robjn

The HomePod acoustic hardware is not just better than the cheaply made Amazon and Google products. It has technologies that are only found at the very high end of the audiophile market.

For example, HomePod has 360 degree beam forming tweeters. Compare this to the $6,300 BeoLab 20 - can it beam-form? No, it has what B&O call ALT (Advanced Acoustic Lens), how does ALT work? Ever cupped your hand around the speaker on your phone to direct the sound toward you? That is exactly what the BeoLab 20 has, a cup on the top that directs the sound to cover 180 degrees of the room. They market this extremely low tech feature as the speaker’s “crowning glory”. Nether-the-less B&O do have a speaker that can like HomePod beam-form over 360 degrees, it is the BeoLab 90. How much is a BeoLab 90? $35,000.

The cheaper smart speakers from Google and Amazon don’t even have dedicated woofers. Not only does HomePod have a dedicated woofer but this 4 inch woofer has a 20mm  excursion - something completely unheard of in the home speaker market! Apple has a microphone behind the driver that precisely measures the pressure changes so that the woofer can be dynamically adjusted to eliminate distortion - presumably using a proprietary technique described in a patent that was published last year.

Basically, HomePod contains technologies that rival very expensive audiophile products. This is also evidence in the fact that HomePod has a dedicated amp for each driver - another mark of high end products.

Considering the technology it contains, the low price of HomePod is astonishing.

“Apple only enables 7.5W charging for solutions using fixed-frequency voltage regulation”

rogifan_new said:

Have you seen how many people have Apple’s white ear buds sticking out of their ears? Sorry but most people don’t care that much about sound quality. 

Have you ever measured them?

I work in the pro-audio industry and the company I work for is working on high end earbuds.

I’m told that “Apple’s earbuds measure extremely well”.

This is a completely objective conclusion reached by specialist engineers.

The HomePod is in some respects better than Stereo. The DSP respects the intent of the original stereo mix. For example, if it detects backing vocals mixed toward the left channel it will send these more toward the left tweeters. At the same time lead vocals will be beamed to the center of the room. This creates a sound stage intelligently from the stereo mix and it allows each of the 7 tweeters to be dedicated to reproducing a smaller number of sounds.

There is just one woofer in a HomePod but this fact does not completely destroy the stereo effect because the human ear and brain are not as good at detecting the direction of very low frequency sounds. Nether-the-less when two HomePods are able to work together they will do an even better job, especially if a track has a bass guitarist mixed to one side.

I can’t wait to hear it. I just listened to The Accidental Podcast which contained an awesome deep dive into the technical implementation of AirPlay 2. However, the guys on there seemed to base their expectations of the HomePod audio output on it’s size - this is kind of like thinking the camera in iPhone won’t be as good as a physically larger 1990’s era digital camera. Computational audio will enable HomePod to punch way above it’s size and it is a quantum leap forward compared to anything else in this price range.

So people at the EU are writing letters to Apple because of irrational paranoia they read on the internet.

This entire rumor is based on a misunderstanding. Apple need to switch to USB-C in a way that maintains backwards compatibility with old Lightning accessories, so yes compatible MFi cables are still needed.

Besides, everyone knows that there are many different kinds of USB-C cable, even if they all have plugs that look the same. Not all offer maximum data and charging speeds. How can people know what a cable can do? Right now they don’t. The USB consortium failed! So there is obviously still a place for MFi type labelling so that consumers know they are buying a cable that is fully capable with iPhone. That’s not the same thing as limiting capable cables. Capable cables will obviously work. They are just providing a way of identifying capable cables, which is what the USB consortium have failed to do.

iFixit misunderstand how this mechanism works.

When they push in the corner it lifts in the middle - but this is only because there is no trackpad attached. 

You write: “Apple had originally said that the titanium Apple Watch would be 45% lighter.”

This is is incorrect, both at the event and on the webpage they said that “titanium is 45% lighter than steel”.

They did not say the watch was 45% lighter, just that the material “titanium” is lighter.

Very roughly Titanium has about twice the mass of aluminum and about half that of steel.

It’s exceptional quality is NOT being light, it is being strong for it’s weight.

The weight of the titanium watch case falls about half way between the aluminum and steel models.

It’s all rather simple.

This minor update exists for 1 reason. To give developers access to the LIDAR scanner ahead of WWDC and months ahead of the new iPhones.

Then we have the Magic Keyboard and trackpad support because - if it’s ready, why wait? This will also mean that apps will be updated to support the trackpad ahead of the next big iPad Pro update. This allows the software to catch up a bit with the hardware for once.

bill42 said:

Metriacanthosaurus said:

With no exaggeration, the Home Pod appears to be the best home speaker money can buy.

Sadly at this size it will be lacking adequate bass to fill a decent sized room. Sonos and other competing sound systems with optional subwoofers will blow the audio quality of the HomePod out of the water. That being said I think the HomePod will surely be the best smart speaker that listens to and responds to voice commands with support for smart home systems. Perhaps that is what you meant to say.

Serious bass can be generated from a four inch woofer so long as it moves at the right frequency and generates sufficient pressure.

Large speakers generate a more pressure since they have a bigger diaphragm surface area and they also tend to have a lower natural frequency.  You get a boomy sounding bass when you are listening to large enclosure resonate but this is not a true reproduction of the source.

In this case Apple are generating a lot of pressure by means of high displacement. The combination of high displacement and a small back volume can result in high pressure = loud sound.

There is an old myth that a speaker enclosure needs to be as big as the wavelength it is generating. Since bass frequencies might have a wavelength more than ten meters long - no speaker is big enough. The fact is that the back volume can be small and we don't want to listen to the resonance of the enclosure we want to listen to the resonance of the diaphragm.

This patent shows that Apple have found a way to tightly control a driver by measuring and adjusting to external factors that effect the radiating impedance.

It's going to be interesting to see a tear down of the HomePod. There might be more microphones than the six Apple has shown us. I'm curious as to whether each of the tweeters has an integrated microphone in the back or if this technique is applied only to the woofer.

There is much more to HomePod DSP than this one patent covers. Those six external mics are being used to do a lot of different stuff!

So the writer of the article thinks the big heavy toolkit supplied by Apple is almost entirely not required and all that’s really needed is a couple of screwdrivers and a plastic spludger.

This completely ignores battery safety and repair quality. Apple’s complex tools are absolutely required to do the job properly. Third party repair shops and people like iFixit have been compromising safety and quality for years.

For example, Apple’s tool kit includes a battery press that is used to adhere the battery without damaging it. These batteries are soft and can be damaged just by pressing them with your fingers if you are doing an unsafe iFixit style repair.

Another example, is that Apple’s toolkit provides screwdrivers that tighten screws to a specified torque. This prevents screws from being under or over tightened, either of which can lead to damage or future failure.