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

[Feek]

With the Apple HomePod expected to be available in December (probably early December), I thought it might be interesting to see who's considering one.

Details here.





I'm honestly not sure. My lad very often switches the telly on and has music playing gently via the Apple TV so it would be a decent alternative to that. One of these sitting on the mantlepiece would probably work reasonably well but at what cost? Although there's been no official announcement of the UK price, I believe it's expected to be around £350. That's a lot.

Are you going to buy one?

 

[Feek]

That's my take on it @Jimbeam3678. Surely if you can play it from an Apple device, you'll be able to push it out to the HomePod.

 

[Feek]

"I'm not buying the Apple HomePod for two main reasons"

http://www.businessinsider.com/apple-homepod-is-overpriced-and-limited-2018-1

That's actually useless, it's full of speculation from someone who hasn't used one and is basing their entire argument on how Siri works on a phone.

 

[Feek]

Two bullet points on the conclusion of that article are interesting to me.

• The Apple HomePod generally sounds better than any other smart speaker—but only somewhat, and only in direct A/B/C/D tests. If you listened to the HomePod, Sonos, and Google Home an hour apart, you’d never be able to declare one a clear winner. (Everyone agrees that the Amazon Echo Plus is the loser in this roundup, but then again, it’s $150 and the size of a Pringle’s can; it’s not a fair fight.)
• Everybody’s different.

I don't have one, I'm still undecided.

 

[Feek]

That wouldn't be a problem for me, I've never enabled the "Hey Siri" feature on any devices. I have to push a button to use Siri.

 

[Feek]

Bought one, ran it for two weeks. Kept it.

 

[Feek]

I'm in Guernsey at the moment and a second HomePod for £265 is tempting.

 

[Feek]

We had the fireplace going all day yesterday

 

[Feek]

“Hey Siri, play fireplace sounds.”

That’s all it needs. Replace fireplace with the sound of your choice.

 

[Feek]

Ours still gets used most days, I wouldn't want to be without it now.

I've merged this in with our big HomePod thread.

 

[Feek]

Not as far as I know.

Out of interest, who's got them for £199?

 

[Feek]

If anyone sees these at £199 again, please post.

 

[Feek]

Yeah, I've just bought a second one from John Lewis for £199

 

[Feek]

Hello stereo, I’ve missed you.

 

[Feek]

It’s still £279 at Apple.

 

[Feek]

That’s happened before, the last time they were down to £199, quite a few places had them at that price.

/edit - I’m not saying you’re wrong, just not to read too much into the price drop as it’s happened before.

 

[Feek]

The difference that I see is that they've gone to £199 and stayed there for a good while now. They've have regularly gone down to £199 and then back up ever since they were released.

I'm not seeing that. On the 4th they were still £279 at all the shops I checked and then @HEADRAT posted on the 10th to say they were at £199 again so they went down sometime between the 4th and the 10th. Even if they went down the day after I checked then that's only been nine days.

 

[Feek]

I'll be ordering a new HomePod Mini for the office.

 

[Feek]

I've edited the poll to allow multiple choices so people can edit their votes and choose between HomePod types.

 

[Feek]

Mine sound great have not done anything to them since installing. I presume they update themselves when needed I have never been promoted for an update.

I haven't noticed any change in sound quality either and they're up to date.