“Today is HomePod launch day in the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia, and as promised, the speaker is now on display and available to purchase at most of Apple’s retail stores in each of those countries,” Joe Rossignol reports for MacRumors.
“HomePod has already received rave reviews for its sound quality from both the media and early adopters, but customers who prefer their own listening demo can now visit one of Apple’s stores to hear it for themselves,” Rossignol reports. “Of course, customers can also take advantage of Apple’s 14-day return policy and try it at home.”
Rossignol reports, “Most if not all of Apple’s retail locations currently have plentiful stock of the speaker in both Space Gray and White, but we recommend calling ahead before making the trip.
More info, including how to check HomePod availability in your area, here.
MacDailyNews Take: Come on UPS!
Did you get yours, yet?
Got mine –
Works great.. nice how Siri hands off when near the HomePod. Works well with music going for commands.
Using it as a HomeKit hub and secondary music source. Can’t figure where to put it.. kitchen, bedroom???
Works well when handing off phone calls to it..
Audio wise sounds really nice.. it has a warm, round sound, bass is present without any blobbing. Is it similar to my $20k stereo no, but surprisingly very satisfying.
A stereo pair will compete with a $1500 system. – When that arrives.
Controlling volume from afar is awkward from the control center, but it’s growing on me, I have 5 other AirPlay endpoints around the house…
8/10…
I never buy first generation. Keep up the good work, Apple needs its lab rats.
Stopped by Apple Liverpool and picked mine up about an hour ago… space grey.
They had one playing at the back of the store and it filled it with music.
Wicked sound, really easy to setup. Recommended.
Got mine.
It’s okay for music, but I just discovered a problem with the HomePod that makes it useless for video: there is a huge latency (about one second or so) between the transmission of the sound to the HomePod and playing the sound out of the speakers. So if you’re watching videos and playing the sound the HomePod you hear the dialog about one second after the actor speaks the line.
Had I known this before purchasing the HomePod, I would have saved my money. I use audio on my computers and iPads for video far more than for listening to music. HomePod is a complete fail for this purpose.
This is a huge bug in the HomePod. Hopefully Apple can fix this. Otherwise I’ve just wasted $400.
I have been wondering about this, since we have Macs and iPads hooked up to TVs as well. Is the latency at least consistent, so that perhaps you could make adjustments on the TV side to equalize the delay?
Or is there a chance that AirPlay 2 will fix this? This was my primary interest in a HomePod, so I sure hope the issue can be overcome (and not just by buying an Apple TV…)
Will AirPlay 2.0 fix the latency problem?
I don’t think they can fix this problem.
I have the same issue with wireless Bluetooth headphones and my iPhone 7+ when I play music on my keyboard. The notes that I play are delayed like 1/2 second behind the key presses and this is totally not acceptable when you’re trying to play a fast arpeggio on the piano. The only way I was able to get around this delay was (gasp) using traditional wired headphones…the very thing Apple said we didn’t really need anymore…
You can return it.
The sync to video is a common problem. Surround systems have delays built in to sync the two. Can you airplay from your Amp. A lot of latest amps have Airplay.
I’m airplaying the video I’m watching on my iMac Pro. Maybe at some point Apple could modify the video playback system to delay the video based on some user input in order to allow for the latency in the audio transmission (assuming the latency is constant).
In the meantime, I’m seriously thinking about returning the HomePod. I guess I’ve got two weeks to decide whether it’s worth $400 just for Audio or if I want to use it as a “smart speaker” around the house. However, for $400 I can get some decent powered speakers that wire directly to my Mac. Guess I’ll figure this out over the next week or two.
Disappointing, though. If they could figure out how to get the Air Pods right, I would have thought they could have gotten this right, too.
Or return it?
Return it. I’m waiting til Stereo and easy connection to my 2015 SONY XBR 55-900c UHDTV is possible.
MDN,
Don’t know about UPS, but did you see that Amazon is starting a delivery service?
Got mine yesterday late afternoon.
Great sound.
Only complaint, hey Siri, I’ve got some great music that I didn’t get from iTunes, play that too!
Worked it all out. Happy Camper.