HomePod, a beautifully sounding egg with plenty of unlocked potentials

A bit of background: I love Apple Music and I have adopted Siri over the years on iPhone and iPad. I have no desire on Google Home or Echo, but I always like a good speakers like Bose quality. I know the fact that Google Assistant can do more queries, but I know Siri commands well. I do not like too chatty bots like the Google Assistant.

I watched many HomePod reviews on YouTube but I think many dishonest biased reviews out there, simply telling HomePod Siri as “dumb”. I think the best is to test the HomePod speaker sounds and Siri yourself in person at tye store. Do not expect Siri on HomePod to do all things like Google Home Smartspeaker. Think of it just Siri that does Music really well. And after all, more often you will rather use touch UI or gesture when enjoying music for a while.

HomePod strength is really the speakers and microphone. Small yet powerful for its size. It really makes a new standard of smart speaker.

Here is my short and honest personal opinion after testing the HomePod musical ability and Siri (currently limited) ability in person at Apple Store for a few weeks (frequent visitors).

HomePod Sound Quality is a top notch beauty for ears

I found that the HomePod sound quality is perfectly brilliant and crystal clear at times. Eventhough I am not what so called audiophiles, I know music that sounds great on my ears.

Accoustic clarity best used to listen to live performance and high quality songs and music. I tested multiple HomePods at Sydney Apple Store, sometimes the HomePod sounds pitch perfect, sometimes it feels a little quiet, needs louder boost, especially if the store is over crowded and 2–3 HomePods are playing in one place. Maybe it adjusted itself depending on crowds?

Do not expect a surround cinema experience with HomePod, but think of live intimate vibe performance in a small room, experience 360 sound from a small source speaker. Think of live accoustic jazz or classical music and you will be very pleased with HomePod quality.

One thing: HomePod music quality will also depend on the source of music, I tested AirPlay of YouTube ripped dodgy music video and it sounds awful. I always have a feeling that Apple Music quality also really depends on its streaming Internet speed, so at the max quality, it will sound the best. I experienced this when using iPad Pro at night at full speed Internet at home, compared to listening to streaming music at public wifi. HomePod at full speed stream high quality music will sound the most pleasing. Which is like an analogy of seeing super high quality photo on screen and in good or bad prints. Bad quality songs can be amplified too, keeps this in mind.

“Hey Siri”

“Hey Siri” trigger is pretty amazing, it listens in 360 even at the noisiest time. I am familiar with Siri, and likewise Siri on Mac is a bit different where I prefer typed Siri, I treat HomePod Siri as simplified Siri experience. So far I tested asking weather, ask it play some music, set timer, etc.

I am testing Siri Australia, it seems to understand Australian and most English songs, sometimes it recognizes Nujabes (Japanese musician), but sometimes not.

The touch area of HomePod is very sensitive.

I thought that the top touch interface would be more visual rich and sophisticated like iPhone, but apparently it is much simpler. It consists of bright – and +, and endless glowing indicator of Siri listening to you.

A single touch stop or continue playback of music. Double taps will play the next song, etc. Nice familiar tap gesture that Apple users understand well when they use earpods or iPod.

Multiusers experience can be interesting. Currently, it seems like HomePod is yet another of Apple device that is best suited for a single person individual, but it can sure impress a group of people at times when you have apartment party.

So far I really only tested it at the Apple Store, so I often had to let other users or Apple staff to suddenly intrude my HomePod experience.I think I will get my own HomePod when Siri can understand songs from other countries. Or somekind of understanding of multiple languages.

HomePod + Siri, you can do more… even for less

My wishlist is for HomePod is for Siri to be a bit more personal and clever on that area. Maybe recognizing multi user voices and more aware. It should be able to greet owner at home and maybe guard the house for intruder. I do not care or expect Siri to be too smart, but smart enough so it can extend my needs. HomePod that works with everything else is much more powerful within Apple ecosystem.

I can see how privacy and home assistant can be really tricky, knowing that even YouTube video can trigger Siri or other smart speakers to send personal information if not careful. Siri also is available on multiple devices, so we need 1 Siri per person.

At some point, I was imagining maybe Apple HomePod can have some kind of augmented reality info being projected on air, after all the iPhone or iPad should know the position of HomePod and vice versa, so streaming information on air within environment should be possible and accurate enough at home.

And one more thing: HomePod Siri language comprehensions should be much more than current one. Siri is best and most natural sounding in its native American language: English and so far I believe HomePod has been released in US, UK and Australia. Not sure what Apple plan with Siri and language it is spoken with, and whether HomePod will be the language translator we need but I think it has this potential. As non English speakers, would he cool to be able to speak to HomePod or to iPhone in own language and Siri answers back accordingly. After all Siri is much more language fluent than all other smart AI out there.