robjn

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.

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 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.

A major factor is whether you plan on getting your Apple Watch wet such as swimming or showering. All the leather and metal bands are not water resistant. Only the nylon and fluoroelastomer sport bands are recommended to be used in water.

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.