Apple HomePod - The "Bose Wave" for fanboys - The Something Awful Forums

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Inspect Your Gadgets > Apple HomePod - The "Bose Wave" for fanboys

Ewen Cluney: May 8, 2012; Ask me about
Japanese elfgames!

One thing I'm wondering about is what the HomePod's Bluetooth 5.0 capability is actually supposed to be for. Apple put out a list of the things it can play audio from (AirPlay and your various Apple media library things basically), and Bluetooth isn't on it.

# ¿ Feb 6, 2018 01:03

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# ¿ May 24, 2025 19:33

Ewen Cluney: May 8, 2012; Ask me about
Japanese elfgames!

buglord posted:

It...cant play bluetooth?

e: good lord thats horribly stupid. RIP if your friends want to have a listen but they have android.

Yeah, since it's supposed to be such a good speaker, I was hoping there was a way to hook it up to my TV and PS4 and whatnot. No telling if Apple is planning to add Bluetooth audio in a future update to podOS or whatever they're going to call it, in the inevitable HomePod 2, or just not bother.

But yeah, the list of audio sources on the HomePod page goes:

quote:

Apple Music
iTunes Music Purchases
iCloud Music Library with an Apple Music or iTunes Match subscription
Beats 1 Live Radio
Podcasts
AirPlay other content to HomePod from iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Apple TV, and Mac

Basically for a HomePod to be of much use you have to already be using Apple stuff to get a lot of media. Not to mention you apparently just plain can't set it up without a device running iOS 11.2.5 or later.

# ¿ Feb 6, 2018 06:06

Ewen Cluney: May 8, 2012; Ask me about
Japanese elfgames!

Animal posted:

What are the chances they are gonna open this up? I want that good audio quality for the price, but yeah Siri sucks.

Although streaming whatever audio you want under Airplay doesn't seem as inhumane and unbearable as people make it out to be? It takes like two seconds to do...

I think it depends a lot on what you mean by "open this up." Apple usually starts letting devs have access to hardware features a while after they've been on the market, and for iPhone they have let devs get into Siri integration (albeit with a lot of restrictions, resulting in relatively few apps using it). HomePod has powerful enough hardware that it has plenty of room to grow its capabilities with software updates, but apart from announcing their intention to add the stereo pairing feature, they've given zero indications about what they're planning to do with that.

My experience with AirPlay is that it's a lot faster and more reliable than Bluetooth, but non-Apple devices that support it are pretty rare. It's apparently possible to get AirPlay going on Windows or even a Raspberry Pi with the right software, which opens up some interesting possibilities, but it sounds like I'll be sticking with my Samsung sound bar thing for most stuff that isn't Apple TV or Apple Music.

# ¿ Feb 6, 2018 23:33

Ewen Cluney: May 8, 2012; Ask me about
Japanese elfgames!

Animal posted:

By "open up" I meant allowing devs (say, Spotify) to have direct access through Siri.

It's reasonable to expect third-party HomePod apps to become a thing at some point, but Apple has of course said nothing at all on the subject. Spotify in particular isn't happy with Apple's fee structure (hence they haven't made a tvOS app), so even if Apple does allow third-party HomePod apps, they might not go for it.

# ¿ Feb 7, 2018 01:08

Ewen Cluney: May 8, 2012; Ask me about
Japanese elfgames!

The Verge put out a HomePod review video that's the first I've seen that's really critical. The reviewer was really impressed with the sound quality, but spent a lot of time talking about the limitations of it, and also pointed out that unlike the iOS Siri, HomePod Siri doesn't distinguish voices, so if your iPhone is on the same Wi-Fi network as your HomePod, anyone who can talk to your HomePod can use it to send and receive messages. You can disable the feature entirely in the settings app, but depending on your situation it may be a pretty glaring concern.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQF5Q3773uk

# ¿ Feb 7, 2018 15:39

Ewen Cluney: May 8, 2012; Ask me about
Japanese elfgames!

robmiller posted:

Anyone else still have their status as "preparing for shipping?"

Mine now says "Shipment In Transit."

# ¿ Feb 8, 2018 21:55

Ewen Cluney: May 8, 2012; Ask me about
Japanese elfgames!

UPS delivered mine about an hour ago. Setup was absurdly easy for me, and it definitely lives up to the hype as far as the audio aspects are concerned. Not sure what I'll actually use it for apart from listening to stuff and occasionally checking the weather, but the "listening to stuff" part is pretty ace.

# ¿ Feb 9, 2018 21:40

Ewen Cluney: May 8, 2012; Ask me about
Japanese elfgames!

Happy Noodle Boy posted:

Only issue I�m currently having is not being able to get it to play my playlists when called out. I say Relaxing and it starts playing Relaxing Classical. Workout ends up playing Hip Hop Workout. It�s connected to my account and the other personal stuff is working just fine so that�s going to be fun to figure out.

My favorite so far is trying to get it to play the NieR:Automata soundtrack, which I finally got it to do by saying "Hey Siri play Significance hyphen Nothing by Square Enix" so it would start on the first track and keep going.

It seems like in general it helps to mention the type of media to clarify to Siri what it should be looking for, since it tends to default to playing the most similar-sounding thing it can find on Apple Music. I was able to get my own playlist called "Workout" to play (from the other room, with a workout video playing no less), but I did it by telling Siri to play "my workout playlist."

# ¿ Feb 10, 2018 00:57

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# ¿ May 24, 2025 19:33

Ewen Cluney: May 8, 2012; Ask me about
Japanese elfgames!

Endless Mike posted:

Picked up a couple Minis last night. They sound shockingly good for the size. The fullsize HomePod is still way better, but for what we're using them for, I can't complain.

I named mine "Talking Baseball," and for the size the sound quality is unreal.

# ¿ Nov 19, 2020 17:16

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