Apple HomePod Review (Smart Speaker)

[richard12511]

Yeah, I desperately want to see the auto room EQ become "a thing." Most audio devices sound like garbage without proper positioning and EQ, and most people don't position their stuff properly.

I'm surprised that high end audio($10,000+) still isn't even doing this regularly. Genelec, Neumann, D&D are the ones I'm aware of(Grimm maybe?), but I feel like it should be all of them at that price range. In my view, it's very difficult verging on near impossible to get SOTA sound(especially in the low end) without at least a little room EQ, and I would assume people spending that much money on audio are looking for SOTA sound. Seriously, there are many $100,000+ speakers out there that don't do this, and likely sound relatively bad out of the box because of it.

Even the ones that do offer some form of auto-eq seem very limited. Genelec and Numann, for example, don't handle multi-sub well, and D&D don't do sub integration at all(makes sense given they don't sell subs). I'm still sitting back hoping for one of these high end manufacturers to finally offer automatic multi sub integration(optimal crossover, phase, and FR EQ ), preferably partnered with an actual SOTA EQ system, like Audiolense/Accourate. I feel like Grimm Audio, with their fully active systems and detachable sub modules are in prime position to offer something like this.

Unfortunately, it seems to be the low end lifestyle products leading the charge in this domain

 

[Inner Space]

I hate voice commands because of how unreliable they still are ... they don't handle exception cases well at all.

Richard, this surprises me a little. I don't have extensive experience, except for the cable TV system in my new house, which can operate by speaking into the remote - and it's sensationally good. You say the name of a show, and it pops right up. I have tried mumbling, and speaking in weird foreign accents, and it always works 100%. I'm incredibly impressed.

In fact I hope the tech gets transferred to music storage and/or streaming ... imagine saying you want whichever symphony by whichever orchestra and conductor ... and it's right there before you even finish. Even I might transfer to file-based if that was available.

 

[amirm]

As already said above the Mfi license is $4 per item. It used to be a % many years ago, then reduced to $10 flat per unit and from 2014 is $4 flat per unit.

$4 if true (terms are confidential) is insanely high license fee. The most expensive AV technology license I know of is MPEG-2 which is $2.50. Newer codecs costs tens of cents, not dollars. And it is not like you get anything from Apple like you did with licensing a codec. You simply get the right to attach to their hosts. Compare this to zero cost for USB interfacing.

 

[Frank Dernie]

imagine saying you want whichever symphony by whichever orchestra and conductor ... and it's right there before you even finish. Even I might transfer to file-based if that was available

Me too, OTOH I'm not holding my breath, Amazon can't immediately find what I want without my intervention from a list of results which may or may not contain what I want, even typing it in.
Qobuz is little better. I'd love to be able to find what I want with a streaming service!
Before voice control is likely to work music search of classical music would have to work, and so far it doesn't - I've been waiting 20 years and the only thing that works for me is playlists made by me from discs ripped by me.

 

[richard12511]

Good point. And how much of these "fiascos" do you suppose were a result of Apple refusing to cooperate, provide necessary information/API's/etc, or charging outrageous royalties? Do you really think Apple plays ball well with other companies?

I still miss many of the connection features of my 2016 Macbook Pro. I refused to purchase the 2017 and 2018 models for (imo) very critical missing features:

1. No support for anything other than usb-c without external dongles. Huge PITA when taking my laptop to do presentations.
2. Inferior keyboard. One of the main reasons I use the Macbook Pro is because of its (imo) best in class keyboard. They messed it up in those years models and justified it by saying it allowed them to make the laptop 1mm thinner . I don't care about the chassis being 1mm thinner if the keyboard is worse.
3. No physical escape key, justified by having a digital escape key on the "genius" bar. A physical escape key is very important to me when writing code. I've yet to use the genius bar for any features that weren't already present and better in physical form on the 2016 model, namely brightness and volume control.

I ended up purchasing the 2019 model, as it fixed issues 2 and 3, but not having USBa/HDMI/etc. is still a major inconvenience. I had to laugh at the number of times I had to go back to Best Buy after trying to connect the laptop to one of my home devices for the first time and realizing I needed a new dongle for that . This video gave me some great laughs.

Still, even with those flaws, I haven't found another laptop that makes me as productive for software development. I wouldn't call myself an apple fanboy.

With this device, I really think Apple missed the mark, and that's why it is discontinued. The lack of connectability would be a deal breaker for me, here. I get the idea of trying to lock users into your own ecosystem, but I just think that in this case it comes at too great of a cost. It really limits the potential market size. I also think it's a little too expensive for its most common use case. Most people buying this probably don't give a damn about hifi, so up charging for that seems ill-advised. If it did its raison d'etre(smart home stuff) better than its cheaper competitors, then it would make sense to charge more, but I don't think that's the case here.

 

[richard12511]

$4 if true (terms are confidential) is insanely high license fee. The most expensive AV technology license I know of is MPEG-2 which is $2.50. Newer codecs costs tens of cents, not dollars. And it is not like you get anything from Apple like you did with licensing a codec. You simply get the right to attach to their hosts. Compare this to zero cost for USB interfacing.

$4 does seem really extreme.

 

[amirm]

On top of the license fee, you have buy the apple authentication IC that enforces it. From Apple docs:

"When an MFi accessory communicates with an iOS device using a Lightning connector or via Bluetooth, the device asks the accessory to prove it has been authorized by Apple by responding with an Apple-provided certificate, which is verified by the device. The device then sends a challenge, which the accessory must answer with a signed response. This process is entirely handled by a custom integrated circuit that Apple provides to approved accessory manufacturers and is transparent to the accessory itself. "

So you not only have the burden of Apple licensing tax, you also have to buy this chip and find space in your design for it.

"AirPlay also utilizes the authentication IC to verify that receivers have been approved by Apple. AirPlay audio and CarPlay video streams utilize the MFi-SAP (Secure Association Protocol), which encrypts communication between the accessory and device using AES-128 in CTR mode. Ephemeral keys are exchanged using ECDH key exchange (Curve25519) and signed using the authentication IC’s 1024-bit RSA key as part of the Station-to-Station (STS) protocol. "

And folks get upset over MQA.....

 

[abdo123]

On top of the license fee, you have buy the apple authentication IC that enforces it. From Apple docs:

"When an MFi accessory communicates with an iOS device using a Lightning connector or via Bluetooth, the device asks the accessory to prove it has been authorized by Apple by responding with an Apple-provided certificate, which is verified by the device. The device then sends a challenge, which the accessory must answer with a signed response. This process is entirely handled by a custom integrated circuit that Apple provides to approved accessory manufacturers and is transparent to the accessory itself. "

So you not only have the burden of Apple licensing tax, you also have to buy this chip and find space in your design for it.

"AirPlay also utilizes the authentication IC to verify that receivers have been approved by Apple. AirPlay audio and CarPlay video streams utilize the MFi-SAP (Secure Association Protocol), which encrypts communication between the accessory and device using AES-128 in CTR mode. Ephemeral keys are exchanged using ECDH key exchange (Curve25519) and signed using the authentication IC’s 1024-bit RSA key as part of the Station-to-Station (STS) protocol. "

And folks get upset over MQA.....

Well when you can create the entire market, and the infrastructure to support it you can pretty much ask for whatever price you want.

it baffles me that the Epic Games vs Apple lawsuit is even a thing (the app store being a monopoly).

it's like coming into someone's bakery and complaining that the owner of the bakery is the only guy allowed to sell baked goods in the bakery.

 

[Robbo99999]

In Olive’s patent for the preference rating, he states it’s likely that the ideal in-room curve does not exist and is based off the dispersion of the speaker. Plus different room dimensions likely lead themselves to performing better with wider/narrower dispersion speakers.

My view is that the best situation is anechoically flat speakers in your room whilst having good directivity in those speakers, and then whatever your room curve happens to be based on that....then that's your room curve. I expect that in a lot of rooms that will somewhat approximate the Harman Curve, it does in mine for instance.

 

[matt3421]

also, microsoft, sony, and nintendo require you to pay a fee to put your game on their platform. and yet nobody is going after them :thinking:

 

[carlob]

This is ridicolous, they have created the devices, the market, the eco-system, the infrastructure and on top on that you should license your ip for free? So let's abolish the intellectual property. When you pay your $4 for the connector for your ****** dac dongle you are taking advantage of the enormous market and the huge investments they have done in more than 20 years without them your dac dongle would not exist.

 

[amirm]

Well when you can create the entire market, and the infrastructure to support it you can pretty much ask for whatever price you want.

They didn't create a market for connecting devices to a host. That market existed with USB and continues through billions of devices on Android. Apple just decided that it had enough brand power to force such a tax on the ecosystem.

it baffles me that the Epic Games vs Apple lawsuit is even a thing (the app store being a monopoly).

Amazing that as a consumer you would say that. I can't tell you how many service ideas my partner and I had that ran into a major stumbling block with Apple tax that we had to throw in the trash. Many business models fall apart if you have to pay them this surtax.

 

[carlob]

You can aim to the android market, not forced to sell to apple customers right? They created that market. IP is there to make sure that companies have an incentive to innovate and invest money. Same for the Epic lawsuit: they created the app store if you want to sell your stuff on my store it is about right that you pay for that.

 

[amirm]

This is ridicolous, they have created the devices, the market, the eco-system, the infrastructure and on top on that you should license your ip for free? So let's abolish the intellectual property

Some do. We donated all of our IP to AACS for creation of content protection for Blu-ray content. We were part of the patent pool for MEPG-4 AVC and fought hard and won the battle to have the fee be a fraction of MPEG-2 and have a yearly cap. We could have gone with what major hardware companies wanted which was uncapped and dollar range fee but we did not. We convinced them that a broader market exists when you are not greedy.

And again, remember that you are not getting any IP from apple. You are paying a pure licensing fee for the right to build an accessory that makes their ecosystem even larger and their customers happier.

So no, there is nothing ridiculous if you had spent the time I spent trying to bring reasonable licensing for IP. You are the beneficiary of that yet you scuff at it this way? Shame. I suggest putting your consumer hat on and think why you would not be better off with every dongle plugging into an iPhone just like it does to an Android phone.

 

[amirm]

You can aim to the android market, not forced to sell to apple customers right?

Sure and walk-away from half the market. Not because you can't do the technical work. Not because you can't create a sales channel and move products. But because Apple has its hand way out saying "pay me or I won't play." Nothing about that is pro consumer so you best think through your posts on this. You get to deal with the stupid Apple Camera adapter because of these policies.

 

[carlob]

If I put my consumer hat on I would prefer the Audioquest pass me the $4 in the dac dongle price instead of forcing me to buy the apple camera accessory for $34

 

[abdo123]

Amazing that as a consumer you would say that. I can't tell you how many service ideas my partner and I had that ran into a major stumbling block with Apple tax that we had to throw in the trash. Many business models fall apart if you have to pay them this surtax.

Google charges 30% on sales the same way Apple does, except that Google allows people to install apps without certifications on Android.

Every app store in the world charges 30%.

They didn't create a market for connecting devices to a host.

perhaps, but they created both the devices (iPhones, iPods, iPads, Home pods .etc) and the host (Macbooks) so they can pretty much decide however they want on to connect them to each other and how they should communicate with 3rd Party products. it's their privilege.

Apple is always the first to implement the latest USB and thunderbolt revisions, and when both thunderbolt and USB became essentially the same thing (USB 4) they also were the first to support with their M1 Apple silicon.

they really set the bar for everyone else to sit just comfortably below it.

 

[amirm]

They created that market. IP is there to make sure that companies have an incentive to innovate and invest money.

Once more there is no "IP." You get no technology from Apple with any value or functionality for your product. A DAC dongle has everything it needs to function as a DAC dongle. Apple simply says there is tax to attach it to an iPhone and you better pay up or else. And oh, the terms are secret, your business plan and product has to be approved by apple, and you can pound sand if you don't like it.

Really, this situation is super bad. Was having a conversation with a chip supplier on adding some functionality to the Apple ecosystem. In the middle of the conversation the senior guy stops us and says, "apple would never let you build this product. it would compete with their own." Indeed we killed the project because it was clearly Apple would not allow this class of product which had quite a usefulness for its customers to exist.

How people can sit here and defend such dictatorship over their ecosystem is just remarkable to me.

 

[amirm]

Google charges 30% on sales the same way Apple does, except that Google allows people to install apps without certifications on Android.

That's right but that is a small exception. They followed Apple's lead and helped throw away the open platform for operating system which we enjoyed prior. They are only slightly less guilty than Apple on this. Both deserve severe scorn.

But you are changing the topic here. We are speaking of hardware and there, there is no USB tax, encryption, etc. that Apple is enforcing with Lightning interfaces, some versions of Bluetooth and Airplay.

 

[carlob]

It's called barrier to entry. They were the first, they invented the devices, they created the infrastructure, they created a standard to interconnect their devices, they invested a huge amount of money and effort in doing that and now they have an advantage and if you want to benefit of what they have done or connect to their ecosystem you have to pay for that. They are protecting their business and I would do exactly the same.