
HomePod - tosh
https://daringfireball.net/2018/02/homepod
======
replicatorblog
The sense I get re: HomePod criticism is that people believe that Apple has
built a better/the best home audio speaker at the price point, but that Apple
is missing the boat on a larger connected home strategy. It's a matter of
whether you favor a macro or micro POV.

Basically, Apple is making Sonos more affordable, while Amazon is making a bet
that there is a new platform to be built/won in the form of voice and they're
going to push hard into it with a bunch of low-cost appliances.

Apple's approach is fool-proof, but fairly limited. It could be worth a couple
billion a year, but at their scale that hardly matters.

Amazon's approach is contingent on changing customer behavior and the
development of an app ecosystem, but if it works it could be massive. I
wouldn't be surprised if all this focus on voice doesn't eventually lead them
back into making smartphones that tie into the hardware/services ecosystem
they're developing. Apple could, of course, start making HomePod minis once
the use cases are hashed out by Amazon.

At the end of the day, it's important to judge the product on its merits. It
may not jibe with your macro view of the tech industry, but that's not the
most relevant axis upon which to review a single product offering.

~~~
nostromo
I think Apple understands the market better than Amazon. Amazon believes that
non-phone voice assistants are a big and growing market. However, everyone I
know with an Alexa uses it primarily as a speaker, not an assistant.

I’m reminded of Microsoft and Xbox. Microsoft saw the Xbox as a strategic way
to get a computer into the living room. But all of these years later, Xbox is
still primarily used for gaming by gamers.

I think Amazon will find that Alexa will primarily be used as a speaker and
not an assistant for quite some time, corporate strategy be damned.

~~~
criddell
I like how the incentives align for Apple.

It feels like HomePod is there to server users and the Echo is there to sell
to users. Google's device is there doing what Google does - ingest all the
data.

~~~
jxdxbx
I’m happy to let Amazon labor under the illusion that I want to use their
crummy Alexa platform for anything other than music and timers, if it means
they’ll sell me a voice-controlled speaker for $40 that I can connect to an
existing pair of high-quality speakers. (On the Google side you’d need a
Chromecast audio—-not happening.)

Since I can check my history of Alexa commands, I can see that I haven’t said
anything that Homepod couldn’t do in like, months. But, $40.

~~~
criddell
Do you think the DAC in the Echo is good enough for high-quality speakers?

I have to admit, I'm a sucker for things like Apple's claim that their device
measures the room acoustics and adjusts itself for better sound. I don't know
if it's true, but I kind of want one in my office now.

------
SirensOfTitan
HomePods represent modern-day Apple quite poignantly: great hardware and truly
awful software.

I find Apple Music awful. It has a terrible UX on both mobile and Desktop that
I've tried and failed to get used to several times now. From what I recall,
simple behaviors like buffering the next song in local cache hardly worked (or
weren't even implemented).

There have been plenty critiques of Siri, the large one being in my mind: the
3rd party development support is super limited, especially if you compete
directly with Apple in any capacity (e.g. Spotify). Crippling consumer choice
as a way of coercing consumers to your inferior products is such an awful part
of the Apple ethos.

~~~
vinceguidry
I refuse to use Apple Music as well, preferring instead to maintain a library
of music local to my iPhone. It's more than unreasonably difficult to manage,
it's insane.

Apple refuses to allow you to migrate music tracks from one phone to another.
They demand that you re-download them from iTunes. But iTunes as music library
management software is utterly unreliable and can't be trusted.

As a result, whenever I buy a new iPhone, I manually make a list of all the
music on my current phone, by literally typing out song names and artists into
a text editor. Software tools to do this have proven unreliable.

I then, on the new phone, download every single track individually. I then run
down my checklist and make sure that every single track is accounted for.

I've been collecting ideas in my head for a phone music player that allows you
to safely store your library externally. I doubt I could ever get it into the
App Store, unfortunately, but at least it would fix my personal problem.

~~~
dfee
This is either satire, or I'm concerned about your sanity. Reading and re-
reading your process leaves me baffled.

I would recommend just about any other process – including, not using iTunes,
or not using an iPhone. The amount of effort you're investing seems far too
great for the reward you reap: parity.

I've read that the average number of songs in a library is somewhere around
7000. Assuming you're quite efficient at 1) manually recording every song in a
text file, 2) re-downloading the song, and 3) verifying that song has been
downloaded, maybe it would take you 60s / song.

That's 116 hours dedicated to this process, or nearly 5 full days non-stop.
Seriously, the opportunity cost (even at a minimum-wage salary) is more than a
new iPhone costs brand new. This is very peculiar, indeed.

~~~
Angostura
The process which baffles you is

1\. Make a playlist in iTunes 2\. Sync the playlist to your phone 3\. Sync it
to any other phones you may have.

How is that baffling?

~~~
vinceguidry
If iTunes wasn't so unreliable I would use it. But it's burned me too many
times.

~~~
Angostura
I’ve been using it since there has been an iTunes. It’s cocked up maybe twice
in 10 years. No idea what you’re doing to cause problems.

------
_ph_
The HomePod - at least in its current first software iteration - seems to be
targeted at a very specific audience. As Gruber and a few other reviewers
clearly point out, it currently makes sense mainly if you are using Apple
Music or the iCloud Music library. In that respect, it mirrors the roll-out of
the Apple Watch. That has not stopped the Apple Watch to be successfull - and
I know a few first-day adopters which were extremely happy with their Apple
Watch. Because despite of its limitations, it did exactly what they needed it
to do.

With the HomePod, it seems to be a similar story. I am eagerly awaiting the
HomePod becoming available in Germany, because I am fufilling the criteria
listed above. For me, the sound quality is the relevant thing, and that seems
to be there.

For expanding the possible user base, Apple has of course to continue working
on the software and enable more sources for the music played on the HomePod.

~~~
bardworx
I watched a YouTube review that paired HomePod with Spotify via airplay and
you could change songs and increase volume via Siri.

A lot of folks keep mentioning Apple Music but I don’t believe they understand
that’s not the only option

~~~
_ph_
Right, you can use any audio source via AirPlay. But with more limitations to
Siri interaction than Apple Music and of course requiring the device to stream
from. Which to me is acceptable too, but it is important to point out in a
review.

~~~
michelb
Curious to know how the intended market for Homepod use/play music. I'd
problably buy the Homepod for the audio quality, I don't use Siri. I would
open Spotify on one of my macs or iPhone/iPad and Airplay to the Homepod.

I personally cannot imagine myself asking Siri(or alexa/google) to play music
because I usually don't know what I want to listen to while working, so I need
to find it, visually, play some bits, and then settle on something. Ofcourse,
N=1, but that would be my use-case.

------
Clubber
I ordered one for a sound bar for the Apple TV. I originally ordered two, but
after reading the syncing won't be available until AirPlay 2, I cancelled one
and will order the second once AirPlay 2 comes out (and assuming I like it).

The private issues are concerning, but the way Apple approaches privacy, it's
less concerning to me. That may be foolish of me, but Apple seems to be the
most interested in security (and has the least to gain from taking your data).

FWIW, I bought a Bose sound bar (the wide one) and wasn't overly impressed
with it, particularly at $500. I'm hoping the "radar" technology of the
HomePod will deliver a better single point surround sound. The technology
sounds compelling.

~~~
Someone1234
The privacy thing is a little overblown by people that don't understand the
technology.

Google Home, Amazon Echo, and all others do the same thing, they are
continuously "listening" but only within the device itself. Audio is looped
through an on-device audio processor which looks for the wake-word. If the
wake-word is found that audio is sent to the cloud, but otherwise it just
loops back over itself wiping out the previous audio sample. This can be
easily verified with network monitoring or by reading about e.g. Qualcomm's
Smart Audio Platform or competitors.

The next major privacy objection is typically "what if it gets hacked?!"
Which, while impossible to address, ignores the smart elephant in your pocket.
Which too has an always on speaker accessible to baseband as well as the
primary OS.

~~~
criddell
I think the worry isn't that they are listening to everybody all the time. I
think it's more about the potential for abuse by Amazon, their employees, or
law enforcement.

If the police approach Amazon with a court order saying they want to the
microphone turned on in Someone1234's home, what do you think Amazon will do?

~~~
ryanwaggoner
Yes, but the same question applies for phones, tablets, and computers.

~~~
scintill76
What company do the police get to tap my computer? That's not going to work
well. Who do they get to tap my Amazon home assistant? Amazon!

~~~
Clubber
>What company do the police get to tap my computer?

Comcast, TWC, etc. Record everything over the wire since the patriot act and
store it. Search with a FISA warrant. They could pay a private company to
infiltrate it.

------
lev99
I live in a 900sqft apartment. I could not see having a $350 that doesn't
integrate with a a TV because my space is only really big enough for one audio
source.

Am I alone in this? How much space does a home need before it has multiple
rooms where an expensive audio setup makes sense? Wouldn't the single user
limitation be an issue at that sized home?

~~~
woolvalley
A speaker system for each bedroom and living room/ kitchen basically. So for a
1 bedroom apartment, it would be 2.

And the homepod is fairly tiny. It's just a little bit bigger than a sonos
one.

~~~
lev99
I sleep, read, and change clothes in my bedroom. No reason for a quality sound
system there. I understand that other people might "hang out" in the bedroom
more.

------
ksec
I think Audio Quality is all about taste, just like how lots of people said
Beats ( before they were acquired by Apple ) were great. My god they were
absolutely awful and disgusting by my standard.

You will have to listen to it yourself and make a judgement. But given how i
like most Apple's product sounded, and the changes / improvement they have
made to the recent Beats, I think those speaker will likely well worth $350.

Although I really wish they open up AirPlay Video for TV manufacture. Or
actually make a God Damn Apple TV Set. I dont understand how I cant use my
speaker for my TV.

~~~
dionidium
> _lots of people said Beats ( before they were acquired by Apple ) were
> great_

Nobody said that :) The knock on Beats from the jump was that they're stylish,
comfortable, and sound like shit.

~~~
falcolas
I have heard from many people that Beats sound good. Most of the time, the
comparisons come up against your average $10-20 headphones, using modern pop,
alternative, and electronica.

I've also simply accepted that many people just don't care that much about the
quality of their headphones, largely because their preferred music doesn't
require high fidelity; their music rewards heavy bass and doesn't punish
muddled mids. My own preference for headphones directly reflects my choice in
music: you just can't listen to classical music on crappy headphones, as
entire groups of instruments can be lost to the mud and the bass.

------
tonymarks
I've had a Google Max for a couple months. It sounds great (bass is insane)
and plays well with Spotify, not to mention the available actions, home
controls, etc. I do have an iMac, iPhone, MacBook, etc., but I can't see
myself buying a HomePod. I'm just not sure what the value is (over Max)
especially when I prefer Spotify to Apple Music. I've noticed a lot of reviews
and tweets avoiding the comparison of Max to HomePod - seems most are
comparing HomePod to Echos and Homes.

~~~
_ph_
There are some reviews which compare it to the Max and the HomePod seems to
compare well to it. But most reviews agree, that if you want to regularly use
the HomePod with music from outside of Apple Music or your iCloud music
library, then the HomePod might not be the ideal speaker for you - at least in
the current software configuration.

------
joeblau
I completely forgot about this product over the past week until just now. I
would have loved to order one, but since there is no development ecosystem, I
don't see myself buying this at the moment.

~~~
criddell
Do you think they will open up the ecosystem?

~~~
minikites
I think they got burned a bit by how terrible watch apps are so I wouldn't be
surprised if they take a much more deliberate and planned approach.

~~~
joeblau
Watch apps were definitely an interesting release. The first version of the
Watch was extremely underpowered with a very limited SDK. I also think that
Apple was trying to figure out what the Watch was for until version 3. Now
it's actually useful.

As far as being deliberate, Apple has kinda always had botched software
release since the iPhone. Steve Jobs touted web apps that you would bookmark
as the way to build initial iOS apps until Apple released an SDK for the
second iPhone. The iPad's software is _finally_ coming into form with iOS 11.
The Watch struggled for the first two versions. They seem to be on a pattern
of — Try stuff, keep what works, throw away what doesn't.

------
jonknee
Not a product for me, but I hope similar audio technology makes its way into
more products.

------
new299
"AirPods, for example, are tiny iOS computers."

I don't think this is actually true is it?

~~~
redial
By a certain definition, they are. They obviously can't run springboard or
UIKit, but they share the same underlying technology; that is how they can run
Siri and have a very tight integration with your phone.

~~~
glhaynes
They're certainly tiny computers, but has it ever been established (or even
seriously speculated?) that they're running xnu? That's the minimum hurdle
they'd have to clear for me to feel at all comfortable with the statement that
they "run iOS".

------
oflannabhra
Gruber, like him or hate him, has really hit the nail on the head when
attempting to elucidate Apple's thinking towards HomePod.

> First, _“What if we turned ____ into a small advanced computer?”_ is
> arguably Apple’s mantra for entering new product categories.

> The difference between HomePod and Amazon Echo isn’t that they’re in
> different product categories. [...] The difference is in the priorities
> behind the devices. [...] HomePod’s first priority is clearly audio quality.
> That’s why it costs $350. Amazon has placed a higher priority on price

I think Apple's philosophy towards products is "What does a user want to do,
and how can we uniquely enable that through design and hardware." Apple has
seen that people really want to play music in their home, and with HomePod
they have a unique hardware solution and premium experience.

That's why I think Gruber is correct in his thinking re: Apple Music
exclusivity:

> It is unclear at this point whether third-party “Hey Siri” playback support
> is the way Apple wants HomePod to be, simply something they haven’t gotten
> around to yet, or still up in the air internally (like native apps on iPhone
> back in 2007). Some people seem convinced that HomePod doesn’t support
> external services through “Hey Siri” out of competitive spite with Spotify.
> I would say that’s certainly possible, but I’m not convinced. [...] my gut
> says they’ll make the most money by making HomePod more useful, even if that
> means opening up an SDK that allows for competitors to Apple Music.

HomePod might not be a success, and it definitely has some shortcomings. But,
given Apple's ability to iterate and change, I probably wouldn't bet against
the HomePod being successful at some point in the future.

I think, if anything, some of HomePod's most glaring shortcomings are actually
Siri's architectural shortcomings. There is a different Siri on each device,
with different capabilities. That seems like one of the biggest technical
challenges making SiriKit advancements non-trivial.

~~~
slantyyz
>> HomePod might not be a success, and it definitely has some shortcomings.

Well, it is early days. I wouldn't judge HomePod's success until it's been
around for a year or more. Let's not forget all the criticism of the original
iPhone. Apple's MVP products tend to be open to criticism on release, but over
time, as they add wishlist functionality, silence a lot of the critics too.

------
emsy
>This means you can’t connect HomePod to anything to use it as a “normal”
speaker. [...] HomePod is very much a “skating to where the puck is going to
be” product.

I kind of agree that most modern playback devices feature wireless technology
anyway, but Bluetooth audio is still crap and AirPlay requires an Apple
device. Gruber seemingly welcomes every removal of ports on Apple devices with
the puck quote. The problem is that in recent years, Apple doesn't replace
them with newer, open standards but retracts to their proprietary garden that
slowly looses appeal as the time goes by.

~~~
oflannabhra
iTunes for Windows allows you to Airplay to any Airplay 1.0 compatible device.

------
vinceguidry
I'd be curious to see how the sound stacks up against my $350 5.1 stereo
system

------
mozumder
> HomePod is very much a “skating to where the puck is going to be” product,
> and Apple has believed for years that when it comes to personal audio, the
> puck is heading toward a wireless world.

That puck better be headed towards 'connecting with TV/XBox/PC' because who
wants to have multiple speakers in a house for different services? Especially
considering better speakers take more space.

Does Apple expect everyone to buy a separate TV for Netflix, HBO, and NBC?

Speakers are one-item-serves-all. HomePod needs connectivity options to
connect to your TV/Xbox/PC. Otherwise it'll have very limited utility as a
Siri assistant.

Also, fixed consumer electronics devices should always be wired. You're just
increasing the noise floor for your other devices in your house if they're
not.

~~~
jeffbax
I'm not sure why everyone thinks that? I have a sound bar for my TV -- I still
need speakers elsewhere, and I wouldn't want my room speakers to be bound to
my TV or necessarily the overhead of having to manage pairings of speakers.
HomePod should fit in my bedroom quite nicely, so I'm looking forward to it.

Everyone saying the thing is doomed, or Siri is useless… I dunno, maybe I
don't use Alexa to the fullest but I pretty much ask Alexa the weather and to
turn my lights on and off and I find Apple Music better than Amazon Music. It
will also integrate with my notes/reminders, timers and calls seamlessly.

I'm sure Alexa integrates with all of this at some level, but I'm willing to
bet that for people into Apple's ecosystem Siri (despite lacking the thousands
of questionably useful skills) will work pretty well for a lot of people.

Siri has a lot of room to improve, but I don't think that HomePod is somehow
useless because it doesn't have my roommate's Alexa fart skill. The main thing
will be getting support for third party entitlements over time -- they can't
let that languish forever, but I think for the moment they've got more
breathing room than people think.

I also trust Siri a lot more than I trust Alexa/Google with listening all the
time or being used by others in the house given the nature of business models.

------
ucaetano
Wow, what a bad review:

> I’ve seen a lot of commentary along the lines up “Well, of course Apple is
> promoting HomePod’s audio quality, because Siri sucks compared to Alexa and
> Google Home as a voice assistant.” I would argue that’s not true across the
> board, but it’s inarguably true that Alexa and Google Home are far better
> than Siri at certain things, and if those things are important to you, you
> probably aren’t even reading this review, because you know HomePod isn’t for
> you.

"This product is perfect, if it isn't perfect for you is because this product
isn't for you"

> The harder decisions are choosing between HomePod, the Alexa-equipped Sonos
> One, and Google’s Home Max. Based on my side-by-side listening experience —
> admittedly, in a demo set up and conducted by Apple, but in a residential
> room that I would describe as very typical in terms of its size and
> acoustics — HomePod does sound better.

Pure advert.

~~~
pavlov
Daring Fireball is an Apple-specific blog with longstanding exclusive insider
access. The writer never bites the hand that feeds him.

~~~
jeffbax
[https://daringfireball.net/2017/09/iphone_x_event_thoughts_a...](https://daringfireball.net/2017/09/iphone_x_event_thoughts_and_observations)

> THE NOTCH: It offends me. It’s ungainly and unnatural. Clearly, the ideal of
> an “all-screen” design — to use Apple’s own words — has no notch at all.
> This is not that. But what I dislike more than the notch isn’t the notch
> itself but that Apple is fully embracing the notch in software. I really
> wish their software design rendered the “ears” with black backgrounds while
> using apps. I’d be fine with embracing the notch on the home screen and lock
> screen.

> It’s the front-facing equivalent of the camera bump. It offends me because
> it’s not just imperfect but glaringly, deliberately imperfect. But — again,
> exactly as with the bump — I understand why it’s there. I don’t like it but
> it wouldn’t keep me from buying the phone.

One can be a fan, yet also critical. The best ones probably are given fans
also tend to know the ins and outs better than most. Disqualifying Gruber's
analysis because he's often a dick and likes Apple just means you're pre-
judging information from one of the people who knows Apple best.

~~~
pavlov
I'm not sure that meets the criteria of objective criticism. He's working hard
to justify a design decision that he doesn't personally like, and makes sure
that you know he feels you should buy the phone.

------
Tepix
So here we have a speaker that Android phones can't pair with via Bluetooth.
You'll be the laughing stock of your next party.

PS: Perhaps it's because iPhones don't support aptX via Bluetooth - yet
another incomprehensible omission.

~~~
eclipxe
All of my friends have iPhones.

~~~
Tepix
I also have an iPhone. I'd still like to be able to use a standard protocol
such as aptX to stream high quality music via Bluetooth.

