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HomePod arrives February 9, available to order this Friday

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Re: HomePod arrives February 9, available to order this Friday

#51

Post by Schlaefer »

the_gastropod wrote: post #11
BadassFractal wrote: post #3

Will be interesting to see a feature comparison with all of the other existing voice-controlled speakers out there. Seems like a couple of recent blogs posts linked on HN were saying that Apple was starting already behind the competition in this space.

Apple is rarely first to market for anything. They didn't release the first mp3 player, they released the best one. They didn't come out with the first smart phone, first tablet, or first smart watch, either. They rarely shine in feature-to-feature comparisons, either. The iPhone did less than the blackberries it destroyed. It just did the important things better. It will be interesting to see how the Homepod plays o…

Why the sentiment is right, their products always offered a very perceivable leap in some areas. But what "important thing" does the HomePod better? It feels like a late me-too for people who are locked in the ecosystem (i.e. Apple Music).

Re: HomePod arrives February 9, available to order this Friday

#52

Post by revelation »

semi-extrinsic wrote: post #38
dljsjr wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple has been pretty up-front from the start that they don't want to make the best possible home assistant, they want to make a really incredible speaker that has home assistant stuff built-in. Whether the "incredible speaker" part is true remains to be seen since the thing hasn't released yet but you can look at a lot of the features and they're very music-focused. It's more competing with a Sonos than it is with a…

> they want to make a really incredible speaker Incredible by what standards? It's not even stereo. Nowhere does it mention perhaps the most important metric for audio quality, namely RMS audio power output. The tiny size alone pretty much guarantees that the amplifier will suck. I'm very confident that e.g. a combination of Klipsch R-15M speakers, Yamaha R-S202 amplifier and a Chromecast Audio will knock its socks o…

What on earth does power have to do with audio quality?

Re: HomePod arrives February 9, available to order this Friday

#53

Post by snuxoll »

MBCook wrote: post #14
germinalphrase wrote: post #6

I feel exited about home assistants in the same way I am excited about home automation: the premise seems useful in a general way, but I struggle to think of use cases that have a meaningful effect on my lifestyle. Also - I can't shake the privacy concerns.

Good news. The BomePod really appears to be a high quality speaker that they were forced to shove Siri functionality into. No one is buying $350 home assistants, but if it’s a really high quality speaker (we’ll see) then the price is reasonable. The marketing around it is really weird and confused. At this point I wonder what Apple even thinks it is.

The HomePod is also capable of being used as a HomeKit hub, so I think Apple is actually trying to push the home assistant angle some more now that there is three options to get into HomeKit proper (beyond simple in-home toggling of devices and reading sensors) depending on what products you want to buy (Apple TV, leave-at-home iPad and now HomePod).

Personally I'm really hoping to see them expand Siri over the coming year(s), especially given how...dumb...she is right now - expanding what can be done with SiriKit and allowing additional Siri functionality to be installed directly on the HomeKit would make my mind up on buying one easy (I'll still probably get one for a nice speaker to play music with, though).

Re: HomePod arrives February 9, available to order this Friday

#54

Post by digi_owl »

dragonwriter wrote: post #45
chaostheory wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple typically isn't the most innovative. People just feel that way about them because in the past they get things right. This will probably be like Apple Watch where its true value is subtle and only apparent once you own a bunch of other Apple stuff and use them in conjunction with one another. In this specific case since Amazon and Google are so far ahead & haven't stumbled, Apple's only real advantage now is pri…

> Apple's only real advantage now is privacy Apple's main real advantage is lots of the high-disposable-income market is heavily invested in their ecosystem. The big ecosystems are real competitors, but the individual offerings within them are rarely direct competitors because the utility of the individual offerings depends on degree of pre-existing investment in the ecosystem.

In effect Jobs (or maybe the unnamed middle manager to managed to convince him it was a good idea) managed to make the fruit logo a status symbol, in large part thanks to allowing the iPod and iTunes to work on Windows...

Re: HomePod arrives February 9, available to order this Friday

#55

Post by [deleted] »

vinceguidry wrote: post #42

Things I want from HomePod: 1) To work with only the tracks I have downloaded in my iTunes library. Currently I have to use a 3rd party music player because the stock music player won't respect my wishes in this regard. 2) To be able to turn Siri off 3) To sync with an existing audio system, so that I can play music through my home audio system in my living room, and HomePods in my bedroom and bathroom 4) To avoid th…

[deleted]

Re: HomePod arrives February 9, available to order this Friday

#56

Post by yeukhon »

I have a Sonos Player 1 in my room, and I play Spotify on it (Spotify can dectects it). The setup is a headache but the music quality is quite good but it keeps disconnecting even though I have really Wifi connection (I wish the device supports Bluetooth as an alternative). I still recommend it to my friends but I always warn them about the unstable connection.

> HomePod can also be used as a speakerphone with iPhone for crisp and clear audio quality.

I hope this means I can play anything from my iPhone like car because that’s a dealbreaker if I can’t Spotify or podcasts.

That being said, I hope there is a way to test HomePod live at Apple store. I don’t want to spend a couple hundred dollars for something turns out to be bad. My Sonos was a gift from my company so I didn’t have to worry about it (fwiw... not realky important, but I work for a music company, my boss owns two, and he said it was :) so I guess I should believe him right?)

Re: HomePod arrives February 9, available to order this Friday

#57

Post by spike021 »

vinceguidry wrote: post #42

Things I want from HomePod: 1) To work with only the tracks I have downloaded in my iTunes library. Currently I have to use a 3rd party music player because the stock music player won't respect my wishes in this regard. 2) To be able to turn Siri off 3) To sync with an existing audio system, so that I can play music through my home audio system in my living room, and HomePods in my bedroom and bathroom 4) To avoid th…

For your first point is this from a Mac or iOS device? At least on my iPhone there's a Downloaded Music section that I use just to play anything I already have. Not sure if there's an equivalent for Mac's iTunes, though.

Re: HomePod arrives February 9, available to order this Friday

#58

Post by danso »

I already have and am satisfied with Alexa, but HomePod interests me because of Apple's general stance towards privacy. Has there been extensive discussion on how Apple plans to differentiate Siri's data usage/sharing vs Google and Amazon?

But honestly, the main obstacle for me is Apple's lack of 3rd-party integration. For example, it appears that Siri can't be used to access Spotify. With Alexa, I can scope music requests with "Alexa, play some jazz from Spotify (as opposed to Amazon Music)". I can even configure Alexa to use Spotify by default -- e.g. prioritized over Amazon's own offerings.

I've a pretty large iTunes library from back in the day but I've completely stopped buying from iTunes (and haven't bothered to check out Music) because of lack of interoperability.

Re: HomePod arrives February 9, available to order this Friday

#59

Post by saagarjha »

robert_foss wrote: post #46
saagarjha wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or: people who paid Apple's $99 developer fee? Hardly a group of "chosen people". This would make sense if you were talking about something like CarPlay, but there's no discrimination here other than the one I mentioned.

Try launching a new browser on the iStore. You're free to compete, as long as you don't compete against Apple. Microsoft was fined 561 million Euros for doing the same.

Literally on the homepage right now: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16213280

Re: HomePod arrives February 9, available to order this Friday

#60

Post by philfrasty »

vinceguidry wrote: post #42

Things I want from HomePod: 1) To work with only the tracks I have downloaded in my iTunes library. Currently I have to use a 3rd party music player because the stock music player won't respect my wishes in this regard. 2) To be able to turn Siri off 3) To sync with an existing audio system, so that I can play music through my home audio system in my living room, and HomePods in my bedroom and bathroom 4) To avoid th…

Not a big Siri fan myself but isn't the whole point of the Homepod to combine music + Siri? From Apple.com: „...It’s the ultimate music authority, bringing together Apple Music and Siri...“

so 1) (iTunes != Apple Music) + 2) don't really make sense

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