robjn
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HomePod, the iPod for your home
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.
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Apple HomePod smart speaker preorders begin Friday, shipments start Feb. 9
At launch, HomePod doesn't support multi-room audio or stereo playback. Apple notes the features are "coming this year in a free software update."
The press statement is explicitly clear that multiroom support will be will be coming later in the year. It is much less clear about Stereo playback with two connected HomePods - this feature is simply mentioned in the same paragraph as the ‘multiroom audio statement’. Is it in the same paragraph because both features are coming later in the year or because they are a similar category of feature? Based on the structure of the overal article I would argue that stereo support for two connected HomePods will be active at launch and that this only happened to be mentioned in the same paragraph as the multiroom support. -
Rumor: Apple buying screens for 13" MacBook, could signal end of MacBook Air
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Which Apple band(s) should you get for your new Apple Watch?
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Apple not requiring failed iPhone battery diagnostic test before $29 replacement
The lawsuits allege that the new power/resource management system that throttles peak processor activity prompts people to buy new phones.
Actually, the oppose is surely true, Apple introduced this new resource management system to prevent phones from suddenly shutting down. Now if someone has a phone that randomly shuts down they are surely highly likely to buy a new phone.
So if Apple wanted users to replace their phones as early as possible they would have done nothing. Phones that seemingly randomly shut down in the middle of whatever you are doing are useless.
Apple introduced a system that resurrects these phones and makes them usable. A great many people that would have got a new phone when faced with shutdowns were able to keep it for longer. A much smaller number of people would have been able to detect the slowdown and upgraded as a result, many of these people would have upgraded anyway if they faced the shutdown problem.
So the lawsuits hang on hypothetical arguments about what people would or would not have done in an alternate reality.
Never-the-less it is absurd that Apple faces lawsuits for essentially fixing phones that are “broken” due to spent resources. What Apple did was keep these devices working for longer - This is the opposite to the “planned obsolescence” accusations in France.