You don’t see the like button? But it’s right there!
So what are everyone’s opinions after a few months? The few of us that have one.
No ones going to bite I guess.
I have read/heard a few bloggers/podcasters talk about how impressed they are with the HomePod, after being skeptical, in the last week and it got me thinking about mine.
My living room Echo is barely used since I got the HomePod. I broke down and got Apple Music and it works very well with it. It sounds good, and from what others are saying 2 of them sound really great.
Siri is annoying but I don’t think she is that far behind Alexa. When I do have a question, and Siri it gets it wrong, I will ask Alexa. Sometimes Alexa gets it, but it’s very hit and miss. Suprisingly, Siri has been much better on World Cup questions, but Alexa has improved since the tournament began. They are still adding things to Siri as well, so now I can do things like add things to OmniFocus (big todo app on Apple stuff).
The HomePod also seems to be even better than the Echo at hearing me, which something the Echo is already pretty good at.
The biggest thing after the last update that makes me really like the HomePod is AirPlay though. It’s not perfect, there is some lag, especially with third party apps that don’t support Airplay 2 yet, but it is far superior than using your phone with an Echo through Bluetooth. There’s no connecting or disconnecting through Bluetooth, system sounds don’t Airplay, and once AirPlaying you can use the HomePod or your phone to control what is playing.
I want 3 more now, but no way in hell I am paying $350 (or $250 for a refurb) a pop for even one more. Especially when it most likely come down in price and see a bump in hardware in the near future. It’s not Apple’s way, but I would have one in every room if they were $150.
If you are an Apple user and mainly want a good sounding device, the HomePod is a no-brainer once they come down in price in my opinion.
I am/was an Apple superfan but no aux jack at all means it will be a brick in a few years time. I was burnt already from standardizing (“only” 4 speakers though) on AirPlay v1 only to have Apple and their manufacturing partners abandon it.
For me, it’s a question of too little, too late. I already invested a bit into the Amazon Echo and Sonos ecosystems, which also serve to actively bridge my various IoT devices, unlike the HomePod which can only handle HomeKit right now.
For increased sound quality, I rely on my free standing Mission speakers and my Sennheiser headphones, so that didn’t appeal to me either. If I’m doing whole home audio, it’s because I’m entertaining either the kids or guests, in which case I really don’t need to spend more on HomePod because they’re not usually there to just listen to music.
If HomePod had arrived a year earlier, and about $100 (CAD) cheaper things might have been very different.
My only observation here is that I forgot these things existed at all.
Apple hasn’t been doing a great job marketing these - I wonder if they gave up already.
My thinking it is that’s it’s not a mass market device yet, hence the price tag. It’s really only for early adopters willing to beta test it for them. I expect it will get a revision and a price drop in the next year. Or it becomes another Apple TV, something they kind of support when they think of it.
In Apple circles the HomePod is still getting a lot of talk.
If it had an audio-in jack, I would have seriously looked at it. Without, no way.
I picked up a second one a couple of weeks after the first. We use them in 2 rooms, rather than as a set. We use them a lot – we tolerate Siri, and we really enjoy the sound quality and the wireless streaming of audio from Apple TV (which we use for our main TV, via Vue, Netflix, Hulu, etc.)
I had forgotten i even made this thread.
Predictions: pretty close to being right! 2-0 from the OP.
These originally retailed at £319 in the UK but were down as low as £189 (new) last year, unusually for Apple products.
I was always temped, but I already have a Beolit 17 that doesn’t get much use.
Indeed, they were discounted down to $200 here in the US. I felt that was a reasonable price for the hardware, but not supporting spotify, the lack of an input jack, and being forced to use Siri for the voice assistant was a real turnoff.
As someone who uses Alexa and Siri multiple times a day, I still say Siri gets a bad rap. Alexa can be just as much as a PITA.
I use Google Assistant primarily and it works great. Another major advantage is that all the various lightbulbs and outlets and whatnot support google and alexa natively, while homekit support is not universal.
I actually run homebridge to fix that, even though I don’t use it, because I have a lot of time on my hands. But it is another additional step.
I grabbed a HomePod last Black Friday as a one-off solution for my extra bedroom/workout room downstairs, and it was a great easy way to do what I wanted to do. I’ve been super happy with it.
Of course, a huge part of that is that net of gift cards it was like $140, and I was comparing it against Sonos and other products that were also in the $150-Black-Friday-$200-normally range. That original price, wow.
The thing that most people don’t need, but is great about HomePods is that they are 360º sound. I have a pair on my kitchen bar so no matter which side of the room I am on, I am facing the source. I don’t think Sono’s has a comparable product.
People are already speculating that there will be new versions of the Mini that will fill the role of the old full size HP.
I figure these were designed for the original $349 price point, with a BOM to match. Dropping the price to $299 would have cut into the margin – a lot of which could be regained through efficiency but that would have been the plan all along. Couple with underperforming sales and one can see how it’s hard to justify keeping them around.
Speakers that sound this good were a steal at $199. They’re still a good value at $299 – ears & walls notwithstanding.