
HomePod arrives February 9, available to order this Friday - robrichard
https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2018/01/homepod-arrives-february-9-available-to-order-this-friday/
======
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.

~~~
nkristoffersen
Wouldn't the "sirikit" availability start to solve the problem of 3rd party
integration?

~~~
firloop
SiriKit 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)

------
germinalphrase
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.

~~~
slantyyz
Putting aside the privacy concerns, the home automation + home assistant combo
is actually pretty useful. It definitely beats fumbling through apps to do
smart home stuff.

Since getting an Echo, I notice my wife constantly changing the temperature on
the Nest because, well, it's so easy to bark out a command when you don't want
to get up or don't have your phone handy.

Prior to getting an echo, I only used my Wemo switches for scheduling lights
to come on and off when we were away. I use voice commands for turning groups
on and off all the time now. Since it's dark when I take out the dogs in the
a.m., I use a "good morning" routine that turns on my downstairs lights and
tells me the outside temperature so I know which coat to wear. I'm surprised
at how dependent I'm becoming on Alexa for otherwise mundane stuff.

Having said all of that, I guess I made the choice to value
convenience/functionality over privacy. I see the Amazon/Google assistants as
"Big Brother with benefits".

~~~
joshstrange
I get the temperature from my Apple Watch 90% of the time but I have been
using Alexa more and more now that I have Echo/Dot's everywhere because I
don't put my watch on until the end of my morning routine. I'm growing quite
fond of saying "Alexa, Good Morning" and my lights coming on, it giving me the
temperature, and it playing the 2-3 "news brief"'s I've picked. I'm VERY close
to removing a few daily short podcasts from my podcasting app (Overcast)
because I just listen to them on Alexa now.

~~~
slantyyz
I find the Routines feature can be quite useful, especially if they are
performing multiple tasks. I just added "start work" and "quitting time" to
toggle my office lights. I wanted to use "work time" in place of "start work"
but that sounded too much like "what time" to Alexa. Routines are also useful
for controlling my TV and media devices with my Harmony Hubs (although don't
get me started on how you have to use a third party service to control each
additional Harmony Hub you have).

------
vinceguidry
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 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.

~~~
jaxondu
Actually I'm hoping what HomePod can do: when I come home listening to
Spotify/Audible/podcast on my earphone+iPhone, HomePad auto turn on when I
walk into house, the song/audiobook/podcast I'm halfway listening to on my
iPhone will automatically transfer to HomePod to continue playing.

~~~
vinceguidry
When Bluetooth is in a good mood, it'll do that. I'll have music going on my
Bluetooth headset, then my home receiver will come into range and the sound
will jump over. Requires my receiver to be set to the Bluetooth channel, so if
it's been on the TV channel I won't hear the music.

Also sometimes it just doesn't want to switch and I'll have to do it manually.

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firloop
>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.

~~~
knolan
You can already AirPlay to multiple devices (including homebrew kodi boxes)
from iTunes in MacOS. AirPlay 2 just brings this to iOS.

~~~
lobster_johnson
The 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
My 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.

~~~
lobster_johnson
Thanks for the IGMP tip! Turns out Mikrotik's RouterOS got this feature a
month ago, and I've turned it on now. So far so good.

~~~
knolan
Good luck!

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ratsimihah
What’s innovative about this? I feel like I’m reading an Amazon Alexa or
Google Home ad.

~~~
e1ven
I’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
Although 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
We 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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Bhilai
Amazon 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
_Amazon 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.

------
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?)

------
sargun
How is the podcast functionality? My biggest frustration with smart speakers
is the poor support for pausing and resuming podcasts.

------
joshstrange
My 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.

------
joshstrange
I 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

------
BadassFractal
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.

~~~
the_gastropod
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 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
I 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
>> 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
That 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.

~~~
slantyyz
1) Don't know. But not all of Apple's other markets are as huge as
iPhone/iPad/Mac Laptops (i.e., Apple TV, Mac Pro).

2) In fairness, Amazon Echo did not do multi-room at launch either. I tend to
think Apple fans won't have a problem waiting for that feature update. I'm not
an Apple fan myself any more, but in general, when they do a feature, they do
it right.

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anilshanbhag
HomePod 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.

~~~
untog
You 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
I was comparing to Echo $99 or Google Home $129. Home mini's speaker is pretty
awesome !

------
collias
Is 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.

------
warent
Does anyone have the 411 on the API to this thing? How will apps be developed?

~~~
robert_foss
By 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
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.

~~~
robert_foss
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.

~~~
saagarjha
Literally on the homepage right now:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16213280](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16213280)

~~~
untog
You 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.

~~~
saagarjha
Which is the same one that Apple itself uses. This was an issue a couple years
ago when Apple kept the fast Nitro rendering engine for itself, but now that
they've provided it to everyone else I wouldn't call it anticompetitive.

------
BatFastard
Too 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
Bloomberg - 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.

------
oceanghost
How 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.

~~~
minikites
If you're not satisfied with 256kbps AAC then may I suggest
[https://www.ponomusic.com/](https://www.ponomusic.com/) ?

~~~
oceanghost
I honestly cant tell what Pono does from their website?

