Only time will tell if it performs as stated, but as far as design goes it's one of the most god awful things I have ever seen. Not just from Apple, but ever!
Right. Then I'd love to get your opinion on these beauties:
Because of the huge installed base of customers with big pockets and a dedicated frame of mind anything Apple throws at them will be quickly adopted. What can go wrong?
Does that make you angry? Are those people stupid in your estimation?
No, not at all. I was merely expressing my fascination with the winner takes all paradigm. Apple is already hugely successful, and it seems that anything they put on the shelve, be it a speaker, or AirPods, a watch or whatever, it works. I think a very important factor is the large installed base (meaning they can really put effort and money in the design because they know a vast percentage will buy). Further we know from numerous surveys that Apple lovers have more to spend than Android users. Finally Apple users are (still - I believe) more dedicated - fans, lovers perhaps, than for instance Samsung users. So in my opinion it all adds up. Apple can really work on design, because they know they will sell.
Nope, you have it completely backwards. Apple gear sells well because they really work on design.
AirPods were claimed to be "too expensive" by the usual skeptics, but they're selling insanely well because they are awesome to use and people love them. That's it.
I'm interested in buying it. $350 seems cheap enough *IF* it has great sound quality and can play in synch with more than one so that I can put two next to my TV. But needs to be equivalent or better than the best Sonos/Bose speakers sold for around $300.
You might want to spend some time reading reviews, some of which currently compare the HomePod favorably with Sonos/Bose, and multiple HomePods do work together.
No reviews yet -- only previews. Nobody has a unit to review.
I purchased an Amazon Echo when it first came out in the U.K. It was unable to connect to my British Telecom wifi router, which Amazon said they knew about. BT supply about 1 in 3 routers in the U.K, which is a massive amount of lost customers. I returned my Echo to receive a refund. Hopefully Apple's HomePod will not have the same issues and will simply work straight out of the box.
Strange, must have been very early as I had the BT Homehub 5 and now have the Homehub 6 (smart hub) and all of my Echo dots work fine. Something has obviously been patched so maybe consider getting another.
techprod1gy said: Apple has to be creating value based on all of their successes don't you think? What defines a "big pocket"? I have many friends without "big pockets" that appreciate the value of Apple's products...that was just a bad post. I forgive you.
Agreed on the bad post. Not so much on forgiveness. You're a bigger man than I. It's so tedious to see haters wanting to be the first to play the Apple is Sheeple card.
I am excited by the Home Pod. Very excited. I'm not that excited by Apple Music, which I don't pay for now, but having a really good speaker in the room -- that's great! I might even sign up for Apple Music just to try out new stuff. "Siri, play Oregon. Siri, Play Hiromi. Siri, play Miles Davis. Siri, play Joe Zawinul. Siri, play Thelonius Monk." Wow, I am really getting into this! Maybe Apple Music is not such a bad thing after all! But the main thing is to be excited by something which you cannot actually purchase. It's much less expensive that way ;-) Cheers!
I've got an Amazon Dot and am deeply disappointed. The Echo line has worked very well for a lot of people but barely at all for me. I should have returned it when I could.
Siri, on the other hand, though more limited in what it can do, does so far more reliably than any of the simplest Dot commands.
I got the Dot for more convenient control of my Hue lights and Dot fails miserably, where Siri shines. Siri should be capable of far more utility by now, on are with Echo (when and where it works) and Google Home. Apple is taking it's sweet time.
But I look forward to seeing how HomePod fares. I like the idea of its sound capability, being built as a speaker as well as a digital assistant. None of the Amazon products at this point have decent sound. Ok, the Dot is the exception when connected to good speakers. (Maybe the Echo can do that too. Don't know, don't care.)
I'm sure AI will have its own review and a video too, I venture. Can't wait!
Siri, on the other hand, though more limited in what it can do, does so far more reliably than any of the simplest Dot commands.
I got the Dot for more convenient control of my Hue lights and Dot fails miserably, where Siri shines. Siri should be capable of far more utility by now, on are with Echo (when and where it works) and Google Home. Apple is taking it's sweet time.
You mention Siri is more limited in what it can do. I'm curious to hear some examples of what Alexa can do that Siri cannot. My only experience with Echo is through a friend of mine who is always raving about it. However, any time I've been at his house and he wanted to show it off all he has ever done is check the weather, verify last night's football score or attempt to play music. I say 'attempt' because it failed pretty miserably every time he's tried to get it to work for me.
Also, I thought I had read the opposite, that Siri understands much more than Echo/Alexa. There used to be a website that listed all the things the publisher had found Siri could do and I believe it was over 400 commands that were understood. Of course, that also would list things that it wouldn't make much sense for Alexa to help with, such as directions.
And, in my experience, Siri is great at controlling all my HomeKit stuff, like Hue, Lutron, Honeywell, etc.
Well I for one won't be buying one. I don't have a Echo or Google Home either. I really need another speaker to tune into music. Let alone something I think will be locked into Apple Music. I really don't see the point of any of these things that are locked into a room by a power cord. My Apple Watch works so well. Siri on it is great. What to know what I can now do and have been able to do for the last week? Use Siri to open and close my Garage door. I can now say "Hey Siri, Open garage" and it opens!!! Try that outside with any other of those devices. Can you yell loud enough to a open window? It's simple and FAST. I don't have to grab my phone, unlock it, load up a app and hit a button or find the app on my Apple Watch, load it and hit the button. For someone that comes and goes from the garage daily, it's huge for me. Especially when I'm on my Harley. I don't want to deal with a clicker. I can now just Siri control from my watch.
If you ask how, I can't tell you yet!!! Hardware/Software not released yet.
Likely a meaningless survey. For the same price, one can get echo+Bose, with good sound and known functionality, or echo+powered studio monitors for very good sound and known functionality. I own lots of Apple, but this limited functionality, high end gadget speaker, does not even make the interested list
I'm interested in buying it. $350 seems cheap enough *IF* it has great sound quality and can play in synch with more than one so that I can put two next to my TV. But needs to be equivalent or better than the best Sonos/Bose speakers sold for around $300.
You might want to spend some time reading reviews, some of which currently compare the HomePod favorably with Sonos/Bose, and multiple HomePods do work together.
I don't believe they're shipping any review units yet. Any opinions formed so far were from a few minutes in a controlled sound space at an Apple event. It may be wonderful (and probably is) but there's not any real-world reviews yet to support it is there?
I'm interested in buying it. $350 seems cheap enough *IF* it has great sound quality and can play in synch with more than one so that I can put two next to my TV. But needs to be equivalent or better than the best Sonos/Bose speakers sold for around $300.
An added "Plus" is firmware/software support after the sale. What it does upon arrival is generally the MINIMUM functionality the device will ever see. Pretty much every single Apple product gains additional functionality within a year or 18 months of it's release. We are coming up on a year or so, with the Airpods. Although the Airpods have gained several firmware updates, I am personally not aware of any functionality improvements. That is not to say that Airpods will always remain what they are today.
Likely a meaningless survey. For the same price, one can get echo+Bose, with good sound and known functionality, or echo+powered studio monitors for very good sound and known functionality. I own lots of Apple, but this limited functionality, high end gadget speaker, does not even make the interested list
Are you saying it makes more sense to spend the same amount of money to get multiple pieces of equipment to end up with basically the same thing that you could get in one integrated package? Also, what is the limited functionality of the HomePod compared to echo+Bose?
"At $350 USD, it would be worth it if it can provide a great music experience & provide home theatre sound when working with Apple TV."
We were going to get a higher end soundbar - but are waiting to get a couple of these IF the HomePod will connect to the TV via wifi (Apple Extreme) and allow us to use Airplay. We want immediate playback from apps on our iPhone, iPads and MacBooks - like Spotify. We bailed on Apple Music when they ditched the old format and we lost functionality with our exhaustive library we had and have no intention of ever returning. We use Spotify only for purchased music subscription and listen to radio apps like WQXR - so just need to be able to stream effortlessly and prefer NOT to use bluetooth. We have Eastside dock speakers (Audyssey) for airplay right now - but these don't connect to the TV which is a problem.
I'm intrigued by the sound reproduction technology. I'm really, really eager to hear (via reviews at first) how these operate in stereo (buying two units). There seems to be a lot of emphasis put on the quality of music reproduction, and it could really be that Apple has made a fantastic set of speakers that even non-elitist audiophiles could like. (I'm less interested in the home assistant aspect, but I don't discount that in the least as an added benefit.)
I was really interested in the Apple iPod Hi-Fi released a few years back. There were drawbacks to that product, but the reviews seemed to pretty universally state that the sound was very good compared to other products on the market. The HomePod seems to be a much more advanced version of the iPod Hi-Fi, with a real care to sound quality.
As an aside, I would seriously consider moving to Apple Music for this if the product lives up to my expectations, even if the music snob in me chafes at the thought of listening to non-CD quality playback. (This post is NOT meant to derail the comment section, so I'm not interested IN THE LEAST in launching a debate about whether one can hear the difference in different bit rate music files.)
In a few words, I'm excited by the HomePod and can't wait for them to be released!
Hasn't it already been said that Apple is too late to the party to compete with the Amazon Echo or Google Home devices? I figured everyone who ever wanted a digital assistant already had one. Besides, a family can get about a dozen Amazon Echo Dots in place of one HomePod which will relegate the HomePod market share to about 1%. It's all about market share for everything, so Apple isn't going to get any praise for selling a couple of HomePods.
/s
I'd consider purchasing a HomePod if it were really smart enough to hold conversations with. I don't care much about how good the speaker is if I'm not going to be using it for music. The whole problem is that I really don't need such a device as a digital assistant.
Apple is positioning the HomePod as a smart speaker, not a digital assistant. If music isn’t your motivation then the HomePod is not marketed toward you. And you are right about the ‘whole problem’ being nobody wants one. Survey after survey shows consumers don’t like the products already on the market. Consumers complain that digital assistants are hard to use, don’t understand what they are saying, and give irrelevant responses. The technology has a long way to go, no matter the praise heaped upon it by shills and fanboys of the products.
Likely a meaningless survey. For the same price, one can get echo+Bose, with good sound and known functionality, or echo+powered studio monitors for very good sound and known functionality. I own lots of Apple, but this limited functionality, high end gadget speaker, does not even make the interested list
Are you saying it makes more sense to spend the same amount of money to get multiple pieces of equipment to end up with basically the same thing that you could get in one integrated package? Also, what is the limited functionality of the HomePod compared to echo+Bose?
Don’t worry about it. We hear this convoluted argument every time a new Apple product is released. Other products are claimed to be superior, cheaper, more functional, et al. Then when the new Apple product sells well the other convoluted argument pops up, namely that Apple lovers will buy anything the company shoves out the door. Repeat ad infinitum. We see both arguments in this very thread right now and the HomePod isn’t even on the market yet. Oh, but they are just opinions and people are entitled to their opinions aren’t they? No, not when those opinions are always the same for everything.
Comments
AirPods were claimed to be "too expensive" by the usual skeptics, but they're selling insanely well because they are awesome to use and people love them. That's it.
Something has obviously been patched so maybe consider getting another.
Siri, on the other hand, though more limited in what it can do, does so far more reliably than any of the simplest Dot commands.
I got the Dot for more convenient control of my Hue lights and Dot fails miserably, where Siri shines. Siri should be capable of far more utility by now, on are with Echo (when and where it works) and Google Home. Apple is taking it's sweet time.
But I look forward to seeing how HomePod fares. I like the idea of its sound capability, being built as a speaker as well as a digital assistant. None of the Amazon products at this point have decent sound. Ok, the Dot is the exception when connected to good speakers. (Maybe the Echo can do that too. Don't know, don't care.)
I'm sure AI will have its own review and a video too, I venture. Can't wait!
Also, I thought I had read the opposite, that Siri understands much more than Echo/Alexa. There used to be a website that listed all the things the publisher had found Siri could do and I believe it was over 400 commands that were understood. Of course, that also would list things that it wouldn't make much sense for Alexa to help with, such as directions.
And, in my experience, Siri is great at controlling all my HomeKit stuff, like Hue, Lutron, Honeywell, etc.
What it does upon arrival is generally the MINIMUM functionality the device will ever see. Pretty much every single Apple product gains additional functionality within a year or 18 months of it's release. We are coming up on a year or so, with the Airpods. Although the Airpods have gained several firmware updates, I am personally not aware of any functionality improvements. That is not to say that Airpods will always remain what they are today.
We were going to get a higher end soundbar - but are waiting to get a couple of these IF the HomePod will connect to the TV via wifi (Apple Extreme) and allow us to use Airplay. We want immediate playback from apps on our iPhone, iPads and MacBooks - like Spotify. We bailed on Apple Music when they ditched the old format and we lost functionality with our exhaustive library we had and have no intention of ever returning. We use Spotify only for purchased music subscription and listen to radio apps like WQXR - so just need to be able to stream effortlessly and prefer NOT to use bluetooth. We have Eastside dock speakers (Audyssey) for airplay right now - but these don't connect to the TV which is a problem.
I was really interested in the Apple iPod Hi-Fi released a few years back. There were drawbacks to that product, but the reviews seemed to pretty universally state that the sound was very good compared to other products on the market. The HomePod seems to be a much more advanced version of the iPod Hi-Fi, with a real care to sound quality.
As an aside, I would seriously consider moving to Apple Music for this if the product lives up to my expectations, even if the music snob in me chafes at the thought of listening to non-CD quality playback. (This post is NOT meant to derail the comment section, so I'm not interested IN THE LEAST in launching a debate about whether one can hear the difference in different bit rate music files.)
In a few words, I'm excited by the HomePod and can't wait for them to be released!