
Apple HomePod - electic
https://ssl.apple.com/homepod/
======
bkmn
”An Apple-designed A8 chip powers the most complex audio innovations in
HomePod. Like real-time modeling of the woofer mechanics. Buffering that’s
even faster than real time.”

Faster than real-time. That IS fast!

~~~
galad87
Well, that's actually true, it can buffer the entire song and more. So it's
faster than real time.

~~~
phnofive
Were it only real-time, could you even call that buffering?

~~~
deweller
Sure. Load 10 seconds, start playing and then always have a buffer of exactly
10 seconds in memory.

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blux
I do not want an always on microphone in my house. And for sure I do not want
one that is connected to the internet.

~~~
johnpowell
I don't either. But if the choice is between Amazon, Google, and Apple.. I am
going Apple.

~~~
rollcat
No, the choice is between having and not having one.

We've turned off all of the "assistants" in our home - in our phones, laptops,
etc. We find they provide nothing of real value, and the invasion of privacy
is not acceptable.

~~~
Yetanfou
Well, you turned off all the obvious always-on listening devices. In reality
any phone can be listening all the time without you knowledge. As to whether
they _are_ actually listening is another question, accusations on the subject
fly [1] and [2] get rebutted [3] all the time [4] but it is hard to prove or
disprove either thesis.

On the subject of the usability of these 'assistants' I mostly do agree except
for the possibility to use voice commands which can sometimes be useful.
Fortunately that option does not need an always-on internet connection to some
faraway mothership and is easy to implement in free software, e.g. [5].

[1] [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2017/10/30/facebook-
li...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2017/10/30/facebook-listening-
conspiracy-theory-refuses-die/)

[2]
[http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-41802282](http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-41802282)

[3] [https://lifehacker.com/facebook-isn-t-recording-your-
convers...](https://lifehacker.com/facebook-isn-t-recording-your-
conversations-but-it-may-1820193946)

[4]
[https://www.startpage.com/do/dsearch?query=facebook+phone+li...](https://www.startpage.com/do/dsearch?query=facebook+phone+listening)

[5]
[https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/aiforeveryone/mycroft-m...](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/aiforeveryone/mycroft-
mark-ii-the-open-voice-assistant)

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verytrivial
"Buffering that’s even faster than real time."

What? Buffering AT real time isn't buffering at all. Storing data faster than
real time is the definition of buffering, no? I can't make sense of that
statement.

~~~
Someone
Early internet movie players typically buffered the video stream at whatever
speed was available until the software was reasonably sure it would be able to
play the full (where ‘full’ at the time typically was less than a minute)
video without stuttering.

Those old enough probably remember RealPlayer, which was famous for buffering
at slower than, often a lot slower than real time.

I think modern video players still take the same approach, but if bandwidth is
high enough, they need very little time before they start playing.

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daviddumenil
Can someone shed some light on why Apple would release this with only Apple
Music as a music source?

~~~
mahrain
Not being able to play local mp3’s Or even CD’s ripped through iTunes is a
deal breaker for me.

~~~
kgwgk
You can use itunes and send the music to the speaker, right?

~~~
danieldk
Using AirPlay. But as far as I understand from the media coverage, it does not
support Home Sharing. So, you cannot say "Hey Siri, play me some King Gizzard
and the Wizard Lizard" and expect it to be played from your computer.

Not having to go to your computer and enabling AirPlay and selecting an album
is kind of the point of a home assistant ;).

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cbg0
Since they advertise this is made for music and comes with a woofer and 7
tweeters, it would be useful if the specs offered some details like frequency
response, harmonic distortion, sensitivity and power usage.

~~~
tzahola
People will be listening lossy crap from Apple Music anyways. Why bother with
such technicalities?

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sheraz
Yeah I'll stick with Sonos, thanks. We have one at work, and the only
complaint I have is the terrible taste in music of my colleagues :-)

~~~
mojuba
... and the fact that you can only use the Sonos app with it.

~~~
kiallmacinnes
Google Play Music and Spotify both work with Sonos, without needing the awful
Sonos app.

(I think you need the Sonos app installed, but, you don't need to use it)

~~~
Tempest1981
Don't you need Spotify Premium?

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piyush_soni
What is the 2017 cliche? : "We completely reimagined" for the things that are
obviously not so.

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melling
There’s no discussion here about the device as a voice assistant.

While I’m sure the audio quality is excellent, I think I’d rather use cheap
Amazon or Google devices to build a home automation system, for example. The
cost of a multi room assistant is too high with the HomePod.

People are also starting to work on open source solutions:

[https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/aiforeveryone/mycroft-m...](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/aiforeveryone/mycroft-
mark-ii-the-open-voice-assistant)

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jackvalentine
In the delay between announcement and release, and the lack of advertised
features at launch (airplay 2) I have completely lost interest.

Apple need to get back to releasing things soon after announcement.

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lower
> Create stereo sound with a second HomePod.

That seems really lazy [edit: making you buy a whole second thing instead of
just a speaker]. What will they do next? Sell iMacs instead of external
monitors?

~~~
fastball
Sound is literally not stereo unless there are two or more speakers...

~~~
lower
Yes, so maybe they could have offered a slave speaker instead of letting you
buy the whole thing again?

~~~
fastball
The other smart speakers didn't even have multi-speaker support from the
outset, much less slaves.

Plus slaves in the same room don't really make much sense. I want my sound to
be balanced. It's not really going to balance well if I have a tiny speaker on
one side of the room and a big one on the other.

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0xBA5ED
Question: Is there a "smart device" in existence which can function well
without requiring a remote agent on the backend who watches you? Where do I
find such a thing?

~~~
thomassnielsen
The HomePod is probably the closest you’ll get. Voice recognition for the
trigger word happens on device, and requests are anonymized using differential
privacy. iMore goes into more detail. Apple has no use for watching you, so
they don’t. Amazon wants your shopping habits, Google wants anything they can
use in advertising.

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qplex
I'm quite sure a standard 2.1 setup will get you better sound than this at a
fraction of the price.

I also don't want my speaker to "run my smart home" or anything like that.

~~~
qplex
To further my point (in case of additional downvoting):

You can get a quality 200W subwoofer for $150. Pair that Mackie or JBL studio
monitors for another $150.

One homepod costs $349. And you need TWO for stereoscopic sound.

Its just another vanity item, much as all Apple products of late - they add no
real value.

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gkanai
I just am not impressed by this. Maybe I need to hear it in action?

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Y_Y
> Available starting 2.9

What the hell is this? After some thinking I realised it must be a date,
2018-02-09, but this is not clear. Do they think it looks cool or something?

~~~
tabs_masterrace
Its a date? What else would follow after the words "Available starting", month
is first since it's US locale. Whats so confusing about it.

~~~
duiker101
That it's not obvious. It's not a standard format and a lot of people will be
slightly confused. It's understandable if you think about it but still not
something everyone will get at first glance. Also the fact that it's localised
to US only but both digits could be a day or a month will be even more
confusing.

Just adding a .18 or even better making it 2.09.18 would have made things
easier and I can't believe that it would have hurt the page design that hard.

~~~
imran3740
Or just, you know, February 9.

