This… is the HomePod [Apple’s Commercials Sounds so great, not going to lie! ]
So this is just the entry of Apple to the Smart Speaker game.
It’s pretty late. But don’t forget, even though they are late, they are doing things right.
It is a $299 tissue box-sized meshes cylinder-shaped smart speaker that has some excellent hardware.
So, setting it up is pretty simple and comes with the W1 Chip inside, meaning you get your iPhone somewhere near it, and then a notification pops up on your phone’s screen. Then you can also name the room that’s in, which is a pretty cool feature if you have multiple smart speakers in your house, and just basically, you can set it up in about a minute, yeah you guessed it, just like the AirPods from the parent company Apple.
And it is the advantage of Apple, the W1 chips, which lets you set up their devices fast hassle-free.
Design
The design is super clean, both the black and white versions and BTW I prefer black over white on devices cause it just gives me that nice-looking elegant finish and precisely matches the aesthetics, especially if you place them in a room that looks modern.
There’s a little screen up at the top, and it has the options to your volume controllers and the innovative Siri indicator that lights up when you are using it.
But, the only hassle you will find out when you take it out of the box is that it has a non-removable built-in cable that gives it life when connected to the power outlet.
And if you have used any other smart speakers, most of them, if not all, pretty much have removable cables.
But, just because it’s from Apple, it is, of course, a high quality sleeved cable, so you should be fine when carrying it around, without the fear of bending or damaging it easily.
And once it’s set up, there’s a lot of things that the HomePod can do, but, at the same time, there are a few things that the Amazon Alexa and the Google Home can do, but it cannot do.
But it doesn’t mean its bad by any means, because, what it can do - it just does em fast!
So in the inside, it houses seven tweeters all facing out from the middle, and one woofer at the top firing upwards like hell, so technically, it’s creating a 360 degree sound that you can hear the same from any direction around the HomePod.
It also housed six built-in microphones and has a pretty cool feature to figure out how close it is to things around a wall or at an open space and then it analyzes that space.
Then it adjusts the equalizer levels to give you the best sound it can produce from every angle no matter where you are.
Technically speaking, it’s just like a Smart Sound Analysis overall.
Sound
Now, just because it has an upward-firing woofer, it doesn’t mean that is HomePod is bass-heavy by any means.
It’s super balanced and does a great job in separating the instruments in music, and overall sounds fantastic, especially with thinking about the size.
It’s just a bit bigger than the regular Google Home, which many people don’t care about.
Boy, it is tiny, but it is deafening!
And at about 100 percent volume maxed out, it gets deafening, but no distortions can be heard.
And just because it makes use of the 6 built-in microphones to run the Smart Sound Analysis, you don’t have to sacrifice any sound quality by just putting it anywhere weird, just because of the fact it has 360 degrees surrounding speakers, which gives you the best sound possible.
Microphones
Talking about the array of microphones, it excellently listens to your voice, and it can pretty much hear you all the time from across the room even when much is playing loud, and it’s excellent in catching your voice up.
Features
It can play songs through Apple Music.
You can ask Siri to play a song or a playlist or even listen to the radio.
But what if you are a Spotify user and not Apple Music?
Technically speaking, it works; you can Airplay Spotify to a HomePod, but then you will not be able to voice controls, which is pretty annoying. You cant ask Siri for a particular song or a specific playlist.
Still, you can go forwards and backward in your current tracklist. That’s just it meaning using your HomePod with Spotify will make you limited to certain features without making you use it for its maximum potential.
And overall, it can do anything Siri does, like maybe asking her a question like “What’s the weather like”, “Set a reminder” and all that, you know where I’m going with this.
Another cool feature is that it also can read your last text message out loud, which I don’t recommend doing in front of your family or friends to make sure you don’t expose your weird fantasies to them ;],
But if it’s just you don’t want you to say them and it’s okay if Siri tells them about them, then go forward and Good Luck, my friend!
It can also send a text message if you are too lazy to pick up your phone and do it.
It can also turn ON and OFF, not you!, HomeKit enabled lights, connect to productivity apps like Evernote, and yeah, it’s just a cool smart device.
But there are some things to note as well that the HomePod struggle sometimes does some weird stuff.
So, technically it cant differentiate difference voices meaning it can’t identify it’s you, or it’s your mom; it just thinks it’s just a one-person – we all are a human to Siri. [ Robot disaster warning;] ]
And pretty much that will give you a privacy concern to the person that the account is connected to, meaning someone else, maybe your girlfriend as Siri to “Read aloud the text messages to my ex-girlfriend” – Good Luck, Homie! And the dumb Siri inside that beautiful looking elegant HomePod will start ruining your relationship life. So, make sure you don’t mess around with Siri when your girlfriend’s in the room next time.
But don’t worry, its not just the end of the world yet!
Tell me I raised your heartbeat for a bit ;]
Well, there’s a walk around if you don’t want some serious trouble with that dumb Siri.
You can turn off the tab’s option where it says “Show personal info”, either during the setup or after the setup.
So, keep that in mind when setting up your new HomePod next time.
Fun Fact- You can also ask your girlfriend to login to the HomePod with her account and tell Siri to “Read aloud the text messages to my ex-boyfriend” to see if she’s cheating on you ;]
Also, the HomePod cannot ever be connected to some device other than an iPhone and cannot be used as a Bluetooth speaker.
And comes with a not audio jack, so you are out of luck if you are looking forward to playing your hit beats using the HomePod if you don’t have an iPhone nearby.
And also, you cannot set Spotify as your default music player. Anytime you ask it to play a song, it will pull up a song from Apple Music.
And most importantly, you cant order any products or food online; you cant call a Uber or take a Lyft with it and cannot use it to read any calendar events or even set any calendar events.
And you are limited for one timer at a time, no multiple timers once at a time.
And there’s also a few more features that the HomePod doesn’t support you to do.
So should you buy the HomePod?
Well, the $299 HomePod, could be compared to other smart speakers from brands like Amazon and Google, this would not be the first, best, and the smartest choice.
However, it sounds better than any other Smart Speaker or any other Bluetooth speaker when writing this post. It even sounds better than any other dedicated sound system.
The audio engineering, the clarity, the instrument separation, the bass response, and the 360 degrees sound are next level!
And in terms of being a Smart Speaker, it could bring some shame to its family, but, if you love to be in the Apple ecosystem, this is the best sounding Smart Speaker you can get right now.
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