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HomePod Announced (Siri Speaker) Sonos meets Amazon Echo, $349

V

Veritigo_X

Member
The focus on the speaker seems odd. Do people actually use their Echo/Google Home to listen to music? I just tell my GH to play music on the many speakers I already own.
 
J

jagowar

Member
Crazy this is $100 more than the Echo Show and that includes a touchscreen and with dual drivers will probably sound better too.
 
G

gamz

Member
Veritigo_X said:
The focus on the speaker seems odd. Do people actually use their Echo/Google Home to listen to music? I just tell my GH to play music on the many speakers I already own.
Click to expand...

Do people still use stereo's? LOL! I haven't had one in like a decade.

I'm still waiting for that Karmon\Harmon speaker with Cortana to compare.
 
M

mrklaw

MrArseFace
kris. said:
$349 is a lot of fucking money for something that'll give me a list of links it pulls from Bing instead of actually answering questions.

...unless they're finally updating Siri to be more competitive with Alexa and Google's thing?
Click to expand...


Wit the number of times they said 'machine learning', I certainly hope so
 
B

Baroquemantic

Member
If you don't care about the assistant side of it, I think a better multi-room audio setup would be to buy some good normal (non smart) speakers and Chromecast audios.
 
S

Socivol

Member
kris. said:
Right, but doesn't Alexa actually attempt to give you an answer when you ask it something? Anytime I ask Siri something, it just gives me a bunch of links to sites from Bing.
Click to expand...

Alexa is much better than Siri but not as good as Google Assistant.
 
S

Symphonic

Member
reKon said:
lol some people in the keynote thread were saying RIP Sonos.

just moronic...
Click to expand...

Sonos needs to pick up the speed with smart home integration. If they manage to do that they'll be fine, especially because I can't see Apple doing things like the Playbase.

That being said, HomePod should realistically have better sound than the Play 1's, so it'll be interesting to see how much of that market it grabs
 
O

Omadahl

Banned
Now I'll have to find a new nickname for my friends. SHIT! No more, "What up homepods!" for me.

Also, the focus on sound quality is dumb. I have my echo dot hooked up to a twenty year old Kenwood receiver and speakers. It fills the entire house with Run the Jewels... or Moana if my daughter isn't running errands with my wife.
 
S

Symphonic

Member
RoyalFool said:
The echo (full size, not the dot) has pretty incredible sound quality for the cost. Even uses the bootup sound to calibrate based on surroundings. This is just the same + beat/apple tax if you ask me.
Click to expand...

The Echo speaker is OK, but Google Home and Sonos eat it's lunch. Amazon has some catching up to do with their speaker, the Show should be indicative of what we should expect from them.
 
DOWN

DOWN

Banned
I'm kinda glad they are putting good speakers in one of these for once. Google Home sounds awful and Alexa is ok
 
D

DizzyCaffeine

Member
NOLA_Gaffer said:
From what I've heard of the Echo speaker...it's pretty garbage.

And then you have to deal with Alexa constantly telling you she doesn't understand your question.
Click to expand...

The dot has a shitty speaker, the full size Echo does not. And are you under the impression that Siri will magically understand everything you say to her?
 
G

gutterboy44

Member
Deadly Cyclone said:
Although, the competition's speakers all suck for music... And Alexa sucks for asking anything.
Click to expand...

What are you basing this on? I have been using Echo since beta and it has been better than siri across the board since almost day 1. I had to turn off Siri on my phone because I kept trying to talk to more casually like I do Echo and it never works. I have also never calibrated anything on Echo, it worked out of the box. My 1 1/2 year son can even talk to Echo. Siri feels last gen for voice recognition.
 
L

LiK

Member
gutterboy44 said:
What are you basing this on? I have been using Echo since beta and it has been better than siri across the board since almost day 1. I had to turn off Siri on my phone because I kept trying to talk to more casually like I do Echo and it never works. I have also never calibrated anything on Echo, it worked out of the box. My 1 1/2 year son can even talk to Echo. Siri feels last gen for voice recognition.
Click to expand...

Agree. My dad speaks broken English and even Alexa can recognize what he is asking. It's amazing. Siri is like the shittiest voice recognition system from the big three.
 
A

Art Teitlebaum

Member
Depending on the sound quality the price might be justified, but...man this is ugly as sin.
Only room I would dare to bring it in would be the bath.
 
G

gutterboy44

Member
If you want high quality audio, buy a Echo Dot and hook it up to something else. No all in one smart speaker will ever rival that in terms of cost to quality.
 
M

MomoPufflet

Member
Siri is trash compared to Amazon's voice tech. Unless there is some kind of incredible leap under the hood this is laughable.
 
D

Deadly Cyclone

Pride of Iowa State
gutterboy44 said:
What are you basing this on? I have been using Echo since beta and it has been better than siri across the board since almost day 1. I had to turn off Siri on my phone because I kept trying to talk to more casually like I do Echo and it never works. I have also never calibrated anything on Echo, it worked out of the box. My 1 1/2 year son can even talk to Echo. Siri feels last gen for voice recognition.
Click to expand...

Looks like they updated Siri based on the keynote today. My Echo works for basic stuff, but you can't get anywhere close to conversational speech with it like the Google device can handle. Also it doesn't seem to do well at searching the web.

MomoPufflet said:
Siri is trash compared to Amazon's voice tech. Unless there is some kind of incredible leap under the hood this is laughable.
Click to expand...

Apparently there is. Also Siri finally sounds more human.
 
entremet

entremet

Member
Watch it destroy the Echo lol.

You guys underestimate Apple, plus their retail presence is a huge advantage over Amazon.
 
K

Kthulhu

Member
LiK said:
Agree. My dad speaks broken English and even Alexa can recognize what he is asking. It's amazing. Siri is like the shittiest voice recognition system from the big three.
Click to expand...

That might a result of Apple's commitment to privacy. Google (and I assume Amazon) are recording voice queries and running them through deep learning. Apple doesn't do that from what I understand.
 
D

dallow_bg

nods at old men
Looks ok. Seems like it will perform decently for an omni-directional speaker if the spatial awareness works out.

Price is better than I expected.
Terrible name though.
 
M

Marty Chinn

Member
entremet said:
Watch it destroy the Echo lol.

You guys underestimate Apple, plus their retail presence is a huge advantage over Amazon.
Click to expand...

You can buy an Echo at Best Buy, Target and Walmart. They've got plenty of retail presence. I think if Apple had come in with something more price competitive and showed some significant advantages with their speaker, then it might give Amazon problems but when an Echo's entry point is as low as $40 and they have a huge head start with massive third party support that is integrating Alexa in other devices now, I don't think there's a chance it'll destroy the Echo and Alexa.
 
S

Socivol

Member
entremet said:
Watch it destroy the Echo lol.

You guys underestimate Apple, plus their retail presence is a huge advantage over Amazon.
Click to expand...

I think the success of this rides on several things they didn't mention. If it doesn't work with 3rd party apps and they haven't improved Siri, I can't see how anyone that's not already heavily in the Apple ecosystem will want to be bothered with this product.
 
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