I went with a small SONOS system instead of HomePod because of the wait. I would be more interested in HP because of:
1. Siri Much Better. Especially at handling the non-music questions that are better handed off to the phone. 2. HP's sold by the PAIR at a discount. $650 or less and more people will be interested 3. a HPMax that is bigger, louder, and also has auxilary and optical in ports.. Yes that would cost more but stereo system are expensive. (it will probably be years before Apple does something like this).
The Home Pod is the answer to a question most are not asking. I already have all the speakers I need and that toilet paper roll in fishnets is not going to join them at any price-especially the current one.
It is ugly, sounds like crap, is tied to the rental service- with it's low quality lossy files- and is apparently unrepairable as shipped. The price of any repair outside of AppleCare is almost the unit price for a new one. Not sure how a company can claim to be green and ship throwaway stuff like this.
People who are serious about music- those most likely to spend money on speakers- will laugh at these things. My Focals sound a zillion times better and are already linked by Bluetooth to any Apple device I choose. If I want a decent speaker in the Apple Price range I would buy Audio Engine or something similar.
As to all the Siri crap, it is not very good and an Amazon Dot does a better job for far less and allows you to use the speaker of your choosing.
Maybe they should put a Beats logo on it and sell it through Rent-A-Center.
HomePod is in a different league than the competition. I think it would be a mistake to cheapen or weaken it. I think improving the software is a good direction.
Depends on how you define the competition. I have a lot of Apple items (iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, iMac, MacBook Pro, 3 AppleTVs), but I don't see my self buying HomePod for quite a a while yet:
It's not available in most market yet, in particular it's not available in mine
Siri doesn't work nearly well enough for it to be useful in playing music. It struggles a lot when I try to use it in the car, with commands in my native language and artist/titles in a couple of native languages as well as English.
While I love having Airplay available, it's better to use locally running apps rather than being the main interface. The latter could be interrupted in the whole house by things I look at in Safari, if I want to watch a quick video on my phone or iPad etc.
It needs an app store - I don't want to be tied into Apple Music, even though it's the one I use now.
I think Sonos is doing all of these things mostly right, and they also have a wide selection of various speakers, subs etc. They're even doing Apple Music UIs way better than Apple by having a folder for all the Apple play lists, rather than mixing them with your own making the latter hard to find.
If Apple got a wider selection of speakers, an App Store and locally running apps - sure, they'd be in a strong position for taking over. But they're not there yet.
Interesting what's happened in the last few months.
Today HomePod is available for about $250. At that price, I bit. Sound quality is amazing. I'm seriously considering getting a second one for the stereo imaging now available. It was actually a little hard to find HomePod when the price was dropped, so it looks like a very successful product at the new price. I just hope they learned how to make it that cheap so the price is sustainable. I suspect they did.
Comments
I would be more interested in HP because of:
1. Siri Much Better. Especially at handling the non-music questions that are better handed off to the phone.
2. HP's sold by the PAIR at a discount. $650 or less and more people will be interested
3. a HPMax that is bigger, louder, and also has auxilary and optical in ports.. Yes that would cost more but stereo system are expensive.
(it will probably be years before Apple does something like this).
Cheaper - not interested.
I already have all the speakers I need and that toilet paper roll in fishnets is not going to join them at any price-especially the current one.
It is ugly, sounds like crap, is tied to the rental service- with it's low quality lossy files- and is apparently unrepairable as shipped.
The price of any repair outside of AppleCare is almost the unit price for a new one. Not sure how a company can claim to be green and ship throwaway stuff like this.
People who are serious about music- those most likely to spend money on speakers- will laugh at these things. My Focals sound a zillion times better and are already linked by Bluetooth to any Apple device I choose. If I want a decent speaker in the Apple Price range I would buy Audio Engine or something similar.
As to all the Siri crap, it is not very good and an Amazon Dot does a better job for far less and allows you to use the speaker of your choosing.
Maybe they should put a Beats logo on it and sell it through Rent-A-Center.
Depends on how you define the competition. I have a lot of Apple items (iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, iMac, MacBook Pro, 3 AppleTVs), but I don't see my self buying HomePod for quite a a while yet:
I think Sonos is doing all of these things mostly right, and they also have a wide selection of various speakers, subs etc. They're even doing Apple Music UIs way better than Apple by having a folder for all the Apple play lists, rather than mixing them with your own making the latter hard to find.
If Apple got a wider selection of speakers, an App Store and locally running apps - sure, they'd be in a strong position for taking over. But they're not there yet.
Today HomePod is available for about $250. At that price, I bit. Sound quality is amazing. I'm seriously considering getting a second one for the stereo imaging now available. It was actually a little hard to find HomePod when the price was dropped, so it looks like a very successful product at the new price. I just hope they learned how to make it that cheap so the price is sustainable. I suspect they did.