Poll: ** The Official Apple HomePod/HomePod mini thread **

[Deleted member 138126]

Plus its sitting on a nice coaster so no rings on the woodwork

An artisanal hand-stitched leather coaster, I hope!

 

[roman59]

Nope a nice cork one, its all I could find

Cheers all

 

[Destination]

That’s rubbish that I have to pay extra to use my iTunes Store purchase.

Yes you have to pay extra to use the bits you already own.
Nothing new with that.
Google make you pay for spotify to play a playlist of your own etc etc

 

[tombrr]

No one posting any photos of their HomePod? Would be interesting to see how the colours and where people have placed it in real life scenaries over the renders on the Apple site etc

 

[Rimsy]

You don’t, I thought you were meaning discs you ripped to iTunes. If they are normal iTunes purchases you have full access to those.

But you are still paying an extra subscription service to be able to play music you own no?

 

[pioneer2000]

No airplay 2 for quite some time from the looks of things. Wonder why they’re having so much trouble getting it working properly?

 

[Broken Hope]

Not sure if people are aware but the HomePod does natively support some radio stations.

Smooth and Capital work.

 

[Deleted member 138126]

Looks like Airplay 2 got pulled from the latest iOS 11.3 betas. So weird.

 

[SentineL-X]

No one posting any photos of their HomePod? Would be interesting to see how the colours and where people have placed it in real life scenaries over the renders on the Apple site etc

Here's mine:

 

[sesevans]

Business Insider today: "Apple's HomePod is getting not-so-favorable reviews in the weeks since its release.

The New York Times' Brian Chen called it "tough to recommend" and called voice assistant Siri, the primary way users interact with the device, "embarrassingly inadequate."

The Verge's Nilay Patel said "you're better served by other smart speakers." And The Telegraph's James Titcomb noted the device "feels a little underpowered."

Hmmm....

 

[Steedie]

Do you have an opinion? Or just trolling again?

 

[ChrisD.]

I really don’t see that as trolling? I’m a huge Apple fan and while I appreciate that the SQ of the HomePod is excellent, it lacks heavily in some areas and seems a bit rushed.

 

[Deleted member 138126]

I’m a massive Apple fan and won’t be buying a HomePod anytime soon to replace my five Sonos devices.

 

[BMox81]

I really don’t see that as trolling? I’m a huge Apple fan and while I appreciate that the SQ of the HomePod is excellent, it lacks heavily in some areas and seems a bit rushed.

sesevans is nothing more than a Google shill who doesn't post anything else bar praising Google products/services. So when he posts stuff like he's done in here, I'd class it as trolling.

 

[pioneer2000]

Looks like a lot of you tubers etc are now putting up “I wouldn’t recommend it” videos now that they aren’t under Apple’s launch scrutiny.

 

[JamesM]

Looks like a lot of you tubers etc are now putting up “I wouldn’t recommend it” videos now that they aren’t under Apple’s launch scrutiny.

With most of them all pointing the blame at Siri rather than the hardware or sound quality.

 

[ChrisD.]

I don't think anyone is disputing the SQ of these, in fact I think Apple will make others such as Sonos have a serious look at speaker design as well as auto tuning for ideal sound. The issues all seem to be with the fact that the 'smart' element is heavily lacking compared to its competition.

 

[haszek]

I don't think anyone is disputing the SQ of these, in fact I think Apple will make others such as Sonos have a serious look at speaker design as well as auto tuning for ideal sound. The issues all seem to be with the fact that the 'smart' element is heavily lacking compared to its competition.

But apple never said it will be? They were straight from the beginning it's more about sound than smart. If someone wants smart it's obviously not the product you're looking for, but that doesn't make it bad product, or an 'issue' of the product.

 

[ChrisD.]

But apple never said it will be? They were straight from the beginning it's more about sound than smart. If someone wants smart it's obviously not the product you're looking for, but that doesn't make it bad product, or an 'issue' of the product.

Of course it does, when similarly priced speakers offer similar SQ, some better, some worse, but they have more smart functions.

 

[Deleted member 138126]

But apple never said it will be? They were straight from the beginning it's more about sound than smart. If someone wants smart it's obviously not the product you're looking for, but that doesn't make it bad product, or an 'issue' of the product.

When you can get two Sonos Ones for the price of a HomePod... Ignoring the smartness for a second, a stereo pair of Ones is going to objectively sound significantly better than a single HomePod, and most of the good reviews basically say that the HomePod sound quality is great, but given all the shortcomings (including the price, and how closed it is) it's not high on the recommendations list.

I'm a super Apple fan, but I think it's easy to get carried away with the imaginary "OMG the sound quality is AMAZING" when in reality, I very much doubt that anyone would be able to tell the difference in a blind comparison, especially if you weren't listening to them side by side / one after the other.

It's a really fascinating product, and fascinating to see it all unfold. Once AirPlay2 comes it will be in a slightly better position to compete, although the price is still high, and Siri remains rubbish. Speaking of rubbish, here's another pretty funny Siri interaction: https://twitter.com/gruber/status/963843284794793984?lang=en-gb