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Apple HomePod 2nd Generation

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Re: Apple HomePod 2nd Generation

#91

Post by vineyardmike »

perardi wrote: post #46

Is it time to complain about Siri again? Sure is! I am an old-school Apple fanboy. I learned HyperCard on a Macintosh SE/30—I am that old. I still appreciate the Apple ecosystem, and I do like certain aspects of my HomePod mini…but Siri. C’mon. Get it together. It just fails at the absolute basics. https://imgur.com/q0H788Y The basics being: please add stuff to my shopping list when I yell it into the aether while in…

So Siri is mediocre at best, we also probably agree. Lots of things to complain about… how Siri works inconsistently across devices, punts most queries to a web search, etc.

I appreciate that they aren’t overbuilding Siri though. Alexa (which recent experienced an unfortunate gutting vis layoffs) was amazons attempt to build a consumer ecosystem, which meant a lot of crappy features no one uses (notifications?). Siri feels like it definitively lives on that device and is just a fancy hands-free control. No extraneous feature creep in an attempt to build out a platform. Apple resisted a lot of opportunities to grow Siri while Alexa et al dramatically increased headcount and features, and it seems that voice assistants never really caught on as a general purpose tool. I imagine smarthome/weather/music still dominates all queries by a huge margin.

I still don’t know why anyone would buy a $300 HomePod. As the owner of two original HomePods, they’re fine. This one looks like it has less speakers in it, but I assume it sounds comparably good. If you want good sound I assume you’d be buying a Sonos or something more versatile, but this is an equal but apple-loving choice. The real pro is that it sounds like it has a removable cable.

I still want a screen-based apple smart speaker. Smart speaker+clock is a sweet spot in terms of usability, and the Google home I’ve been loving. It gets you some richer visual for that 1% of queries that benefit, and a glanceable clock for the rest of the time. I can’t imagine apple making a UI that is one-off though. Hopefully the iPad goes the way of the pixel tablet

Re: Apple HomePod 2nd Generation

#92

Post by drcongo »

I have 3 full size gen 1 HomePods in my house (and 5 minis), and the full size HomePods are the absolute best audio quality I've ever come across. Especially when stereo paired. My paired two are in my music studio with baffler panels on the wall behind them and also paired to an Apple TV. For listening to music it's up there with an audiophile setup costing hundreds of thousands, for watching movies on the Apple TV it hands down beats the 7.1 full surround system I have in the living room. I was gutted (and baffled) when they discontinued them.

Also worth saying that the HomePod Mini audio quality is appalling and barely useful for anything other than podcasts.

Re: Apple HomePod 2nd Generation

#93

Post by marbletiles »

kybernetyk wrote: post #55
perardi wrote: post #46

Is it time to complain about Siri again? Sure is! I am an old-school Apple fanboy. I learned HyperCard on a Macintosh SE/30—I am that old. I still appreciate the Apple ecosystem, and I do like certain aspects of my HomePod mini…but Siri. C’mon. Get it together. It just fails at the absolute basics. https://imgur.com/q0H788Y The basics being: please add stuff to my shopping list when I yell it into the aether while in…

Siri complain time? Well, my newest problem with Siri is: Let's say I want to play some classic song (like Sweet Home Alabama by Lynyrd Skynyrd). So I say "hey siri, play sweet home alabama" - and what I get is not the original one but some newish remake/remix/reinterpretation. Why on earth would you play some unknown version over the popular original? Oh also ... what's the "next song pls" command in German? With Al…

It's somehow managing to get worse in this area. You were once able to say "not this version" and it would try a different version of the same song. Now it just replies "I found some results on the web, but I can't show them here".

(This is especially infuriating when it does it on CarPlay)

Re: Apple HomePod 2nd Generation

#94

Post by AlanYx »

sneak wrote: post #13

This is extremely exciting, given the audio quality of the HomePod 1. I had been buying new old stock of HomePod 1s off eBay to make sure I have 6 working ones (I use 3 different stereo pairs) for the foreseeable future. The only real downside of HomePods is that they don't function as bluetooth audio receivers (Apple proprietary AirPlay2 only) and that you need an Apple ID (as well as iCloud enabled on that Apple ID…

The real value of the original HomePods IMHO was the quasi-omnidirectional radiation pattern. If you have an unusual room configuration, such as an open concept dining area and kitchen and need to locate the speakers medially, they outperform anything you can buy at a reasonable price, especially with the reduce bass setting turned on. It's really quite surprising to hear. But in a typical listening room configuration I wouldn't agree that they sound better than a pair of good studio monitors.

Re: Apple HomePod 2nd Generation

#95

Post by vineyardmike »

kybernetyk wrote: post #55
perardi wrote: post #46

Is it time to complain about Siri again? Sure is! I am an old-school Apple fanboy. I learned HyperCard on a Macintosh SE/30—I am that old. I still appreciate the Apple ecosystem, and I do like certain aspects of my HomePod mini…but Siri. C’mon. Get it together. It just fails at the absolute basics. https://imgur.com/q0H788Y The basics being: please add stuff to my shopping list when I yell it into the aether while in…

Siri complain time? Well, my newest problem with Siri is: Let's say I want to play some classic song (like Sweet Home Alabama by Lynyrd Skynyrd). So I say "hey siri, play sweet home alabama" - and what I get is not the original one but some newish remake/remix/reinterpretation. Why on earth would you play some unknown version over the popular original? Oh also ... what's the "next song pls" command in German? With Al…

> Why on earth would you play some unknown version over the popular original?

I heard the original implementation of Alexa had a banned list of words that shouldn’t appear in the song title unless there are no alternatives, including “remix”, “live”, and “explicit” (among others).

Seems such an obvious and easy solution.

Re: Apple HomePod 2nd Generation

#96

Post by AriaMinaei »

Speaking of smart speakers, I'm moving to a new flat and I'm looking for some good old dumb speaker setup. The smartest that I'd let it get would be a Bleutooth dongle.

As a recovering Audiophile, I'm gonna stay away from r/audiophile lest they temp me to sell my kidney to afford that extra 5% in "acoustic fidelity." Seriously, I'm happy with the 95%.

Now, how do I go about putting together that sound system? Or in Audiophile terms, what is the DT 770 Pro of home stereo setups?

Re: Apple HomePod 2nd Generation

#97

Post by nerdjon »

holistio wrote: post #54

I have a pair of original HomePods. Love them dearly. Just read through the page and couldn't figure out what's new. I was expecting much more from a new version.

For me the biggest addition is the h1 chip finally being added.

Know how you can be playing music on your iPhone and hold it up to your HomePod and it will transfer? But it is kinda hit or miss on the original HomePod. On the HomePod mini thanks to that chip it is nearly perfect. This seems to just add that.

Couple other things, but at least it brings parity.

Re: Apple HomePod 2nd Generation

#98

Post by garblegarble »

satysin wrote: post #30
chid wrote: post #8

been very happy with my homepod mini - doesn't seem like there's many additional features in the larger size one (except for higher sound levels?)

I enjoy the HomePod mini we were gifted in the kitchen. It sounds fine for what it is but Siri is basically a glorified kitchen timer as it fails at least 70% of the time at answering a question or even turning lights on and off. Is it too much to ask to say “Siri turn off all lights except kitchen island” and expect it to do it? No matter how many times I have reconfigured things in the Home app it just can’t do it…

Yeah, that sort of low hanging fruit is a bit annoying... although if you find yourself doing that a lot, adding a named shortcut / scene for it is a decent workaround.

Re: Apple HomePod 2nd Generation

#99

Post by vineyardmike »

agloeregrets wrote: post #89
ZeroCool2u wrote: post #14

Seems like Apple executed the way Google should have with their Google Home Max. They've added stereo pairing, so you can have two of them sync up together and then connect them to an Apple TV 4k and you basically get a pretty nice wireless sound bar with Dolby Atmos enabled. Still, at $300 per pod, I really need Siri to do better than the "dumber than a bag of rocks" vibe she currently gives off for this to be at al…

> Seems like Apple executed the way Google should have with their Google Home Max Google properly executing on Google TV would require them to not build hardware with 1/12th the single core performance of an Apple TV. (Seriously, it has single core performance around that of a 2011 Intel Atom while the Apple TV has an A15 throwing 12th gen Intel laptop numbers. https://browser.geekbench.com/v5/cpu/19594628 ) Seriousl…

I’ve seen the GTV on sale for $20, the ATV is almost $200. That’s a 10x in price difference.

I think the most sensible way to use both devices is as a dumb “cast” target.

FWIW, the fireTV literally had a bug where it’d crash because the ad data collecting daemon used up too much processing power. For $20, just be thankful Google has that much self control.

Re: Apple HomePod 2nd Generation

#100

Post by vineyardmike »

robbiet480 wrote: post #65
highwaylights wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I'm a little confused as to what's actually new here from the video? I assume a newer chipset but it's not really clear what else has changed?

The display on top is much larger. The new HomePod has 4 microphones and 5 tweeters. The original HomePod had 6 microphones and 7 tweeters. New one weighs 5.1 pounds vs. 5.5 pounds previously. Via https://twitter.com/rsgnl/status/1615719411813593097

New one has a thread antenna for Matter mesh.
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