
Apple HomePod - goshx
https://www.apple.com/homepod
======
Nimsical
There's no open API for this, right? And Siri is ~1-2 years behind Echo/Google
Home. Only "innovation" is on aesthetic design.

Apple usually comes in when they know they can do something a lot better than
the existing competition, but not recently. Not with Apple Watch & HomePod.

It's now about:

1) Apple has massive distribution 2) They can get a non-step-function revenue
increment with that massive distribution, launching new products.

Which makes sense why it's music focused (lock-in with Apple Music)

~~~
robalfonso
I think they are positioning as a Sonos killer (price is inline w/ that as
well) rather than echo killer.

Thats probably a mistake but it does appear thats their strategy. The "smart"
part of the speaker is a total afterthought it seems.

Historically, their strength is UI and maybe they don't know how to find their
feet in voice. It would explain siris lack luster performance in comparison to
Google and Amazon.

Very much disappointed w/ this offering.

~~~
stock_toaster
They have an A8 in the thing though. It sounds like it will have enough
processing snort inside that I imagine they can roll out new functionality
pretty regularly.

It also sounds like there is a companion app of some kind (or maybe just for
setup?), which could provide an alternative interface on a "pane of glass"
that you already have -- your phone.

~~~
jpalomaki
Also the device ships in 6 months. Probably they don't want to give out all
details in advance.

Quite sure this will eventually open up for developers, but I'm not sure how
to provide a smooth user experience. Like how to handle the case when multiple
apps would like to react to same voice command.

~~~
realityking
My guess is that they'll eventually open up SiriKit to the AppleTV and this
speaker.

I wonder how Apple will handle the multi-user aspect though. Even with music
multiple people in the same household will want to access their own playlists.

------
nhangen
As a former Apple fanboy that is also a Sonos lover, I'm starting to get
annoyed by the fragmentation caused by the multiple product offerings in this
category.

I have an Echo, 4 Echo Dots, one of every Apple Device, and a mix of other
tech sprinkled throughout the house. I have already committed both my home and
business to Sonos, and have zero desire to decommission those so that I can
more easily play music from my Apple music library.

Do I wish that Sonos had a better/tighter integration with Amazon Prime or
iTunes? Absolutely. However, I like the fact that it's platform agnostic.
Apple could've solved a much bigger problem here, but instead chose to create
a new one and solve that instead.

~~~
robert_foss
If Apples actions have taught us anything it is that their products are
standards hostile.

To list two relevant to this cycle: USB-C and WiFi Alliance TimeSync

~~~
realityking
How's Apple USB-C hostile? They got plenty of flake for dropping all other
ports on the MacBook Pro (except the headphone port)

~~~
robert_foss
You will never find one on an iPhone or iPad. And for which reasons?

None apart from owning the ecosystems/further profits.

~~~
comex
There are other factors. For one, Lightning is significantly thinner, so more
suitable for thinner devices. For another, switching to USB-C would force
iPhone users (who mostly already have Lightning cables) to buy new cables. I
don't know how large a role those factors play, compared to what you said -
the other phone makers don't seem to have a problem with the thickness, and
Apple certainly isn't known for being hesitant to make its users buy new
cables - but they do exist.

------
post_break
I think people are unfairly calling this a Google Home for $350 when it's a
Sonos that has Siri instead. But I also think the real trouble will come when
3rd parties start making speakers just as good with Google Assistant for much
less. For instance when Anker starts shipping a Google Assistant speaker, or a
huge JBL extreme, etc.

~~~
013a
We will see what it looks like when it is released. But it seems like Apple
has a lot of music-oriented software tech inside this thing that companies
like Anker won't be able to replicate.

The EarPods are an apt corollary. They're very expensive wireless earbuds;
there are far better options for less if all you care about is sound quality.
But they're sold out everywhere. The reason is because of the W1 chip and its
tight integration with the Apple ecosystem.

I doubt Apple is worried about Anker.

~~~
post_break
Apple doesn't really have to worry about anyone but I don't think the EarPods
compare to this. There is nothing like them in the market. Sure there are
wireless ear buds but the battery life of them is crazy.

Speakers on the other hand are mostly "cheap" and anyone can make a decent
speaker. JBL has some of the best sounding bluetooth speakers that just need
an Assistant to compete. They even have the same full room modes where you can
pair them all together. Hell a $30 chromecast audio can sync a bunch together
and you can plug them into a $1000 bose speaker.

I just think Apple priced this really high because they wanted to compete with
Sonos, and that's fair, but most people will be comparing it to Google Home
and the likes who will pass. Will it be another iPod HiFi?

------
adam
Wonder if Apple is making a conscious choice to market this as a speaker vs. a
Home Assistant. A speaker seems far less creepy to the commoner (no ads,
supposedly not listening to every command you request, etc.) and is something
everyone can already understand the functionality of. With the nice processor,
they clearly are thinking about this as something more than just a speaker
that they can upgrade in the future.

~~~
Eridrus
I found it interesting that their nod to privacy wasn't "we'll do all the
processing locally", but rather "we won't link this to your account when we
send it up to the cloud".

Which is sort of weird, right? Are they doing voice recognition and language
understanding in the cloud, then sending actions back to the speaker for local
execution of things that require actions to be taken, eg setting reminders &
liking songs?

I guess this is how they try and get themselves out of the corner they've
painted themselves into with privacy.

~~~
gondo
they do this with siri on iphone. there is no reason to believe that they
would do local processing on home pod

~~~
Eridrus
Fine, but do you find this to be a compelling privacy story?

To me it seems like Apple's "commitment to privacy" is running up against some
technical realities and isn't much more than marketing fluff.

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bitsoda
Without Spotify support the HomePod is a non-starter (for me at least). Here's
hoping for BT speaker mode.

~~~
dbbk
The two options are Apple integrate Spotify Connect, or Spotify integrate
AirPlay 2.0. I don't have much faith in either option happening.

Bluetooth wouldn't be good enough.

~~~
ricardobeat
Spotify does support Airplay. The thing is that still uses your phone as the
source, and a whole lot more battery, while Spotify Connect hands over the
playback to the target device itself. Most important in this case would be
Siri integration, to this date it doesn't even let you open a song in spotify
:\

~~~
dbbk
Exactly, it's effectively a WiFi version of Bluetooth. Although I'm guessing
notification sounds wouldn't be broadcast over AirPlay?

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robalfonso
I think they made the wrong product. This is positioned as a Sonos killer.

What I hoped to see was a integrated home assistant, this is a really nice
speaker no one is going to integrate with. Unfortunately whatever ecosystem
people buy into for home assistant is probably going to tie them to that
ecosystem for a long time, google and amazon are getting off to a early start
that may be hard for apple to catch up to.

I really wanted to see any one of the following today:

The HomePod we saw, but showing off some slick home integrations (and audio
out! - those integrations seemed like an after thought)

A Complimentary apple tv experience. Either new hardware that also had a
speaker or some helper hardware (think more expensive echo dot)

A possible answer to the amazon show (an input in to the apple tv making it a
video gateway - ie last thing before your tv) which allows on screen overlay
(ie: siri show me traffic right now and have it pop up, siri is my wife at
work still (shows location)?, siri web search for better HomePod)

None of those happened and anyone of those ideas would be a great start
breaking me away from amazon/echo.

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iMark
No kidding, but my first thought when I saw the photo was "how am I going to
stop my cats treating it as a scratching post"

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kgabis
I really hope they'll enable other music providers as well. Or at least a
bluetooth speaker mode.

~~~
X-Istence
It supports Airplay 2, so you can stream music from other devices that you own
to it... so even if there is no native support for Spotify, you can still use
as an Airplay 2 speaker.

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nabaraz
$349 for a home speaker? For comparison, Google Home is $129 and Amazon Echo
is $179.

~~~
cpcb
And the Echo Dot is $49, frequently on sale for $39. Plus you get to choose
your own speakers that will definitely sound better than the HomePod.

Interesting they are trying to sell this for music enthusiasts. It'll only
appeal to Apple enthusiasts.

~~~
goshx
"will definitely sound better than the HomePod" \-- hard to make that
statement without actually hearing it. The technology behind it looks
promising.

~~~
michaelmrose
Audio enthusiasts tend to already own speakers presumably changing speakers
unless its truly phenomenal may not be a feature valuable to audio
enthusiasts.

~~~
goshx
I think that's just marketing bait trying to get to amateurs' ego for them to
become self declared audio enthusiasts.

------
akubera
So what happens to the "world's first HomePod"?

[https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/keecker/keecker-the-
wor...](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/keecker/keecker-the-worlds-first-
homepod)

Looks like it just started production in December, too...

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daxorid
The specs don't include the most important one for speakers: frequency
response. Strange omission.

~~~
AceJohnny2
I'm thinking it's because there's so much active equalization happening that
it becomes meaningless.

~~~
daxorid
I'm sure it will end up being reasonably flat from 120Hz to 15kHz or so, but
outside that range, the physical characteristics of the drivers take on
primary importance.

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tovacinni
Really curious how the sound quality optimizations based on room acoustics
work.

I'd imagine it's a lot of signal processing and such, but I'm curious how they
quantified optimizations and tested to see that it actually enhanced the audio
based on room acoustics.

~~~
jd20
Companies look like Dirac and Audyssey do this, but require you to move a
microphone around a room while a test signal plays (from speakers that are
usually spaced throughout a room). The big mystery to me would be how
effective such room processing can be, when you're limited to measuring from
the point where the sound is generated. (My personal experience would say not
very. It'd make more sense to me if the user maybe held up their iPhone as a
microphone and the system calibrated itself as they moved throughout the
listening space.

~~~
js2
Sonos also does auto tuning now. The speaker plays a test tone as you walk
around the room with an iOS or Android device with the Sonos app listening.

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mcgrath_sh
The HomePod is $349. Amazon frequently has the Echo and Echo Dot on sale. For
the same price as the HomePod you can buy two full sized Echos and a Dot. For
me, Alexa has been exponentially more reliable than Siri. I do not understand
this pricing at all.

~~~
Cookingboy
Have you looked into the price of a Sonos speaker? Good speakers cost money,
frequently a lot more than $500.

This for people who care about sound quality.

~~~
mcgrath_sh
I am looking at this from more of the Home Assistant route than the Sonos
route. I can see a higher price if that is the case. As a counter to that,
though, why not just buy a good speaker and plug in an Echo Dot?

To be fair, I don't really listen to music and tend to listen to Podcasts or
Audiobooks 99% of the time. I also have below average hearing / am tone deaf,
so speaker quality is a very binary thing for me (can I understand the words
and is it loud enough?). For my use case, I think the Echo speaker is
_wonderful._

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wonder_bread
So Schiller taunting Amazon and Google about their then-lack of screens was
just a pump fake?

------
draw_down
I have a Jambox and I hate the thing. I only ever want to stream audio to it
from one device, and you wouldn't believe how difficult that can be at times.

But, I dunno if I can stomach $350 for its replacement, even if it is smarter.

------
Ecco
As far as I remember, that's the first time I saw Apple introducing a brand
new product by saying it's cheaper than equivalent competitors. I guess they
had so little else to say...

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tobr
How does it deal with stereo mixes? In the keynote they casually mentioned
that you might want to get two, but I couldn't tell if it was a joke or not.

~~~
scrumper
Any commercially recorded stereo music will work well in mono: many mix
engineers do most of their work in mono and even those that don't will
regularly check that it still sounds good in mono.

A surprising amount of listening is mono so it's taken really seriously:
kitchen radios, canned music in restaurants, bluetooth speaker pill things
(like the homepod).

------
remir
What I want to know is: can the HomePod stream music directly from the
internet like the Sonos or even the Chromecast audio? I mean, it would be
quite stupid to have this thing requiring a iDevice/Mac to stream audio.

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colept
Another music playback device and still no Continuity support for Apple Music.

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smileysteve
But December?

5 months is long enough for Amazon to "reverse engineer" the tweeter design
and launch version 2. And that's assuming they haven't been working on it
already.

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ajuhasz
Surprised they mentioned Sonos, but no talk of multi-room audio??

~~~
goshx
it is on the page:

"Combine two in one room.

Put another HomePod in the same room, and the two automatically detect and
balance each other — for sound that’s even more lifelike.

AirPlay 2.

Add HomePod to more rooms. When you add HomePod to multiple rooms, the
speakers communicate with each other through AirPlay 2 — so you can play your
music all around the house. You can also control any other AirPlay
2‑compatible speakers."

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asniper
Typical, next year for Canada.... Sill waiting for the TV app.

~~~
james_pm
And News. Surely they could do the News app for Canada.

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scrumper
I'd buy it if you could also use it as a (really good sounding) speakerphone
for conference calls when working from home.

~~~
goshx
Google Home is your best bet at this point

~~~
scrumper
Thanks, I had seen that. I have to rule it out though because I'm really not
comfortable with the apparent privacy tradeoff.

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nunez
This is a beautiful device. I think it will pair much more nicely with our
iDevices than the Echo Dots do while sounding way better. Siri actually works
quite well when it can hear you really clearly, so I'm assuming that these
will work well two.

Assuming the reviews are good, I'll probably get two of these.

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omot
Apple is slowly becoming pre Steve Jobs delving into miscellaneous hardware
devices and losing focus.

~~~
js2
This isn't Apple's first speaker, and the last one was announced by Jobs:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPod_Hi-
Fi](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPod_Hi-Fi)

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cpt1138
Looks like they re-purposed the old mac pro case.

[http://imgur.com/D01e6MN](http://imgur.com/D01e6MN)

[https://www.apple.com/homepod/](https://www.apple.com/homepod/)

~~~
luhn
Besides both being a rounded cylinder, they look nothing alike.

