the speaker to perform at least basic volume control. This could be more convenient than having to reach the top of the speaker, for instance if the user has positioned the HomePod atop shelves.
More convenient how? If you're close enough to reach the side, aren't you close enough to reach the top? It's not like the HP is a dimensional behemoth. It's a small device that can be held in one hand. If the HP is on a high shelf, you're still reaching just as high to touch the side. At that point wouldn't a Siri command make more sense? Control center command from iPhone or iPad?
Haptic fabric would seem a kinda meh addition to the HP
It needs a 3.5mm jack, eh? Why stop there? Why not a FireWire port and an Ethernet port? Maybe some 8-ohm speaker connectors so you can strap ‘em onto your 1973 Marantz amplifier? Yes, while everyone else zigs toward wireless smart speaker functionality, Apple could zag HomePod into a wired utopia and seize the retro market while no one’s paying attention!
The current HP is an ecosystem locked device. I'm sure it made sense to Apple at the time. Probably thought it would help drive Apple Music sales, who knows. There's no denying even minimal i/o like a 3.5mm jack and/or BT playback would have increased the reach and sales of the HP. Pretty much all wireless smart speakers have BT playback capability and/or a 3.5mm jack because they want to be as accessible to as many people as possible.
I'd be willing to bet if there's another HP speaker it will not be "garden restricted".
I doubt very much they designed the HP hardware in order to drive Apple Music sales. Rather, they designed it to what they believe is the best featureset for Apple customers. Eg, Airplay > Bluetooth. AP is higher bandwidth and sounds better, making use of the high-end speaker design. If I'm on my iPhone I don't need to BT audio to a HP, because it's already an available AirPlay end-point. Similarly with 3.5mm analog jack -- that just isn't the use case Apple is building, they prefer wireless. It's an Apple-ecosystem speaker, not a general home audio speaker.
That's the part people seem to struggle with -- Apple builds for its ecosystem, not for general use cases. And that's perfectly OK. More than OK really, since it generally means they can optimize for the use cases they have in mind, rather than supporting all sorts of other devices and use cases. It's ecosystem tailored, not ecosystem locked.
I doubt very much that we'll see 3.5mm analog jacks on the next HP.
They might not have designed it to drive AM sales, hence the probably and who knows. That best feature set for Apple customers logic doesn't track at all. If it did, the Homepod wouldn't be the only Apple device lacking BT playback. Instead, it's the only one. 3.5mm logic doesn't track either. Apple still includes the port on all MBAs, MBPs, Mini's, iMacs, and MPs. Current iPhone and iPad are the only devices besides the Homepod without a 3.5mm jack.
The struggle seems to be with some Apple fans who are used to the old closed garden paradigm. Anyone paying attention would clearly see Apple is consistently reaching beyond the garden in an attempt to monetize more than just the faithful. It seems Apple sees Services as a conduit to a wider market. It's why their products like Apple Music and ATV+ are basically platform agnostic. You don't even need an Apple device to enjoy those Apple services. Your view of Apple and my view of Apple are clearly different and that's okay. As for ecosystem tailored vs locked... tomato-tomato. Regardless of the wording you still end up with a device that has a more limited appeal to a smaller audience than it could have. You doubt a jack on the next HP? Fair, your opinion has just as much a chance to be right as mine does. I think we'll get 3.5mm jack and BT at a minimum. Time will tell.
HomePod and AirPods are the only wireless audio playback devices made by Apple, so it's not clear what you could mean by "If it did, the Homepod wouldn't be the only Apple device lacking BT playback. Instead, it's the only one." I think you can link up AirPods to other, non-Apple devices via bluetooth, but I would speculate that the usage of that feature is spectacularly low. All other Apple devices that use bluetooth audio are primarily sending the signal out, not receiving it. Likewise, the 3.5mm jack "on all MBAs, MBPs, Mini's, iMacs, and MPs" are 1) a legacy feature and 2) primarily used for audio output. The input function on those jacks is for a monaural microphone, not for attaching an audio playback device to listen through your MBP speakers. None of what you've remarked about makes a logical case for including bluetooth playback and a 3.5mm jack on HomePods.
Future HPs should include more robust i/o for a wider reach imo. BT playback and 3.5mm aux jack should be a minimum.
This makes no sense to me:
The aim appears to be that a HomePod user will be able to touch any side of the speaker to perform at least basic volume control. This could be more convenient than having to reach the top of the speaker, for instance if the user has positioned the HomePod atop shelves.
More convenient how? If you're close enough to reach the side, aren't you close enough to reach the top? It's not like the HP is a dimensional behemoth. It's a small device that can be held in one hand. If the HP is on a high shelf, you're still reaching just as high to touch the side. At that point wouldn't a Siri command make more sense? Control center command from iPhone or iPad?
Haptic fabric would seem a kinda meh addition to the HP
Using your example, if the HP is on a high shelf, swiping up on the fabric for volume up is definitely easier than needing to be higher than the entire speaker, and have line of sight in order to view the small touch surface at the top and find the tap target for volume up.
If you have to reach for the speaker on a high shelf you still have to reach approximately the same distance to reach the fabric or the top. It's literally a couple of inches difference. At that point, it makes way more sense to either Siri the volume with your voice or Control Center the volume with a device. Now Apple may come up with some novel use for the fabric, but the convenience quoted by the author isn't really that convenient, novel or useful imo.
No you don't. The current touch surface is at the top of the device, mandating your eyeballs are above the speaker, and that there is clearance above the HP for you to see and get your hand positioned to connect with the small tap targets. If you could swipe up/down on the fabric itself it saves you a foot or more. I can easily re-create this use case by placing the speaker on a nearby shelf at face-level -- reaching over to swipe its side up/down is stone simple. But to operate the touch controls on the top, I have to step up on a chair in order to get higher than the top of the HP.
Do you have one? If you did I think you'd understand why line-of-sight to the top of touch-device is less functional than adding the ability to use its sides for gestures. It's not even up for argument, it's just a fact.
Muscle memory counters that argument. If you know where the plus and minus are relative to the HP's placement there's no need to see anything. Similar to not needing to look at an alarm clock to stop the buzzing. Turning on a light on the nightstand. Any number of "sighted" activities that can be performed without looking because you know where to touch, push, pull, flip, etc. I'm sure you can name a number of things that fit into that category. An HP on a shelf would be one such thing. Once it's on a shelf the + and - are in stationary positions. They don't move around. Regardless, you see it as a useful example and I don't. In that particular example, standing up to touch the fabric volume would be a distant 3rd option behind telling Siri to make the adjustment or doing it through CC.
Imagine the chaos your cat (or cats for you crazy cat people) will cause if the fabric reacts to touch. But maybe that’s the whole point here - maybe Apple is intentionally targeting a new HomePod specifically designed for cats, who currently have no choice when it comes to music selection or volume since they cannot say the words “Hey Siri, play my favorite cat songs.” Just saying...
Future HPs should include more robust i/o for a wider reach imo. BT playback and 3.5mm aux jack should be a minimum.
This makes no sense to me:
The aim appears to be that a HomePod user will be able to touch any side of the speaker to perform at least basic volume control. This could be more convenient than having to reach the top of the speaker, for instance if the user has positioned the HomePod atop shelves.
More convenient how? If you're close enough to reach the side, aren't you close enough to reach the top? It's not like the HP is a dimensional behemoth. It's a small device that can be held in one hand. If the HP is on a high shelf, you're still reaching just as high to touch the side. At that point wouldn't a Siri command make more sense? Control center command from iPhone or iPad?
Haptic fabric would seem a kinda meh addition to the HP
It needs a 3.5mm jack, eh? Why stop there? Why not a FireWire port and an Ethernet port? Maybe some 8-ohm speaker connectors so you can strap ‘em onto your 1973 Marantz amplifier? Yes, while everyone else zigs toward wireless smart speaker functionality, Apple could zag HomePod into a wired utopia and seize the retro market while no one’s paying attention!
Can we say "straw man"?
You could, I suppose, but the correct answer is reductio ad absurdum.
The HomePod is a device created to support Apple Music and the use of HomeKit devices. Having one or two or a few placed strategically in the home allows for greater use of their music service through a high-quality speaker, and it also makes it possible to consistently operate HomeKit light switches and whatnot, even when you've left your iPhone on the charger or in your purse. The HomePod was never intended to simply compete in the bluetooth speaker market, or the wired static speaker market, and Apple surely has little interest in entering that fray now.
A consistent core philosophy at Apple is that, while they do create innovative devices that combine other functions into something where the whole is greater than the sum of the parts (see iPhone v. cellphone+PDA+GPS+iPod), they fastidiously do not create devices that are intended to be all things to all people (see MacOS devices that don't support swapping out internal hardware for third-party, nonstandard "cutting edge" bells and whistles). HomePod was never intended to serve as an audio output device for third-party sources, and that's very unlikely to change.
A software update could likely enable bluetooth playback on all existing HomePods, yet that's still unavailable. Why? They're not interested. Adding holes into which you can stick wires connected to other devices? They're even less interested in that. Any expectation that Apple would add these things is silly. My examples of FireWire, ethernet, and speaker wire connectors are really only slightly more absurd, but offering them up helps make the point of the silliness of the original proposition. So, reductio ad absurdum, not so much straw man.
I cannot precisely disagree with you. However, given the responder's addition of items not mentioned at all by the OP, I smelled straw man. Nothing about the responder's reductio ad absurdum argument, to me, invalidates the OP's points.
There's a lot more they need to add to the HP before touch fabric controls become a necessity. Also the fabric would get real grubby wherever the buttons were. I have a HP on a chest of drawers and its light is too high to be seen when sat down, it needs another indicator perhaps halfway down that can be seen from any height. The requirement to look at the light though is a side effect of never really being sure what device is going to answer to "Hey Siri". Sometimes it's my phone, sometimes it's my watch, sometimes it's the HomePod, sometime it's someone else's phone. Sometimes it's two of those. All of this would be sorted if they changed the activation keyword to "hey iPhone" or "hey HomePod." I assume they don't because presumably they think you should have some kind of rapport with Siri, but since I usually get more reliable results speaking to my cats than I do Siri, I'm not sure it would make much impact to that.
I’ve never attempted to look at the light when issuing siri commands. I just give them and let the devices sort it out, as they’re designed to do via their peer communication that was described some time ago. As I recall HP has rank over iOS devices if nearby.
Yeah that's the idea, but apparently it doesn't work too well. It's all based on the Handoff protocol which has always been horribly unreliable for me at least. Holding phones near the top of the HomePod for handoff works about 60% of the time, though for one of my family's phones it never works despite HP and phone resets. I can be sat at my desk with my iPhone in my pocket or on the desk, and quite frequently the phone responds instead of the HP. It's really annoying.
I disabled "Hey Siri" activation from my phone and iPad. If I'm home the HomePod is what I use for Siri. If I'm out, manually activating Siri is just as easy.
Comments
Yikes, so many problems with what you said.
- Your ATV isn't using Bluetooth to connect to your ATV, it's AirPlay.
- It will only play what you instruct it to play -- whether that's via voice, via the ATV UI, or via an iOS device UI. You're doing it, even if you don't understand what you're doing.
- Sound is well above mediocre. For this size and price point, it excels and this has been noted in numerous reviews and comparisons. Combined with the convenience factor, it was enough for me to sell my expensive Anthony Gallo system and use these instead.
- I also have a Pansonic plasma TV (love the set) and the difference between them is night & day -- you must be deaf. The Panasonic has absolutely no bass, at the very least.
- We don't find it muddled, tho it's not as good as a home receiver with a dedicated center channel, which is to be expected. But we use it for movies & TV every day (HBO, Netflix, Amazon, etc). Be sure you don't have it tucked into an enclosure with no space above it, as that's the direction the woofer points; I did originally and it sounded muffled when there was no room around it.
Exactly. People complaining about generalist use cases aren't understanding that Apple devices aren't competing in that space and have little interest in doing so.
My experiences aren't absolutely flawless every time, as of course that isn't the world we live in, for any tech or any product. But as I often chime in -- these products work for me, and that absolutely is the norm and that's what they're built to do. AirPlay 2 is absolutely fast enough for audio & video sync to work, and that's the norm. If for some reason you're experiencing otherwise, that's not the norm. I certainly have issues in google's piece of utter shit YouTube app, where it sometimes begins the audio or the video out of sync, requiring me to use the back/forward edge-click to jump 10 seconds and force a re-sync, but that is not the norm, nor is indicative of AirPlay 2.
But please, tell me which issues affect every single person in the world except me? That would certainly be mysterious. (Thankfully, it's also untrue, you just made it up)
I know tons of people who own an Apple product or multiple Apple products, but nobody who owns one of these things. Not trolling, but they sound hideous, are ugly magnets for dust and stains and are essentially unrepairable.
They seem to remain connect to the ATV as the default audio end-point. But if you send another source to the HPs, they will disconnect from the ATV in order to honor the request from your phone or whatever. Then you'll need to re-select them next time you're using the ATV...Thankfully this is super easy, because there's a big icon for it right on the sidebar menu in tvOS 13.
The struggle seems to be with some Apple fans who are used to the old closed garden paradigm. Anyone paying attention would clearly see Apple is consistently reaching beyond the garden in an attempt to monetize more than just the faithful. It seems Apple sees Services as a conduit to a wider market. It's why their products like Apple Music and ATV+ are basically platform agnostic. You don't even need an Apple device to enjoy those Apple services. Your view of Apple and my view of Apple are clearly different and that's okay. As for ecosystem tailored vs locked... tomato-tomato. Regardless of the wording you still end up with a device that has a more limited appeal to a smaller audience than it could have. You doubt a jack on the next HP? Fair, your opinion has just as much a chance to be right as mine does. I think we'll get 3.5mm jack and BT at a minimum. Time will tell.
I disabled "Hey Siri" activation from my phone and iPad. If I'm home the HomePod is what I use for Siri. If I'm out, manually activating Siri is just as easy.