Less than a week after the launch of the Apple HomePod, much of the reviews have now been published and they are not all that great.
In short, yes, the speaker quality of the HomePod is great. Much better than its competitors, Amazon Echo and Google Home products.
However, while the speaker quality is great, Siri is not. And that’s in line with what I mentioned in my other article on the smart speakers. Essentially, the smart speakers are not that smart with Siri being the worse.
With the Apple HomePod at $350, roughly 3 times more expensive than its competitors, it has less features and it’s not as smart as its competitors. So is it smart to buy this product? NO!
As I mentioned in my previous article, if I wanted a high quality speaker system to play music, I would invest in a nice Bose surround sound system that I can hook up to my TV and other A/V players. Which brings me to my next complaint about Apple products.
Apple likes to design its products to only be compatible with Apple products. They don’t like to play nice with others. So, when it comes to using services to stream music to the HomePod, you’re limited to Apple Music and other Apple sources or use AirPlay to play from your iPhone, for example.
So you can forget streaming music from Pandora, iHeartRadio and anything that’s not Apple. Still think the Apple HomePod is a great device?
The only thing going for it is the design and sound quality and that’s usually Apple’s trademark qualities. All of their products are designed beautifully, but behind the scenes, it’s not so nice.
Oh, by the way, don’t put the Apple HomePod on a wood surface. It’ll damage the surface and leave a ring on the wood table that you may not be able to remove. Great design Apple!
My Other Complaints on Apple Products
Apple likes to keep things exclusive and make people feel “special”. Almost like they’re part of a special club of people who have the latest iPhone. For example, the “cool kids”. You’ll have friends meeting up and the first thing is, “LOOK AT MY NEW IPHONE!” “Oh wow, you’re so cool, I’M JEALOUS!”
Don’t get me wrong. I don’t resent the “cool kids” because they’re supposedly “cool”. I was one of the cool kids in school and not for having an iPhone. Smartphones weren’t even around at that time actually.
To me, a product has to be more than just the “pretty” design. It has to function well and it has to work well with others when you allow it to be connected to other products. And it shouldn’t frustrate you to use, which Apple products do to me.
Remember how I said that Apple products don’t play nice with others? My first experience with this is with the iPod years and years ago that I got as a gift.
I had my music organized in folders on my computer. When I loaded them into iTunes, it put them all into one single folder and even renamed much of the music. My foreign songs lost their Chinese characters and only showed weird boxes so I didn’t know what they were anymore.
With the rest of the world organizing their songs in folders and whatnot the way I was doing it, Apple didn’t care. I had to reorganize my music into playlists and only do it the way Apple thinks is the only way to do it.
On a Windows computer, I can organize music in multiple ways: in folders and still create playlists. With iTunes and Apple, I was limited. I had albums organized in their own folders. In iTunes, all the songs from different albums were now mixed together. It was a mess! The only way to keep albums together in iTunes was to create a playlist for each album. Seriously??? I had it all organized and Apple iTunes messed it up.
Unfortunately, after all these years, iTunes still works the same horrific way.
And that’s another Apple trademark design, limiting you to only do things the way they think is right. Which isn’t necessarily the only or best way to do it.
Lately, my biggest complaint is with copying images and videos off of iPhones onto the computer. On my girlfriend’s iPhone, all the pictures and videos she’s taken is organized into groups on the phone and easy to browse. For example, pictures from our Europe trip is grouped together and so on.
When I connect the iPhone to my computer to copy them out, there’s no organization! I have to copy everything out and reorganize the media again! When I connect my Android phone to the computer, the images are organized in folders the way I had organized them on my phone. Simple and easy!
At least the image files are numbered on the iPhone. However, the video files are NOT. The video files have random alphanumeric characters that don’t make sense and are all over the place. So, videos you may have taken sequentially are not sequentially named or numbered in the files and could be all over the place.
Why??? It’s so stupid!!!
Again, Apple products are designed beautifully on the outside. But the inner workings suck. And working with others is pitiful or even non-existent, as is the case with the Apple HomePod.
And don’t forget Siri. She’s not so smart. I’ve had many sessions where I’ve told Siri on my girlfriend’s phone that she’s an idiot when she couldn’t answer a question that my Google assistant was able to answer easily. Siri was turned off shortly afterwards.
Sorry. Every time I think about Apple products, I just want to rant. Ok, time to go to my happy place. Think happy thoughts… Think happy thoughts…
Links to other Reviews and Articles on the Apple HomePod
Paying $350 for a speaker that says “no” this much is tough