cgWerks

beowulfschmidt said:
Assuming you have a lightning to 3.5mm cable (sold separately, at additional cost), that is.  I don't think "services" per se is a problem, it's currently the best way to ensure constant revenue, which is what shareholders want.

I have one in my car, but I’d certainly get another (3.5mm to Lightning). As noted previously, streaming doesn’t work for real-time stuff, like gaming or playing my guitar/keyboard. Line-in is a must for me, whether it be speakers or headphones (for those purposes).

My problem with services, is that I feel Apple is trading values, integrity, and even getting into advertising (even in their OSs and UIs), in order to increase services revenue. As that department grows, they’ll gain more power as they become a bigger piece of the pie. This kind of thing has ruined many companies. At the end of the day, a company’s success is about more than dollars.

What I’m waiting to see is a comparison of the mini M2 Pro to the base Studio.

I guess that is a bit of a bummer, as I’m kind of in the market for such a product (though need to save up a bit more). I had hoped we’d see AirPods Pro 2 type improvements. I’m curious though, what owners of them think needs to be fixed/updated on this 1st gen, aside from that. I also wonder if they could software-update some of that Airpods Pro 2 improvement, but I suppose it would need the new chips.

Late 2024 is still quite a way off, yet. Bummer.

beowulfschmidt said:
I'm amazed that anyone still thinks that the exclusion of any kind of "audio in" has anything at all to do with the cost of the component, or in fact any engineering factor.  With the premium prices Apple charges?  No way.

It's sole purpose is to restrict the speaker's use to Apple products so as to encourage the sale of those other Apple products.  It's a simple as that.  Why on earth would Apple want to encourage people to use another company's products?

But because the HomePod line, an accessory, is really only attractive to people who have already invested in the Apple ecosystem, it's not that big a deal, because those people don't want to use other people's products.  This is different from a foundational product like the Apple TV, Mac, or iPhone, in that those users have a wide array of non-Apple products that they are going to want to use.  Can you imagine if Apple restricted the iPhone to only using AirPods products?  Or an Apple TV couldn't be connected to a receiver?  Or a Mac could only use Apple monitors?

Agreed, though to me, that just makes it all the worse. They are purposely limiting a great hardware product, to try and push more income of their services. (Will ‘services’ be the ultimate undoing of Apple?)

But, if that were completely the case, why did the include audio-in on the AirPods Max? My hunch is that it is a combination of wanting to limit the HomePods to Apple services, but maybe even stronger, their conception of what a ‘smart speaker’ is and is for. I suppose smart-speakers don’t tend to have audio-in? I’m probably just not the target market in terms of I could care less about the smart-speaker aspect, I just want a great sounding speaker that is smart about tuning to the environment, etc. I might even consider it NOT having Siri a feature I’d pay for. LOL

dewme said:
My only real concern quality-wise on the new HomePod is whether Apple attempted to correct the component failure issues that were present, if even in small numbers, in the first gen HomePod. I have to assume they did, or at least hope they did because their support channel must have processed some of those failures and finding anecdotal evidence of these failures on social media and secondary repair channels is not terribly difficult.

Aside from audio-input/lag, this is my primary concern. Apple seems to be treating sub-$1k stuff these days as nearly throw-away devices. The ‘old’ Apple I know would have eventually admitted to a problem and extended some kind of replacement program.  They are getting more and more picky about this kind of thing, and not replacing obvious manufacturing defects (ex: my AirPods Pro exhibit the ‘clicking’ problem, and didn’t pass the tests at an authorized service center, but they were manufactured a couple months after Apple’s cutoff).

I love my AirPods Pro, and I’d like a better audio setup of some kind at home (either HomePods or AirPods Max, etc.) but Apple’s service and quality issues on these kind of items are making me wary. This isn’t the Apple anymore where my laptop would be exhibiting a hard-drive clicking ‘pre-failure’ symptom, and the Apple Store genius would walk me over to the shelf and pick out a new one, and do a swap. I don’t even expect that level of service anymore, but I do expect them to admit and honour problems resulting from some kind of known defect.