I bought one and the sound quality when playing music is very, very good. But the Siri implementation really blows. I go to friends' houses with competing AI products and am amazed at how fast the technology has progressed and how far behind Apple really is. Now if the rumors of a significant beef-up of the Siri development team are true then maybe we are only a couple software updates away from parity.
I hope so.
Example. In my study, my iMac runs a couple software programs 24/7 so it's always on. And it's set up (Date & Time tab in System Prefs) to announce the time (24-hour format) on the hour and the half hour. The HomePod is located a measured 52 feet away from the iMac. When the French Doors to my study are open, it's an unimpeded straight shot between the iMac's external speakers and the HomePod. Now despite Siri supposedly requiring the words "Hey Siri" to get her attention, the mere act of that iMac saying the current 24-hour formatted time will periodically wake Siri up and she will get into a dialog with the iMac..."I didn't understand your request," "I'm unable to do that," etc. At first it was humorous, now it's an irritant and an example of how much ground needs to be made up if Apple aims to be competitive in the AI world.
This is an interesting thread. A universal comment is how bad Siri is, and while I know this kinda stuff is hard, it just isn't coming up to what I expect from Apple. When Apple blew the Apple Maps roll out (from which they still seem to be recovering) heads rolled, and then progress was made. The very famous tirade Steve went on over dot mac sort of put a few things back on track (to what is now iCloud) but Siri is just an embarrassment. Yes, YMMV, but about all I can use it for is hands free text via CarPlay.
This is an interesting thread. A universal comment is how bad Siri is, and while I know this kinda stuff is hard, it just isn't coming up to what I expect from Apple. When Apple blew the Apple Maps roll out (from which they still seem to be recovering) heads rolled, and then progress was made. The very famous tirade Steve went on over dot mac sort of put a few things back on track (to what is now iCloud) but Siri is just an embarrassment. Yes, YMMV, but about all I can use it for is hands free text via CarPlay.
I think Siri is ok, but then I wouldn't use voice for much more than Siri is good for anyway: reminders, weather, opening apps, turning on and off low power mode.
The maps thing was political. The problem with Apple is that they didn't realise that they needed more data, the actual software was fine, a few distortions aside. It also should have been released as a beta. But it wasn't that disastrous.
Heads rolled because the head that rolled had burnt his bridges - as well as distorting them. Ba bam, Tshh. Here all week.
1) No bluetooth support, automatically cutting their market in half
2) Siri on Homepod won't play anything from your iTunes library that wasn't purchased from Apple, or connect to any alternative streaming services... unlike Alexa on Echo, which will
3) Siri is a lame personal assistant, especially on Homepod
4) The high price
This is a half-baked product that will never be what it should be due to Apple's newfound Microsoftesque obsession with vendor lock-in. What a dud.
Unless they just recently added it, Alexa can't play my apple music. I get a response saying I can blue tooth to it and stream music controlled from my phone if I want.
Is that because Amazon won’t allow it or Apple doesn’t offer them a way to allow it? I know Echo has Spotify integration so it seems odd that Amazon would intentionally block Apple Music.
No idea. But my Prime Music account won't play on my apple watch, which is why I have Apple Music now as well.
1) No bluetooth support, automatically cutting their market in half
2) Siri on Homepod won't play anything from your iTunes library that wasn't purchased from Apple, or connect to any alternative streaming services... unlike Alexa on Echo, which will
3) Siri is a lame personal assistant, especially on Homepod
4) The high price
This is a half-baked product that will never be what it should be due to Apple's newfound Microsoftesque obsession with vendor lock-in. What a dud.
Unless they just recently added it, Alexa can't play my apple music. I get a response saying I can blue tooth to it and stream music controlled from my phone if I want.
Is that because Amazon won’t allow it or Apple doesn’t offer them a way to allow it? I know Echo has Spotify integration so it seems odd that Amazon would intentionally block Apple Music.
No idea. But my Prime Music account won't play on my apple watch, which is why I have Apple Music now as well.
watchOS also doesn't allow SiriusXM, which isn't a direct competitor of Apple Music, not that it should be an issue since iOS has everything. I think the issue is with how watchOS deals with 3rd-party apps. I'm hoping WWDC will demonstrate a lot more options, especially now that cellular is alive and well with the Watch.
Gee... nobody could possibly have predicted that an overpriced, limited function wireless speaker system with a barely useful virtual assistant would flop, right? I’m normally a fanboy but I said Apple got this wrong from the get go and compared it to Apple HiFi. It looks like I was right. The key to fixing this is fixing Siri. Apple has let what was once the flagship virtual assistant drop off into irrelevance. But Apple shouldn’t be too hasty on that front either. I predict that Google home and Amazon Echo hits a wall as well, and sooner than later.
virtual assistants are all garbage.... all of them, be it cortana, siri or alexa. Yes, from a computer science perspective they are insanely amazing but from a practical point of view they are a short-lived novelty at best, save for maybe some niche market of special needs people.
It's just way faster and efficient to NOT use them.
The magic surrounding Apple products is also waning along with the quality of their products they are well on the road to becoming just another generic major electronics company like Sony or Dell. The home pod is just another step in that direction. Of course they will continue to make money head over foot but the product offerings of late range from Mehh to might as a well get a Windows tower for less money. (which is exactly what I did 2 month ago after 15 years of buying new mac book pros on a 2-3 year cycle).
It's a bummer because now for people like myself there is little exciting stuff happening.
Have you used one on a speaker yet? I definitely use Assistant a lot more since I got a Home than when I just had access to it on my phone. It's very useful for music, TV, podcasts, reminders, travel, home automation, weather, asking quick questions, recipes, etc. I speak to my Home constantly throughout the day, more so than I expected.
Careful, you may confuse the naysayers who’ve never owned one with actual facts from an actual user!
Comments
I hope so.
Example. In my study, my iMac runs a couple software programs 24/7 so it's always on. And it's set up (Date & Time tab in System Prefs) to announce the time (24-hour format) on the hour and the half hour. The HomePod is located a measured 52 feet away from the iMac. When the French Doors to my study are open, it's an unimpeded straight shot between the iMac's external speakers and the HomePod. Now despite Siri supposedly requiring the words "Hey Siri" to get her attention, the mere act of that iMac saying the current 24-hour formatted time will periodically wake Siri up and she will get into a dialog with the iMac..."I didn't understand your request," "I'm unable to do that," etc. At first it was humorous, now it's an irritant and an example of how much ground needs to be made up if Apple aims to be competitive in the AI world.
The maps thing was political. The problem with Apple is that they didn't realise that they needed more data, the actual software was fine, a few distortions aside. It also should have been released as a beta. But it wasn't that disastrous.
Heads rolled because the head that rolled had burnt his bridges - as well as distorting them. Ba bam, Tshh. Here all week.