“The past couple weeks of living with the HomePod has given me a bit of time not only to see what the device has to offer right now, but has also helped me sketch out some ideas about where the future might be able to take it,” Dan Moren writes for Macworld. “In many ways, the HomePod reminds me a lot of the Apple Watch. But whereas the chief criticism of the latter upon its release was that it tried to do too much, the HomePod follows more of a tried-and-true Apple pattern: it starts small.”
“But perhaps it starts too small,” Moren writes. “As the Apple Watch evolved, it benefited from slimming down its portfolio to focus on a few key areas, but the HomePod instead has a lot of room to improve by deepening its focus on the areas that it’s already in.”
“HomeKit is improving, and more devices that support it are hitting the market,” Moren writes. “But Apple’s support for even its own devices is a pretty limited. Amazon and Google have already started pushing what their smart speakers can do with their Fire TV and Chromecast streaming boxes, respectively, and even offer integration with third-party devices. The HomePod’s awareness of my Apple TV, by comparison, is non-existent. It’s a bit of a head-scratcher that I exist in a world where I can tell Alexa to turn on my Apple TV, but not Siri.”
Much more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: It’s almost as if Apple wants Siri to suck.
I’ve got two HomePods; one in the bathroom and one in the living room. I listen to Apple Music via iTunes on a iMac. Sure… AirPlay 2 will/ should further improve the experience. Yes, I’m looking forward to AirPlay 2 and future software updates/ upgrades, but so far, so good. P.S. I’m already ready for a HomePod Pro or HomePod Plus!
MDN nailed it. I find it hard to believe that Apple is thinking, “yeah, Siri is fine and users are ok with it.” Either they have a trick up their sleeves to fix it, or they actively don’t won’t it to work well. I call it “Sori”
Hopefully, part of that growing will include the ability to play videos from a Mac, sending the audio to the HomePod, without a huge latency (that makes it impossible to watch the videos).
Here’s hoping AirPlay2 solves this problem.
Sometimes I wonder whether Tim Cook has even used Siri in the last couple years. If he had surely he’d realize how bad it sucks, right? Right?
Or perhaps Apple’s got two versions of Siri – one for the execs that actually works and one for us poor slobs.
Siri sucks.
When Apple finally gets it right I will consider Home Pod.
You should be able to say “hey Siri, connect to Apple TV” ..or..when already connected…”let’s watch Thor Ragnarok“…or even piggy back off the the Apple TV for queries…HomePod and AppleTV should be best buds and build off each other.
I told siri to tell tim cook to make her better and she texted him – Is that crazy? try it
What did Timmy tell you? Is it in the pipeline?
“Room to grow” sounds like a polite way to say “half baked”. More like Apple TV than Apple Watch. The home pod isn’t going to receive hardware improvements, that much is obvious. Apple is going to expect its fans to pay a premium for hardware that does only a very few things well, and a lot of things not at all. I will pass. The high end market has got Siri already, got better audio already, got more versatile home electronics already. Apple sets its goals low and almost hits the target.
Federeghi claimed High Sierra was fully baked; see how low Apple standards have fallen?
Keep dreaming if you think Airplay2 is going to solve all your woes. Latency is a reality for all wireless networking. The only band aid for latency is to add buffering and put up with a long pause between every command. Sure you can sync multiple devices if you’re willing to operate everything at the speed of the slowest thing in the chain. Since Apple doesn’t do networks anymore, and offers no guidance for network optimization for your needs, don’t get your hopes too high. Pun intended.