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HomePod arrives February 9, available to order this Friday
- ratsimihah 9y agoWhat’s innovative about this? I feel like I’m reading an Amazon Alexa or Google Home ad.
- draw_down 9y agoI don't know. I don't understand why people like these devices generally. And the less said about Siri the better.
- apeacox 9y agoHopefully without mining and selling user data. This might be the real killer feature.
- epicide 9y agoI don't know that it's particularly innovative, but it is nice having the option. Personally, I use Apple Music and am looking to do more with HomeKit, so it adds a few things there.
- e1ven 9y agoI’m interested in one as a new speaker. I don’t expect I’ll enable Siri. I want to use it as an AirPlay target. I was previously considering a Sonos, but the Airplay2 support will be baked into the OS so I don’t need to use a clunky 3rd party app.
- konradb 9y agoAlthough presumably with Airplay 2 you would still need your phone to play the music from, where with Sonos, once it was playing, you wouldn't need your phone as the speakers themselves would have the music. Though that might not be useful for your use-case.
- wrboyce 9y agoWe don't know for certain yet, but the AppleTV will opt to play music from iCloud as opposed to streaming from the AirPlay device if possible. You'd hope this functionality has been extended to the HomePod.
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- lowbloodsugar 9y agoMy wife has listened to a lot more music this last week now that she can just say "Alexa, play some ozzy osbourne" or whatever. We've had an Airplay system forever. Never used.
- skrowl 9y agoOut of curiosity, why not Google Cast ==> Google Home or Chromecast Audio?
- Symbiote 9y agoI avoid anything with proprietary protocols, mostly out of principle, but also as I occasionally write a Python script to control these things. I wrote a script to use a €30 Chromecast Audio as an alarm clock, for example. It uses the DLNA standard. It's connected to my existing nice hifi and speakers. I have a choice of clunky 3rd party apps, and some not-so-clunky. It's possible the HomePod's clever design is as good as they claim, but I'd guess the same money spent on normal hifi speakers will give better sound.
- jaxondu 9y ago> but the Airplay2 support will be baked into the OS so I don’t need to use a clunky 3rd party app Do not expect everything smooth sailing with Apple software. Currently when I AirPlay video to AppleTV, I can not use the remote controller to pause and play as there will be no sound. I suspect one reason for the HomePod delay is due to bugs.
- matthewmacleod 9y agoI don’t think it’s particularly intended to be innovative. The thing is, the existing options aren’t that great either for various reasons. This might be pretty good if you are in the apple ecosystem.
- tlrobinson 9y agoBeamforming audio?
- dljsjr 9y agoApple 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 an Alexa in my mind, the Siri stuff is just lagniappe.
- semi-extrinsic 9y ago> 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 off. And that's a setup which you can order on Amazon today, it costs exactly the same, and it can do perfect multi-room out of the box.
- revelation 9y agoWhat on earth does power have to do with audio quality?
- alexashka 9y agoI think you've answered your own question: who would know to buy 3 separate products, glue them together, make it work, as opposed to buying 1 product from apple, that works right out of the box?
- semi-extrinsic 9y agoWell, if you can't be arsed to do some research, follow instructions and combine N things to make something really good, and think it's better to buy ready-made things, you can stick to eating microwave meals while I'm having slow roast tenderloin with butternut squash and sweet potato mash. But don't try and tell me yours is better.
- chaostheory 9y agoApple 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 privacy; it currently has no incentive to monetize your data.
- dragonwriter 9y ago> 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.
- digi_owl 9y agoIn 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...
- chaostheory 9y agoYeah I see Apple more as primarily a fashion company that integrates a lot of tech into their products; not far from say Rolex, with the main differientator being that Apple keeps updating their technology stack. For this reason, Apple will probably be one of the few western 'tech' companies who will most likely always have a foothold in places like China.
- digi_owl 9y agoNever underestimate the power of hype. Apple has had the MSMs attention for so long it is silly. I have seen articles about Apple products in places that normally could not care less to cover consumer electronics or computers. Basic thing is that Apple has long been the go to computer for doing media production, and thus the people writing for MSM is more likely to notice Apple news than other tech news because it affects them directly. And thanks to the typical fan myopia, if it affects them it affects the world...
- dragonwriter 9y agoIt's “innovative” because it serves people who are already fully invested in the Apple ecosystem, rather than either the Google or Amazon ecosystem, or not being deeply attached to many of those ecosystems.
- BadassFractal 9y agoWill 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.
- the_gastropod 9y agoApple 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 out. If it's successful, it almost certainly won't be because it out-features the competition. And they almost certainly haven't lost because they weren't first to market.
- MBCook 9y agoI agree with everything you said about Apple’s MO. But this thing is expensive. Siri almost seems grafted on (they wouldn’t even let people try it at the announcement) to a speaker that was already in development. I wonder if this will be the iPod HiFi 2.0. Sounds great, too expensive, no one cares. I’m curious about it but have no real interest in it as a speaker or assistant. Reviews should prove interesting.
- slantyyz 9y ago>> But this thing is expensive. I don't necessarily agree. I was shopping around for multi-room audio solutions, namely Sonos. I don't think the Homepod price is that out of whack compared to Sonos or Google Home Max. And this is coming from someone who generally finds Apple products way overpriced.
- MBCook 9y agoThat may be. I guess it’s within reason for the multi-room solutions. But 1) How big is that market? and 2) It doesn’t do multi-room at launch This all just feels odd to me. Like it slipped through a hole in Apple’s process.
- germinalphrase 9y agoI 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.
- MBCook 9y agoGood 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.
- snuxoll 9y agoThe 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).
- jvolkman 9y agoYesterday I said "hey google, turn on the kitchen lights" because my hands were full and the switch was across the room. I wouldn't say it had a meaningful effect on my lifestyle, but it was useful at that moment.
- eddieroger 9y agoThat's my most common use of Alexa as well - turn on the lights, turn off the TV. Sometimes I will ask it to set a timer, but really it's a hub for my home automation. I would miss it if it was gone, but my life would go on.
- oceanghost 9y agoHow can you release a music player when your music ecosystem is completely broken? iTunes is so bad I have to pay for an app (Waltr) to put music on my phone. And Apple music sounds like garbage. I don't need a high-quality speaker to stream garbage.
- eddieroger 9y agoSounds like this product sure isn't for you then. Maybe the next one will be.
- minikites 9y agoIf you're not satisfied with 256kbps AAC then may I suggest https://www.ponomusic.com/ https://www.ponomusic.com/ ?
- oceanghost 9y agoI honestly cant tell what Pono does from their website?
- jacksmith21006 9y agoBy combining it with the worse assistant available?
- oceanghost 9y agoYes. Siri is Annie Pots in ghosbusters, but deaf.
- firloop 9y ago>Coming this year in a free software update, users will be able to play music throughout the house with multi-room audio. Interesting that a key feature that the competition already has won’t be shipping at launch. I wonder if this is related to the Homepod’s previous delays.
- jbigelow76 9y agoIt's a delay with AirPlay 2, which isn't HomePod specific, and not the hardware from my understanding.
- knolan 9y agoYou can already AirPlay to multiple devices (including homebrew kodi boxes) from iTunes in MacOS. AirPlay 2 just brings this to iOS.
- lobster_johnson 9y agoThe changes in AirPlay 2 will be a little more than that. To make it work more like Sonos, it requires that the receiving device buffer a lot more of the audio to make it resilient from wi-fi instability, and it probably requires some changes to that devices are synced up at all times. And I sure hope they're doing something with latency. As I understand it, Sonos can do some of these things because their audio is transmitted over a proprietary wireless connection, so it's not competing with Internet traffic. I use AirPlay today over ordinary home wi-fi, and it's awfully unreliable — stutters all the time, sometimes doesn't play, long pause before audio will start, etc. — and larger buffers would certainly help here.
- knolan 9y agoMy AirPlay experience is a lot better. From my Mac I can play music simultaneously in my living room and kitchen very reliably. From my phone I can play to either speaker, however the kitchen unit (Airstream S200) stutters when I move the phone into a known poor signal area at the back of the kitchen. There’s about a 2-3 second buffer with current AirPlay. It warns you of this when use use the a GarageBand app. Try enabling IGMP snooping on your router and see if that helps.
- warent 9y agoDoes anyone have the 411 on the API to this thing? How will apps be developed?
- robert_foss 9y agoBy the chosen people, whom have had developmental access bestowed upon them by the grace of Apple. Seriously though; there is little to no chance that this will not be another locked down device with which Apple will try to monetize your home to the fullest possible extent.
- saagarjha 9y agoOr: 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.
- robert_foss 9y agoTry 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.
- saagarjha 9y agoLiterally on the homepage right now: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16213280 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16213280
- untog 9y agoYou have to use the Safari rendering engine, though - Apple will not allow any others in the App Store. I don't think that's as big of an issue as others do, but it is still a restriction.
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- sargun 9y agoHow is the podcast functionality? My biggest frustration with smart speakers is the poor support for pausing and resuming podcasts.
- anilshanbhag 9y agoHomePod costs $349. I know Apple products are pricy but 3.5x is insane. I have a (Google) Home mini and its fun - it isn't really that useful but ok for $30-50. While history has proof that Apple is able to extract higher prices, I feel this product will fail at this price point.
- hammock 9y agoGoogle Home Max is $399. The price reflects the speaker quality. Although the HomePod has only one woofer inside while Google Home Max has two and can create a stereo image.
- jacksmith21006 9y agoAgree. The last Apple speaker was $350 and lasted on the market for 18 months. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPod_Hi-Fi https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPod_Hi-Fi iPod Hi-Fi - Wikipedia
- untog 9y agoYou really can't compare a HomePod and a Google Home Mini. As an owner of the latter I know that the sound quality is absolute crap - I never play music through it. Meanwhile, that's the whole reason to get a HomePod. It's better compared to expensive Sonos speaker setups.
- anilshanbhag 9y agoI was comparing to Echo $99 or Google Home $129. Home mini's speaker is pretty awesome !
- sbjustin 9y agoIt's also different price models. Google plans to make more money on the things you do with your Home mini. Apple has to price total cost for product since they are less likely to make money after the purchase.
- vinceguidry 9y agoThings 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 the weird situation where latency causes music to not sound synced, so that if I'm listening in one room, I'm not hearing music from the other room with a half-second delay. I am hopeful on all counts except for the first one. Apple seems dead set on forcing their idea of music enjoyment onto me. Then again, perhaps the behavior forcing me onto a third party player is/was just a bug.
- jasonmp85 9y agoGet a Sonos?
- vinceguidry 9y agoI wound up buying a cheap AmazonBasics Bluetooth device to transmit music to my receiver. It works well enough. I suppose I could get on with Sonos, but I don't want to replace my current working system with all-new hardware.
- slantyyz 9y agoDoes Chromecast Audio do what you need?
- vinceguidry 9y agohttps://forum.quartertothree.com/t/how-to-play-my-itunes-apple-music-on-my-chromecast/78105/3 https://forum.quartertothree.com/t/how-to-play-my-itunes-app... I'd have to move my music off of my iPhone or maintain two music libraries. Neither are more acceptable than the status quo.
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- yeukhon 9y agoI 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?)
- danso 9y agoI 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.
- BatFastard 9y agoI love having Spotify hooked into my Alexa. I have totally abandoned my iTune lib.
- gcr 9y agoTotally agreed that preferring one form of service over another is a form of lock-in. However, in favor of a certain music service: - with iCloud Music Library, you can play all of your mp3 files on any device, Spotify-style; - if you purchase an album from iTunes, you own it forever; this is not true of Spotify-streamable music. I've had some of my favorite albums disappear from Spotify, for example. Long-term, iTunes, Apple Music, and iCloud Music Library seem like a better solution because they allow you to retain actual ownership/control of your own music collection, which helps a lot.
- nkristoffersen 9y agoWouldn't the "sirikit" availability start to solve the problem of 3rd party integration?
- firloop 9y agoSiriKit has specifically scoped "intent domains" for acceptable usage and music controls aren't one. https://developer.apple.com/documentation/sirikit#2863953 https://developer.apple.com/documentation/sirikit#2863953
- Bhilai 9y agoAmazon already has a better sounding Echo and so does Google so I am not seeing a value prop from HomePod. This round has been clearly won by Amazon with Google inching very close and based on reviews, Google assistant seems way better than other assistants in general. Since Siri uses Google search now, it may only be slightly better than Alexa. Too late and too little by Apple, they missed this boat. Cortana seems pretty fun on the surface but is nowhere to be seen in this AI race. Guess Microsoft got their strategy wrong yet again.
- mikestew 9y agoAmazon already has a better sounding Echo and so does Google so I am not seeing a value prop from HomePod. Google and Amazon could project a 3D hologram of the band as the song plays, and I still wouldn't let one of those things in my house. From my POV, it boils down to two camps: "I'll trade some privacy (for arbitrary and ever-changing values of "privacy") for better sound" vs. "I'll listen to a tinny 1" speaker as long as it isn't spying on me". You sound like you're in the former, myself in the latter. Besides, you don't know if the competition sounds better or not, at least not until February 9th. Too late and too little by Apple, they missed this boat. In an age where "no wireless, less space than a nomad, lame" is a meme, I'm surprised you'd let that one slip. OTOH, even someone like myself whose only debate is "buy two, or try just the one out first?" has to allow that there's yet no guarantee that this isn't iPod Hi-Fi 2.0.
- bradbatt 9y agoApple definitely missed the boat on this. Unless their speakers are leaps and bounds better in some way, I don't see many people switching. Once someone has a couple of Amazon Echos, for example, why would they add a Google Home or Apple HomePod? I don't think anyone wants to have to configure several devices to have to do the same things (turn lights on/off, etc.)
- BatFastard 9y agoToo late to the game IMHO. A three year lead has let Alexa integrate itself into hundreds of products. And if you want a better speaker just buy the Sonos version.
- lazerpants 9y agoBloomberg - 2007 "The big competitors in the mobile-phone industry such as Nokia Oyj and Motorola Inc. won’t be whispering nervously into their clamshells over a new threat to their business….The iPhone is nothing more than a luxury bauble that will appeal to a few gadget freaks. In terms of its impact on the industry, the iPhone is less relevant." Not that this speaker looks like a huge game changer, but coming out of the gate late is something Apple has proven adept at.
- collias 9y agoIs this supposed to compete more with Sonos, or with Google Home / Alexa? I can't tell. I have a Sonos setup for my home and I absolutely love it. The sound quality is great, and the Play:1 speakers are less than half the price of the HomePod.
- joshstrange 9y agoI was (and still am) looking forward to HomePod but at $350 I just can't really afford it. I have a series 1 echo, 2 dots Smartthings Hub, 3 bulbs, 2 power outlets, and 1 wall switch. In total I paid somewhere in the range of $400 TOTAL for all of that. HomeKit approved devices have been, on average, more expensive (and yes I understand why) than their Smartthings counterparts. I love being able to control the majority of lights I need to switch on/off with just my voice and having Alexa in every room makes life easier for setting alarms/reminders/music/lights/etc. I'm not saying I will never buy a HomePod but for me: control > sound quality. And when price IS an issue you can't beat the Amazon ecosystem. PS: Also writing skills and the like for Alexa is pretty easy from my experience
- joshstrange 9y agoMy 2 big things with home automation devices (and we can argue if this is really one of those) is: 1) Full voice coverage (I shouldn't have to redirect my voice or scream for it to hear me in any room). 2) Enough devices that talk to it so that it is habit-forming to use it for lights/tv/etc I can see the HomePod doing 2 as that's more about what you have aside from the HomePod but I'm worried about #1 due to the price tag. If I have a 3 bedroom house and a large enough Kitchen/Living Room we are talking about 5 devices. For HomePod that is $1,750. For ALL Echo's it's $500. If you were smart and did a mix of say 2 Echo's and the rest Dot's: $320 (At the $40/dot price point, I picked mine up at $30/ea). That is a HUGE price difference. The Dot's were so cheap that I stuck a few in bathrooms as well for even better coverage and it's awesome.