First Impressions From New HomePod Owners: Siri’s Voice Detection is ‘Phenomenal,’ Audio Quality is ‘Immediately Evident’

We’ve seen quite a few HomePod reviews from media sites that Apple invited to test the speaker, but now that the HomePod has officially launched in Australia, HomePod first impressions from regular Apple customers are now available.

New HomePod owners on reddit, Twitter, and the MacRumors forums have been sharing their opinions on the device, and for those awaiting a HomePod of their own or considering purchasing, these comments from average consumers provide interesting insight.

MacRumors reader ApeBot was one of the first to receive a new HomePod in Australia, and he said setting it up was “incredibly fast and easy with an iPhone.” As for sound quality, it’s “impressive” and “fills the room beautifully.”

When using “Hey Siri” with other compatible iOS devices around, the HomePod is the device that responds first, something that future owners HomePod have been wondering about. Since iOS 10, with multiple devices around, when you say “Hey Siri” your devices intelligently decide which one should respond, and it’s no different with HomePod.

Just got my HomePod. Beware, the box lid lifts off.. if you are like me, in your excitement you will hold the box up like Baby Simba in the Lion King and the HomePod will slide straight out the bottom and crash down to the floor.

Setup was incredibly fast and easy with my iPhone. Sound quality so far is impressive. Fills the room beautifully. The top display is captivating. Control via control center on my phone is integrated nicely.

For me personally, it doesnt feel as familiar as Apple products usually do. Maybe thats because it doesn’t have a familiar OS?

Reddit user ghostinthelatrine offered to answer questions about the new HomePod, leading to some insightful discussion. He says the HomePod’s sound “blows the [Sonos] Play 3 out of the water,” and that Siri’s voice detection is “phenomenal.”

Image via reddit user ghostinthelatrine

Holy crap. Siri’s ability to pick up my voice is phenomenal. Really phenomenal. I stood 10 meters away (32.81ft – Thanks, Siri!) with my fridge door open and I was able to just speak like a normal person (this is important for my wife who likes to use the Google Home to set timers, etc.). Felt like I was always shouting at the Google Home.

Using the HomePod as a speaker for the Apple TV was “surprisingly quiet,” even at a high volume level, though the sound itself was described as “crystal clear.” You can also use the HomePod with a Mac as an AirPlay destination from iTunes and it appears as an output device in the Sound settings.

Another redditor shared a detailed list of initial impressions, and he too praised the HomePod’s sound quality and the ease of activating Siri on the device.

– Audio is very good, with impressive clarity and loudness. I’m no audiophile, but I do enjoy music a great deal, and the quality of HomePod is immediately evident from the moment you start using it.

– Setup grabs Apple Music AppleID details, etc from the phone, so no time was spent entering those in

– Hey Siri activates extremely well, at normal speaking volume, and I have been able to get it to play stuff on Apple Music and Podcasts very easily

AirPlay also worked well from both iOS devices and the Mac, with the exception being AirPlaying content from the Overcast app. His other comments focused on the HomePod’s design. The “size and heft” of the device were surprising, and the outer fabric is “soft, but firm.”

Image via Reddit user eats_midgets
The top of the HomePod, where the touch controls are located, is glossy and smooth, and in a separate tweet, another new HomePod owner said this area is something of a fingerprint magnet.

Finger print hell on the HomePod’s OLED surface pic.twitter.com/LcELKi4LMk

— Raj Deut (@rajdeut) February 8, 2018

Multiple Twitter users also had thoughts to share on the HomePod, weighing in on everything from the device’s sound to Siri to its power cable.

@MacRumors I can definititvely say that the #HomePod sounds substantially better than my $1000 #Sonos system. #AppleHomepod

— rogeh (@rogehsworld) February 8, 2018

First HomePod impressions:
– Sounds amazing
– Siri is still dumb as a brick
– Small and heavy
– Really nice power cable

— Russell Ivanovic (@rustyshelf) February 8, 2018

Holy Crap – I am an audiophile and the HomePod is an austounding leap forward in audio for price – the separation and soundstage from a “single” speaker is amaze balls

— Ed Dale (@Ed_Dale) February 8, 2018

On the MacRumors forums, upcoming HomePod owners have also listed some songs they’ll be using to test out the HomePod’s capabilities when it arrives, including “Hotel California” from The Eagles, “Prelude and Kiara” from Bonobo, “Hits and Exit Wounds” from Alabama 3, “Core” from Stone Temple Pilots, “Your Latest Trick” by Dire Straits, and “Bohemian Rhapsody” by Queen.

Once the HomePod launches in the UK and the United States, our forums will be filled with HomePod users sharing their opinions and tips and tricks for using the new speaker. Make sure to check out our dedicated HomePod forum to share your thoughts on the new speaker, or post them here in this thread, and stay tuned to MacRumors because we’ll have plenty of HomePod coverage both tomorrow and next week.

Related Roundup: HomePodBuyer’s Guide: HomePod (Buy Now)
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Klean Kanteen takes its commitment to the Earth even further with Klean Coat

Can you really call yourself a responsible lover of planet Earth if a Klean Kanteen water bottle isn’t one of your possessions? Now, if you really want to flaunt your eco-friendly credentials, you may just have to get a Klean Kanteen outfitted with the company’s new Klean Coat. Now available on the entire 2018 lineup of the company’s products, Klean Coat is a chip-resistant, durable powder coat finish that was developed using an advanced chemical hazard assessment tool called GreenScreen for Safer Chemicals. This new coating, the company says, continues Klean Kanteen’s commitment to environmental and socially responsible design and manufacturing processes.

The Klean Coat is available in a wide palette of colors, all of which are inspired by nature and our surroundings. But the real draw isn’t the aesthetics — in creating Klean Coat, the 14-year-old firm used GreenScreen to score their materials in terms of safety. Ingredients that were not deemed friendly enough for contact with both people and the environment were not used.

“Klean’s interest in connections between business and the environment drives our thinking and our practice,” said Danielle Cresswell, the company’s sustainability manager. Offering Klean Coat as an example, she added, “The original finish on our Kanteens worked well, but over time we noticed the rough and tumble life our bottles lead could diminish the integrity of the coating and result in premature replacement. This didn’t sit well with us; the environmental demand to make a Kanteen is not excessive but also not insignificant, especially when considering annual production volumes.”

As such, in order to reduce the amount of inventory folks would buy (not something companies do often!), Klean set out to make their product longer lasting. After all, Cresswell said, “More frequent replacement means more Kanteens being produced than necessary to displace a lifetime of single-use plastic.” The result was Klean Coat, and the Klean team believes that it’s one of the most beautiful, durable, and environmentally friendly formulas in the planet.

“We are more committed than ever to measuring what matters most and reducing our impact on the environment,” said Klean Kanteen president and CEO Jim Osgood. “In the years ahead, we hope that Klean’s work with GreenScreen will encourage other manufacturers to make the selection of product materials in the interest of human and environmental health a standard operating procedure.”

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Finally, an A.I. voice assistant that doesn’t collect and monetize your data

Science fiction is full of sinister sentient computers.

The most famous is, of course, HAL 9000, the artificially intelligent ship’s computer from 2001: A Space Odyssey, which gains self awareness and sets about murdering its crew. But HAL’s got some equally villainous pals — such as the Ultimate Computer from Superman III, Proteus IV from Demon Seed, Colossus from The Forbin Project, and, of course, Skynet from Terminator.

However, while silver screen A.I. is almost always evil, science fiction does have at least one sentient computer that isn’t so sinister. Mike (an abbreviation of Mycroft, the name of Sherlock Holmes’ brother) is a fun-loving supercomputer from Robert Heinlein’s classic sci-fi novel, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. A character as far removed from the cold, austere as HAL as is possible, Mike becomes the best friend of the book’s narrator, and a key driver in the fight for freedom in the novel’s lunar society. He is a sentient supercomputer on humanity’s side.

Here in reality, we don’t have a sentient computer that’s truly on our side — but we might, soon. The Mycroft Mark II, as it’s called, is a new smart speaker that recently landed on Kickstarter, and, unlike the more familiar models such as the Amazon Echo and Google Home, this one has our best interests in mind. Or so its creator, Kansas-based creator Joshua Montgomery is keen to stress.

Montgomery’s goal with Mycroft is to build an open source alternative to the big tech giants’ A.I. assistants, and one that promises to protect your privacy in the process. “[Companies like Google and Amazon want to] wall you into an ecosystem that they control, and then monetize you,” he told Digital Trends. “Our goal is to provide you with the best experience possible. We want to build a technology that represents you.”

A big challenge

Montgomery got into the AI assistant space a few years ago. Running a “makerspace” in Kansas City, he says his team was working on a project and wanted to add a voice-controlled smart assistant. Unfortunately, they couldn’t find an option which gave them the level of freedom that they wanted. “At that point, the average user might give up and say, ‘Okay, I’ll put an Echo in,’” he said. “In our case, we decided to see if we could build our own.”

Needless to say, that’s not an easy task. The companies which have broken through into the smart speaker A.I. assistant space — mainly Amazon and Google — also happen to be two of the tech giants vying to become the world’s first $1 trillion company. They have seemingly limitless resources and, for a variety of reasons, can undercut rivals at every turn. But, hey, aren’t underdog stories what tech and its love of asymmetrical little-guy-against-the-giants warfare is made of?

The result of Montgomery’s work was a successful 2015 campaign for the original Mycroft assistant. Now he’s back with a sequel and a product that looks far more polished than its predcessor. The original Mycroft, Montgomery said, was more of a hacker’s device than anything; an Arduino-powered tool for those whose idea of a Saturday well spent is sitting in a Makerspace, soldering iron in hand, surrounded by tiny tech components.

“Not only can it speak, but it can also display graphics and widgets so the user can better interpret what the device is trying to say.”

The Mark II looks like an Apple HomePod with the screen of an Amazon Echo Show. “Not only can it speak, but it can also display graphics and widgets so the user can better interpret what the device is trying to say,” Montgomery said. “A picture’s worth a thousand words.”

Under the hood, the Mycroft II boasts a six microphone array, instead of the single condenser microphone used for the original model. That means that, like its big budget counterparts, it should be able to hear you from across the room, even when you’ve got your music blaring.

The big differentiator, though, is the privacy. While the device can answer questions, much as with all smart assistants, that data won’t then be sold to advertisers, and fed back back to you in the form of ads. In an ideal world, this means that the information you’re getting is objectively the best information for you; not information from the advertiser who paid more money to have their results show up higher in a list.

Mycroft promises not to store any of your voice data on its servers, unless you explicitly agree to allow it to do so in order to improve its speech recognition efforts. If you do agree, you can change your mind at any time. The aim is to be more transparent than companies like Google and Amazon which, at least as of now, make bulk deletion of your voice files difficult — and warn that it can hurt the usability of your devices.

“You want an agent that has the mandate to work on my behalf, not on behalf of some company that, frankly, probably doesn’t have my best interests at heart,” Montgomery said.

The open source revolution

The idea of developing an open source A.I. assistant is an intriguing one. Montgomery rightly points out that other areas of tech all have open source standards — whether it’s the Linux operating system or tools like Red Hat, Ubuntu, WordPress, Mongo, or MySQL. “There absolutely will be an open player in the assistant space,” he said. “Someone’s going to build it. Why not me?”

Open source means that Mycroft isn’t walled into an ecosystem, so it’s compatible with whatever email, social stream, streaming music subscription service you want. If you’re someone with an iPhone, an iPad, a Mac and an Apple TV, you may be better off sticking with HomePod — but if you want a bit more flexibility, this could be the answer for you.

Building an AI assistant in this way opens up some fascinating possibilities. For example, it’s possible to help shape Mycroft’s personality — and the answers it will give; the AI equivalent of the mantra that it takes a village to raise a child. “Initially [we’re letting people contribute to] subjective questions, but eventually it’ll be objective questions,” Montgomery said. “If someone says, ‘Hey, Mycroft, what’s your favorite color? It doesn’t really have an answer for that,’ so it gets fed into the Persona engine and the community comes up with a response, which then gets re-ingested. The next time someone asks that same question, it’s got an answer.”

Eventually, though, questions might get trickier — “Tell me about Jesus Christ.” Montgomery said he looks to the Wikipedia editing community to see how it uses debate to establish answers that are generally agreeable to the crowd.

So far, Mycroft’s Kickstarter campaign has raised around three times its original funding goal, with more than 20 days remaining on the clock. That’s good, but it’s still early days for this alternative to the established smart speakers. While all the usual suggestions about pledging Kickstarter campaigns stand, if you are interested in joining the Mycroft revolution you can pledge your support here.

Shipping is set to take place in December 2018. Prices start at $99 for a DIY kit or $129 for a completed unit.

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Qualcomm rejects Broadcom’s second offer to buy the company

Despite increasing its offer by $16 billion, Qualcomm still refuses to sell to Broadcom.

Ever since early November of last year, there have been talks of Broadcom being interested in acquiring chip-maker Qualcomm. The deal was turned down by Qualcomm’s Board of Directors later that same month, but a report quickly followed this up suggesting that Qualcomm would reconsider its decision if Broadcom offered more money.

Broadcom recently came back to Qualcomm with a new offer of $121 billion ($16 billion more than the initial $105 billion), but even so, Qualcomm continued to refuse the deal.

Qualcomm says that the $121 billion “materially undervalues” its worth, and this is essentially the same response the company gave when it rejected Broadcom’s first offer. However, while this is good news for the time being, there’s still the potential that Qualcomm will eventually sell.

It’s reported that Qualcomm is willing to meet with Broadcom to try and get a price that it deems itself to be worthy of, so if Broadcom continues to offer more cash, we may be looking at a buyout.

Stay tuned, folks.

Broadcom buying Qualcomm could grind innovation to a screeching halt

New Samsung ‘DeX Pad’ dock could launch with Galaxy S9

This is the next step in ‘your phone is your computer,’ I suppose.

Samsung’s attempt at turning your phone into a viable desktop computing solution debuted with the Galaxy S8 and the DeX Station. The next evolution, according to the latest leaks from @evleaks, is a new “DeX Pad” dock that will launch with the Galaxy S9.

The new DeX Pad is designed to hold the phone flat, rather than standing it up somewhat awkwardly. Not only would this new flat design be more compact for carrying around while still accommodating various phone sizes, but it also opens up the possibilities of using the phone’s screen as a touch pad. With the phone’s screen held down on the desktop to be used for the cursor, you’d only have to connect a keyboard and not a mouse.

You still have USB-C power, two USB-A ports and HDMI out for a display, and there seems to be a cooling vent system still as well.

Of course this isn’t a unique idea. Different versions of the “phone is now your touchpad when docked” have been used with systems like Microsoft Continuum and Huawei’s Mate 10 EMUI desktop solution. Razer is testing the waters even further with its Project Linda laptop that uses a phone in the place of the touchpad.

Regardless, it could only help DeX adoption, which is something that definitely hasn’t caught on in the year or so since it was released. Even with the super-powerful Galaxy Note 8, launched just six months after DeX was first announced, the feature was hardly emphasized by Samsung. The use cases for having these docks and using your phone as a pseudo-desktop computer just haven’t caught on at any real scale.

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Netflix rescues sci-fi movie ‘Extinction’ from oblivion

The Cloverfield Paradox isn’t the only sci-fi movie Netflix has saved from Hollywood purgatory. Variety has discovered that Netflix bought the worldwide rights to Extinction, a sci-fi thriller from Universal starring Lizzy Caplan and Michael Pena. The studio was originally slated to have released the alien invasion flick on January 26th, but took it off its release schedule just two months prior — not exactly a resounding vote of confidence. The title is expected to premiere on Netflix sometime later in 2018.

The movie stars Caplan and Pena as a couple, with Pena plagued by recurring nightmares of losing his family. Naturally, the invasion makes that threat real and forces Pena’s character to gather his resolve. Familiar Netflix star Mike Colter (Luke Cage) plays a role, although that’s not likely to have influenced the decision.

We’ve asked Netflix if it can comment on the reported acquisition.

This is the second movie that Netflix has rescued in a matter of weeks, and the pattern might be older than that if you count deals for movies with limited theatrical releases (such as Annihilation, which Netflix will handle outside of North America). It’s hard to say whether or not Netflix will regularly buy ‘doomed’ movies going forward, but it’s easy to see why the company would go this route. As the release of Bright showed, success for a movie is different on a streaming service — Netflix doesn’t need up front revenue or critical acclaim, just a lot of viewers and gradually increasing subscription numbers. It can swoop in to buy an ill-fated movie like Extinction with a minimum of effort and a potentially huge return.

Source: Variety

Nest co-founder Matt Rogers is leaving Google

It’s been a little more than four years since Google acquired Nest for $3.2 billion, and now both co-founders have left the company. Former CEO Tony Fadell departed in 2016 to be replaced by former cable exec Marwan Fawaz, followed today by co-founder and chief product officer Matt Rogers. In a tweet, Rogers said that after nine years spent building Nest he’s “decided to begin my transition to dedicate more of my time to Incite.org, as well as to start thinking about the next adventure.”

Nest has been an amazing journey and the honor of my career to build. I could not be more proud of what we have all accomplished and can’t wait to see what’s next for Nest.

— Matt Rogers (@nestmatt) February 8, 2018

The announcement also comes just a day after Google announced that Nest will join forces with its hardware teams instead of operating separately under Alphabet, which hardware VP Rick Osterloh said would “supercharge Nest’s mission.” In a statement, Rogers said “I’ll be working closely with Google’s Hardware leads to define the 2019 roadmap and to ensure a smooth integration of Nest into Google’s Hardware group.”

While Rogers specifically cited spending more time working on his venture firm Incite, the timing comes as Google takes more control over the “thoughtful home” products Nest sells.

After the acquisition, Fadell promised not to force any privacy changes and the company’s FAQ notes that its accounts aren’t linked with Google. Privacy concerns also reportedly got in the way of an Echo-like assistant from Nest a few years ago, but now Google Home and Assistant can control Nest devices, and with the teams merging we’d anticipate seeing more integration going forward. As Osterloh put it “By working together, we’ll continue to combine hardware, software and services to create a home that’s safer, friendlier to the environment, smarter and even helps you save money—built with Google’s artificial intelligence and the Assistant at the core.”

Source: Matt Rogers (Twitter)

Alexa can build Amazon Music playlists for you

Amazon announced today that Amazon Music listeners will now be able to ask Alexa to make a playlist through their Alexa-enabled devices. Commands like “Alexa, add this to my playlist” and “Alexa, create a new playlist” can be used and users can ask the assistant to add songs to a specific playlist or to create a new playlist from the current song being listened to.

Last month, Amazon added support for SMS messaging through Alexa-enabled devices as well as voice control to its Alexa app for Android. It introduced Alexa support to its Amazon Music app for iOS and Android last September and the company says that playlist creation has been one of its most-requested voice features.

Prime Music listeners and Amazon Music Unlimited subscribers can use the few feature as can those with the Amazon Music Unlimited Echo Plan, which makes the premium streaming service available on a single Echo, Echo Dot, Echo Show or Amazon Tap.

First HomePod Orders Start Arriving to Customers in Australia

Apple customers in Australia are always the first to get their hands on new devices on launch day, and now that it’s after 9:00 a.m. on Friday, February 9 in the country, the first HomePod orders have started arriving to customers.

Australians who ordered the HomePod starting on January 26 have begun receiving their deliveries and have shared their excitement over the new device on reddit, Twitter, Instagram, and the MacRumors forums.

Image via Twitter user @rajdeut
Apple Stores in Australia are also now open, allowing customers who placed orders for in-store pickup to receive their devices. Retail locations also have stock for walk-in purchases, and in Australia, same-day in-store pickup is once again available.

HomePod has arrived! pic.twitter.com/mNEGBlxZ2R

— Ross Hill (@rosshill) February 8, 2018

Following Australia, HomePod sales and deliveries will kick off in the UK in about 10 hours, followed by North America. Apple Stores in all three countries are opening up right around 8:00 a.m. to allow customers to make HomePod purchases.

Throughout the pre-ordering process, which kicked off on January 26, Apple had ample HomePod stock for customers. Shipping estimates and in-store availability only began slipping earlier this week, likely due to Apple’s preparations for launch day. Orders placed online for a HomePod will ship out early next week.

Got the HomePod 😄#HomePod pic.twitter.com/XbZR4aIE7u

— JJJing (@306274546) February 8, 2018

In the United States, the first HomePod deliveries will take place on the east coast starting at 8:00 a.m. The HomePod is priced at $349 in the United States, GBP319 in the UK, $499 in Australia.

Make sure to stay tuned to MacRumors both tomorrow and throughout next week, because we’ll have plenty of HomePod coverage to share.

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Apple Shares Official HomePod User Guide

Now that the HomePod is available in Australia, where it is Friday, February 9, Apple has shared its official HomePod User Guide, providing an overview of all the features for new HomePod owners.

The guide offers a detailed walkthrough on getting the HomePod ready to use out of the box, with information on HomePod controls, HomePod settings, and using AirPlay.

There are also dedicated sections for Apple Music, Apple Podcasts, and News, which outline all of the Siri commands you can use with the HomePod, such as “Hey Siri, play some party music,” or “Hey Siri, add this song to my library.”

A “Control your home” section of the guide walks users through using Siri commands to control HomeKit devices and it includes details on using HomePod as a home hub, an automatic function, while an “Assistant” section includes even more Siri options.

On HomePod, Siri can send messages, read messages, and create notes and reminders for the person who owns the HomePod, and there are tools included to turn off these kinds of personal requests if someone else also uses the HomePod.

Siri can also offer up general knowledge, provide traffic information, set alarms and timers, share the weather, provide details on sports games, do unit and math conversions, and translate English into French, German, Italian, Mandarin Chinese, and Spanish.

Many of the Siri commands outlined in the HomePod User Guide will be familiar to you if you already use Siri on iOS devices, but the guide is still worth looking through while you await your HomePod delivery just to get familiar with the setup and the controls.

HomePod is already available in Australia and is set to launch in the UK and the United States soon.

Related Roundup: HomePodBuyer’s Guide: HomePod (Buy Now)
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