Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

HomePod Mini

apple.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

241–250 of 446 posts

Re: HomePod Mini

#241

Post by acolumb »

myrandomcomment wrote: post #146

So here is the thing I struggle with. I have a NAS. On it is my media (music, videos, photos) collection. I do not have a subscription to Apple Music, or the reset of the streaming services and I not want one. So how do I play my own music collection with this? Right now to do this I have an AppleTV on every TV. I have an app on the AppleTV called MrMC which is basically a paid for port of Kodi for the AppleTV. The M…

You can use HomePods as dedicated outputs for your Apple TV 4th gen or newer. Can also work alongside your amp.

Also, as stated in earlier comments, you’ll be able to use AirPlay to stream anything from your NAS via an iOS/Mac device.

The only feature you’ll lose is the ability to say “hey Siri, play song x”

AirPlay is lossless, too.

Re: HomePod Mini

#242

Post by jon-wood »

untog wrote: post #56
turtlebits wrote: post #40

I don’t get it. Siri is the absolute worst compared to Google assistant, the only compelling reason to buy the HomePod is for sound quality. So unless this has some other redeeming quality over “Siri in your living room”, I don’t think it will sell well. The original HomePod regularly went on sale for 33% off already.

I'm curious to know what 90% of people do with their home assistant devices. I have a Google Home. I know it can do a huge array of things, but almost all I do with it is play music, control lights, and set timers. Siri can do all of those things.

I have a couple of Echo devices, predominantly I use them for lighting control, alarms, timers, speakers for music and podcasts when cooking, paging out messages round the house rather than yelling down the stairs. My six year old son has picked up that he can use them to call me despite not having a phone of his own, so I also occasionally get calls when out and about asking for urgent Zelda help.

Re: HomePod Mini

#243

Post by fudged71 »

myrandomcomment wrote: post #146

So here is the thing I struggle with. I have a NAS. On it is my media (music, videos, photos) collection. I do not have a subscription to Apple Music, or the reset of the streaming services and I not want one. So how do I play my own music collection with this? Right now to do this I have an AppleTV on every TV. I have an app on the AppleTV called MrMC which is basically a paid for port of Kodi for the AppleTV. The M…

You should check out Roon https://roonlabs.com/

Re: HomePod Mini

#244

Post by askafriend »

lern_too_spel wrote: post #234
askafriend wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wrong. Go into Settings -> Privacy -> Location Services -> Maps and toggle the setting to "Never". The full set of options are: * Never * Ask Next Time * While Using the App * While Using the App or Widgets and there is also a toggle to turn off Precise Location so that apps only get approximate location. Go nuts with the options. I just tried it and I can use the Maps app just fine with location services set to "Nev…

Disabling Apple Maps from getting your location does not stop Apple from getting your location. When any app gets your location on iOS, Apple also gets your location. Apple even gets your location if no app requests your location. This is explained clearly in the link contained in comment you replied to. Both Amazon and Google allow you to get your location without telling anybody.

Apple doesn't not get _your_ location without an app requesting it.

They periodically send the location of nearby cell-towers and wifi hotspots (all public information) back to a crowdsourced database. _Your_ identity isn't associated with any of it. Apple doesn't know who you are or where your phone is. They do not store GPS coordinates. A single cell tower is nowhere near accurate enough to determine the location of the phone, etc etc.

Google/Android do this too: https://qz.com/1131515/google-collects-android-users-locatio...

You can also entirely disable location services if you're uncomfortable with this and that'd stop it.

You're weaponizing people's ignorance and the complexity of the technical details.

Re: HomePod Mini

#246

Post by barrkel »

npunt wrote: post #224
room500 wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is an interesting reversal. You could also say that the SDK for Spotify is available [1], but HomePod is yet to take advantage of them. The Spotify SDK has been available for many, many years and is integrated into many devices already. There is a long history of Apple changing the rules on Spotify [2]. Given Apple's focus on promoting their streaming services, I would not be surprised if Apple is intentionally…

Even if Apple didn't have a competitive offering to Spotify, it'd be a terrible idea to adopt a third party's standard/SDK that impacted such a core part of the ecosystem and UX as controlling and handing off audio. The reason people buy into ecosystems is so there's a single entity that is weighing and making decisions about what creates the best user experience, which necessarily means having control over the roadm…

Apple has a position as a gatekeeper and is charging a toll, unjustifiably. It's disingenuous to say that other people submitting to Apple's tolls are not working in the long-term best interest of their customers.

Re: HomePod Mini

#247

Post by seabrookmx »

turtlebits wrote: post #40

I don’t get it. Siri is the absolute worst compared to Google assistant, the only compelling reason to buy the HomePod is for sound quality. So unless this has some other redeeming quality over “Siri in your living room”, I don’t think it will sell well. The original HomePod regularly went on sale for 33% off already.

Nest Audio was recently released and for the same price as the Homepod Mini. Curious to see how they stack up sound quality wise.. if the Nest holds it's own like I think it will I really see _no_ compelling reason for the Homepod.

Re: HomePod Mini

#248

Post by asciimo »

jnwatson wrote: post #53

This is so me-too. The only newish feature is a better privacy argument. This is a full 5 years after the Amazon Echo was introduced. This just adds to my creeping feeling that innovation is dead at Apple.

I agree with this "innovation is dead" sentiment. Apple used to be pioneers and futurists. Now they focus on retaining their well-defined market. This almost makes sense, except they have such a tremendous amount of cash they can afford to take risks.

Re: HomePod Mini

#249

Post by aesh2Xa1 »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #121
jagger27 wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh yes that would be nice. A bunch of PoE HomePod minis with WiFi 6 would work great in my house to replace my 802.11ac UniFi setup. I'm really dreaming big now, but some sort of AirPort central base station with SFP+ for my FTTH connection and 4xPoE to power and feed a bunch of HomePods would be brilliant.

Not so sure on PoE (great for technically inclined folks, not the general public, and if you're really set on PoE you could use a reverse injector to take power off the ethernet and break power/data out at the device) but it would be smashing if HomePods had WiFi mesh support (802.11k/v/r) and Apple used them to challenge Google Next Wifi and Amazon's Eero offerings (because the UX on Nest Wifi and Eero is so good, b…

802.11s is the mesh technology you would want. The others are, I think, for roaming devices (literally mobile radios). A bunch of access points already have this, though most all implement mesh in their own, proprietary standard.

Re: HomePod Mini

#250

Post by millstone »

actuator wrote: post #236
millstone wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah Google deliberately lies. That's why they're being sued by the state of Arizona, for willfully deceiving users and tracking their locations even if they opted out. [1] They said "with Location History off, the places you go are no longer stored" and then did it anyways. Apple, for its part, says "Apple doesn’t retain a history of what you’ve searched for or where you’ve been" and there's no reason to doubt it. 1…

> They said "with Location History off, the places you go are no longer stored" and then did it anyways. I would just apply Hanlon's razor here. It most likely was a bug or oversight, if it had been some malicious evil scheme, I would assume more care would have been taken so that people don't find out. Now, coming to the question of why do they even store it for opted in users? Aside from potential ad relevance, I t…

"Willfully misleads and deceives" is verbatim from the lawsuit. IANAL but that sounds like "deliberately lies" to me.

From the lawsuit: for years, Google has known that the user experience they designed misleads and deceives users. The evidence obtained from within Google—such as internal emails, presentations, and memos—is overwhelming in this regard

They knew that they were deceiving users, and liked it that way.

An example of of how Google uses this data: Google will track if you click an ad for Cheesecake Factory and later physically visit one. This allows them to charge higher rates for ads. This isn't a secret, they brag about that capability. It's why they use so many dark patterns to push users to enable location tracking.

https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/6100636?hl=en

Post reply on HN