Apple HomePod Review (Smart Speaker)

[amirm]

The recommended Harman Curve is a download slope of roughly -10 dB, 20 Hz to 20 kHz. The Homepod looks close to that, or am I misreading your FR charts?

That's for in-room measurements, not anechoic.

 

[PeteL]

If you have an iPhone and Apple Music, buy a Homepod. If you don’t….don’t buy a Homepod.
People need to stop complicating it beyond that and seeing mailicious intent where there is none. It’s not anti-consumer for Apple to support its own ecosystem.

Did you know that their Airpods business rakes in more money than the entirety of Spotify or Adobe? No company making that kind of money on an ecosystem-dependant device needs to appease to Windows users or DIY audio nerds.

I use the whole apple ecosystem and like it, still I think this product has potential for criticism, if it didn't it wouldn't be discontinued.

 

[amirm]

Their commonest (only?) repair will be replacing cracked screens and batteries on phones neither of which this speaker is likely to require. The rest is likely to not need repair for the lifetime of the product.

??? This thing runs pretty warm and lots of things that can break from amplifier to power supply. No way it is a lifetime product.

 

[PeteL]

I was talking about Sound Check. Whatever else it does in this regard was probably doing its own thing. That said, I measured in one space and listened in another. Both had the same issues with on-axis. Hard to imagine it being able to do any frequency response calibration without a microphone where the listener is.

I think the Idea, successful or not, apparently not, but their goal, is to remove the concept of "on axis" and the concept of "listener position" I believe they try to modelise the room by listening to the reflexions with a circular array of microphones, and analyse cancellations delays and such. I am not saying that it works.

 

[carlob]

I use the whole apple ecosystem and like it, still I think this product has potential for criticism, if it didn't it wouldn't be discontinued.

Reality is that despite the years of development the Homepod was a fiasco and didn't sell even if it sounds way better than a Sonos or a comparable device. It is the most locked down device Apple makes appealing only to a small niche and also was probably priced too high. The new Homepod mini is a dumbed down version for only 99 bucks which is a more reasonable price proposition for a niche accessory.

 

[AudioSceptic]

That's for in-room measurements, not anechoic.

Thanks. So the "spin" mimics anechoic, which should be flat, ideally. Given its small size, I'm wondering how good the HomePod could be without the burden of that extra bass?

 

[amirm]

Thanks. So the "spin" mimics anechoic, which should be flat, ideally. Given its small size, I'm wondering how good the HomePod could be without the burden of that extra bass?

Well, that is what i compensated for using equalization. It sounded better to me but hard to predict everyone would like the lighter bass.

 

[tgray]

Reality is that despite the years of development the Homepod was a fiasco and didn't sell even if it sounds way better than a Sonos or a comparable device. It is the most locked down device Apple makes appealing only to a small niche and also was probably priced too high. The new Homepod mini is a dumbed down version for only 99 bucks which is a more reasonable price proposition for a niche accessory.

Priced too high for me. Two Sonos One SL’s sound better than one HomePod, is more flexible, and supports way more services, for about the same price.

They sound good for what they are, but I guess I’m not the target market, despite having a mess load of Apple devices in the house.

 

[WickedInsignia]

I use the whole apple ecosystem and like it, still I think this product has potential for criticism, if it didn't it wouldn't be discontinued.

Oh absolutely, room for criticism is well-deserved. It's not perfect. I just don't think criticisms around its ecosystem are entirely valid: it never pretended to be anything other than a device designed solely for Apple users. In that sense it excels, and in my experience has been a joy to use.

It seems that Apple discontinued it to focus on the Homepod Mini, which is a better competitor price-for-price to Amazon's devices and supposedly more successful. The mini is just as locked-down and ecosystem dependent, so I daresay that's not what is driving buyers away.

 

[sound_matter]

Good is good, and bad is bad. If you like and afford it, buy it. If you don't like it or do not afford it, don't buy it. Plain and simple.

I think that there are not many competitions in Apple's locked down ecosystem, so it works well for Apple users. Good for some people, and not good for some people. We have to see how it goes with Apple Music Hifi later. I bet it will be pretty interesting.

 

[tktran303]

I think the whole Homepod strategy was a loss-leader to attract more people to their Apple Music store.

I recall my brother living in Sweden sometime around Spotify’s launch in 2006. He’s a die hard Apple user, and had been using Macs to make music since Motorola/PPC era. Anyway it was HOT and all his European muso friends were switching to Spotify.

Write in Logic, publish on SoundCloud or Spotify type of mentality.

He told me it was going to huge- this was before Spotify came to North America in 2011 or where I was living at the time-Shitsville (Australia).

So anyway, fast forward a few years and many Apple die hards abandoned the pay per song- the Apple’s iTunes way; and moved to the Spotify way- free music with ads, or turn off the annoying ads for a small monthly fee and enjoy unlimited music on all your devices with one subscription!

Well checkmate, Apple knew iTunes was at the beginning of the end- it had became old and unfashionable overnight.

So Apple bought Beats to get their music store tech and launched Apple Music. I don’t think Apple Music has ever clawed back to dominance the way iPod/iTunes was…

AirPods dominating the headphone market came a lot later…

Anyway, just a bit of history for those who aren’t 40+++ and never owned a Walkman with Dolby B NR.

 

[jhaider]

I'll stick to Apple's core hardware and software products, which they have a strong record of supporting for a long time.

How long has AirPort Express been discontinued? Yet long after the fact Apple upgraded them to be AirPlay 2 access points.

Likewise, HomePod is discontinued but it's going to get an upgrade to work with Apple's version of Atmos (phrased like that because I'm honestly not clear if Apple is actually going to release tracks in full Atmos or if they're releasing 2-channel "Atmos" tracks compatible with their Spatial Audio coding).

I use the whole apple ecosystem and like it, still I think this product has potential for criticism, if it didn't it wouldn't be discontinued.

FWIW, I use the parts of the Apple ecosystem that suit the way I live, and I bought a HomePod at launch. I thought it sounded better than anything its size deserves to sound, though I hadn't heard the Devialet beach balls. However, I ended up returning it because we didn't have a use case for it in the end. Every room where we want sound already had speakers.

 

[YSC]

Well, that is what i compensated for using equalization. It sounded better to me but hard to predict everyone would like the lighter bass.

Actually did you try in listening to use their adaptive mode to compare?

 

[Ralph_Cramden]

Anyone remember Apple’s first failed attempt to sell a speaker? The iPod HiFi was also a flop.

https://www.apple.com/chatterbox/us/2006/02/2618/2618edu.html

 

[YSC]

??? This thing runs pretty warm and lots of things that can break from amplifier to power supply. No way it is a lifetime product.

Well this is how apple products go, you enjoy their designs and if something reliability related happens.. you either trash it or pay a fortune to fix by them

 

[Francis Vaughan]

I still have the 512KE I got when it was new. Switched to Windows around 95 and back to Mac with a PowerBook G4 Ti because at that time OS X was a lot like FreeBSD, and I'd been a SunOS user since 85. I thought it was the best because it was the first unix computer with good portable hardware that also runs MS Office. (Indeed it was the first unix with a tolerable window system. (X still sucks in 2021!))

I've still got my Powerbook 170. Have an original 128k Mac in a musuem. Funny we have trod similar ground. I had a Sun 2/50 on my desk back in the 80's, and there are not many of us that remember SunOS verus Solaris. However I still develop under MacOS. It is still a BSD environment in there, and the tools are pretty good, although I bought the JetBrains suite a while ago and now mostly use that. You can get the majority of open source software working, and yes, it is the only Unix box that runs MS Office. I remember installing the first public beta of OS-X, bringing up a terminal and typing ls. There was a feeling of being home again. What was better was discovering all the networking tools were there.
Nobody really does the user interface well anymore. Tiles anyone? I remember talking to a startup filled with ex MS software engineers. They joked that their job at MS was to make user's lives miserable with new uses for tiles. Give me a command line interface anyday.

 

[amirm]

I've still got my Powerbook 170.

That brings back memories. I was working at Sony and we (Sony) were manufacturing the Powerbook 130. I buy one to be good company citizen and over the long flight to Tokyo worked on my presentation and saved it to the floppy disc which I left in the unit. We land at Narita airport which is 2 hours away from Tokyo. We always took the shuttle bus since it would go right to the hotel as Taxi was incredibly expensive. Anyway, the bus drivers there despite their very clam demeanor were quite aggressive. They would accelerated hard and then slam on the brake when they would have to stop. During one of these jerking cycles I see the gray subject fly past my head and landed in the isle a couple of rows ahead of me. Everyone looks into the isle as did I. To my horror it was my computer bag with the Apple Powerbook 130 laptop in there!!! I had stored it in the overhead shelf and it had taken flight.

I get up while everyone is staring at me and bring the bag over and open the lid. To my amazement it booted up fine. I go to access the floppy to read my presentation and it makes the loudest screeching sound you can imagine! The whole bus load of Japanese stare at me again!!! So now I am trying to shut the thing down and eventually it powers off. No I am stuck with no way to read my floppy.

Next morning we got Sony headquarters where our meeting was and I asked people if they could located one for me since the floppy was made by Sony. Answer was that they could not but they would try. Well meaning folks that they were, they went and bought another powerbook and took the floppy drive out of it! I swapped the drives and my files were still there. What a relief.

I must say having a laptop at that time transformed my life there. I would often wake up at two in the morning all jetlagged with nothing to do but to watch CNN headline news over and over again. With a laptop and dial-up modem, I could get online and also get work done. Life was so boring before it.

 

[richard12511]

I've still got my Powerbook 170. Have an original 128k Mac in a musuem. Funny we have trod similar ground. I had a Sun 2/50 on my desk back in the 80's, and there are not many of us that remember SunOS verus Solaris. However I still develop under MacOS. It is still a BSD environment in there, and the tools are pretty good, although I bought the JetBrains suite a while ago and now mostly use that. You can get the majority of open source software working, and yes, it is the only Unix box that runs MS Office. I remember installing the first public beta of OS-X, bringing up a terminal and typing ls. There was a feeling of being home again. What was better was discovering all the networking tools were there.
Nobody really does the user interface well anymore. Tiles anyone? I remember talking to a startup filled with ex MS software engineers. They joked that their job at MS was to make user's lives miserable with new uses for tiles. Give me a command line interface anyday.

Macbook Pros are still the best software development machines in my view, or at least that's where I'm most productive. Especially true if I'm not docked, due to the keyboard/trackpad. I actually regularly use Windows, MAC, and LInux, but I usually end up using them for different purposes(Windows for gaming, MAC for software dev, Linux for IT/server stuff).

 

[Francis Vaughan]

Macbook Pros are still the best software development machines in my view, or at least that's where I'm most productive. Especially true if I'm not docked, due to the keyboard/trackpad.

Funny, that is what I am using. 16" Macbook Pro. But when docked I use a magic trackpad. What I am typing on right this second.
It is ridiculous the amount of compute power in these devices now. Build times are fast enough not to even notice a lot of the time.

 

[preload]

Harman fans better know that the highest order bit is the on-axis response. It arrives first at the ear so the brain puts lots of value on that. Once you have that in the bag, you then look at directivity. Directivity cannot make up for poor on-axis response.

Thank you, Amir! I will be sure and refer them to this post if it comes up again.