Refinery29:
This morning, Refinery29 had a chance to sit down with the new speaker. It wasn’t my first time hearing HomePod: I got an early preview when Apple announced the device at its Worldwide Developers Conference, or WWDC, in June. However, it was my first chance to see Siri in action, learn how the device is setup, and get a look at its smart home integrations — and I was impressed.
Siri, however, could be HomePod’s biggest selling challenge.
No details as to how they got their 60 minutes of time with the HomePod but some interesting tidbits are found in this piece.
Opening sentence: “In the world of smart speakers, Apple is uncharacteristically late to the party.” — First, we all know Apple is normally late to market (on purpose). This writer is clearly as young and inexperienced as she looks. However, given their target audience, that makes sense. It’s good that Apple is reaching out to the young millennial market, most of whom wouldn’t already have high-priced home music systems and rely on streaming services rather than vast collections of CDs.
One interesting thing that popped up in that article: apparently other smart speakers can distinguish between different speakers and personalize information to each. Can someone who has one of the Amazon speakers comment on this? How good is it? One of the commenters complained about it HomePods being tied to iCloud. I don’t think being tying users to an iCloud account is the problem. It’s tying the speaker to ONE iCloud account. If the other speakers can learn which speaker is which, Siri needs to be able to do it too. But then that technology will fail spectacularly as soon as you get a bit of a virus… but it’ll only make headlines when it’s Apple’s implementation that has problems.
That’s the best, summarized description I’ve seen for this product’s intended users.
Hell, I don’t even have a medium priced home music system. Mine broke years ago. Get a replacement? The things don’t seem to exist anymore unless you want one that looks like the back end of a car that can’t decide which way to turn.
good summary, but my household ripped our CDs years ago. and with iCloud Music Library, we have access to them everywhere, including HP.
for me the main draw is a high quality shelf speaker, with easy multi-room audio. if it just works thats a real value add.
even if its only one iCloud account for the siri commands — not a huge deal. guests or secondary uses just initiate from their own devices and AirPlay it to the HP endpoint. just as you would with most any other wifi speaker.
Apple likely underestimated the need for a home voice assistant. Apple is nearly entirely focused on iPhones and will likely miss anything the rest of the industry is doing. Out of all the major tech companies, Apple has seemingly missed the cloud business bonanza which is powering all the other major tech companies to record gains. It’s hard to believe Apple had no clue about the strength of a cloud business. I think Apple decided to pursue AppleWatch sales which Wall Street disregards as child’s play.
I’m fairly certain I could piece together something affordable and decent from what’s currently available if I had to. My needs are more about a simpler setup than bells & whistles.
There is no current “need” for a home voice assistant. It’s a made-up market; a gimmick. What, you put one in your kitchen, one in your living room, one in your den… and then, when you happen to be in your bedroom, garage or basement, no luck.
Much better to have a phone always in your pocket that has these powers built-in.
A much better model is a device with excellent music and possibly video integration, located in one or maybe two locations in your house.
Apple’s approach: a presumably audiophile-quality speaker with excellent access to music and some voice-command/query capabilities. This could be expanded over time into a range of home devices that can do video, and have excellent “assistant” qualities, but in an incremental process. I suspect this would be much easier over time than Amazon or Google convincing you to build a huge music and video archive though their services.
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I mostly want something where there’s only an electronics box and two (or more, I guess) speakers. I don’t want modular, I just want something small I can put on a bookshelf.
I used to have a beautiful little Panasonic (err, I think? Maybe Magnavox?) that broke my rules only in that it had a ribbon cable connecting two electronics boxes. Even that kind of worked to its advantage, as you could stack them or put them side by side.
Unfortunately it got wrecked. Everything since just looks horrible or is too big.
You sound like you’re describing an all-in-one, which is a great way to end up with a nice-looking box that’s mostly empty and delivers Dixie-cup sound.
Having inherited and wore out the awful all-in-one system my mother had once gotten herself, I did some light audio magazine reading before I got my own first components. Receiver (tuner + amp of low-to-moderate power), modestly-priced-but-not-entirely-shitty turntable, and a pair of floor speakers that would sound good at low volumes, but could crank up nicely for small rooms. I wore that turntable out, too.
Only one of those original pieces is still in service; a relatively simple Onkyo receiver (pre-digital), chosen not on its amazing specs, but on its uncluttered controls.
I’ve never lived in a situation where surround sound would make much sense, so I settled on a fairly durable 2.1 speaker set after finally blowing out an older pair (with the lower frequencies of a Star Trek movie!). Subwoofer on the floor in the corner, and book-sized satellites on stands out in front.
I agree it’s usually a way to have shitty sound. That was why I liked this system: it didn’t have shitty sound.
Which is why modern all-in-ones are so unsatisfying. 🙂
I was so disappointed when I looked for something to get my mother in her nursing home.
There are some good all-in-ones, but they’re hard to find. Tivoli Audio makes a nice one, but it’s pricey. https://www.tivoliaudio.com/shop/music-system-am-fm-bluetooth-cd-hifi-system?variant=MSYBT-1462-NA