3/9/22, 2:10 PM
`
`Apple HomePod review: locked in - The Verge
`
`APPLE
`
`APPLE HOMEPOD REVIEW: LOCKED IN
`It sounds amazing. Is that enough?
`
` Feb 6, 2018, 8:30am EST
`By Nilay Patel @reckless
`Photography by James Bareham; Video by Phil Esposito, Becca Farsace, Andrew Marino, and William Joel
`
`If you buy something from a Verge link, Vox Media may earn a commission. See our ethics statement.
`
`I
`
`don’t think I’ve ever described a tech product as “lonely” before, but it’s the word I
`thought about the most as I was reviewing Apple’s new HomePod.
`
`The HomePod, whether Apple likes it or not, is the company’s answer to the wildly
`popular Amazon Echo and Google Home smart speakers. Apple is very insistent that the
`$349 HomePod has been in development for the past six years and that it’s entirely
`focused on sound quality, but it’s entering a market where Amazon is advertising Alexa as a
`lovable and well-known character during the Super Bowl instead of promoting its actual
`features. Our shared expectations about smart speakers are beginning to settle in, and
`outside of engineering labs and controlled listening tests, the HomePod has to measure up.
`
`And while it’s true that the HomePod sounds incredible — it sounds far better than any
`other speaker in its price range — it also demands that you live entirely inside Apple’s
`ecosystem in a way that even Apple’s other products do not.
`
`The question is: is beautiful sound quality worth locking yourself even more tightly into a
`walled garden?
`
`N
`
`othing about the HomePod when you see it in person is what you’d expect. It’s
`been both smaller and larger than people I’ve shown it to have thought, as it’s so
`minimally designed that it’s hard to get a sense of scale from photographs. It’s also
`heavier than it looks, and it doesn’t feel at all like other speakers: the outside is wrapped in
`a custom spongy mesh fabric Apple proudly told me was developed by its “soft materials
`
`https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/6/16976906/apple-homepod-review-smart-speaker
`
`1/17
`
`APPLE 1031
`Apple v. Koss
`IPR2021-00600
`
`

`

`3/9/22, 2:10 PM
`
`Apple HomePod review: locked in - The Verge
`team.” I do not know if that team has any cats, but I suspect cats are going to love the
`HomePod.
`
`The HomePod’s power cord is built in and wrapped in fabric, and on top, there are LED-
`backlit volume buttons and a “display” that isn’t really a display at all — it’s LEDs under a
`cloudy glass panel that diffuses them into a single blob of swirling colors. There’s no
`obvious way to make this area show anything with precise lines, like an interface; Apple told
`me it was designed to be a touch surface, not to display text. On the bottom is a hard,
`rubbery material. You need to place the HomePod on a hard, flat surface: most of its
`speakers fire down, and it sounds pretty bad if you set it on something uneven or soft. But
`most of the time, it sounds excellent.
`
`I A
`
`have been incredibly curious about how the HomePod actually works since it was first
`announced, and it turns out the answers are even more interesting than I anticipated.
`Apple invited me and other journalists to tour its audio labs in Cupertino with Phil
`Schiller, hardware VP Kate Bergeron, and senior director of audio design and engineering
`Gary Greaves. I also spent time talking to some of the engineers who worked on the
`HomePod to dive into the details, and what the HomePod does while playing music is far
`more involved than you’d expect.
`
`LL OF THIS PROCESSING ISN’T TO ADD ANYTHING TO THE MUSIC; IT’S TO ELIMINATE THE ROOM
`
`The HomePod isn’t just one speaker, it’s actually eight of them, all controlled by Apple’s
`own A8 processor and tons of custom software. There are seven tweeters that fire down
`and out from the bottom, and a single four-inch woofer pointing out of the top for low
`frequencies. There is also a total of seven microphones: six around the middle for Siri, and
`a seventh inside that measures the location of that woofer so Apple can precisely control
`the bass.
`
`What’s important to understand is that all of these speakers and software aren’t trying to
`add anything to music; you’re not getting 3D audio or wacky surround effects or anything
`like that. Apple’s goal is to eliminate unwanted extra sounds you might get from reflections
`in the room the HomePod is sitting in. It’s then trying to tune to the speaker to sound as
`neutral as possible in that room, and this process is very, very involved.
`
`https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/6/16976906/apple-homepod-review-smart-speaker
`
`2/17
`
`

`

`3/9/22, 2:10 PM
`
`Apple HomePod review: locked in - The Verge
`
`W
`
`hen you set down a HomePod and play music, it goes through a number of
`steps to tune itself. First, it tries to create a model of the room it’s in by detecting
`the sounds reflecting off walls. It does this in two passes: the first pass builds a
`model to a high degree of initial confidence, and the second pass refines the model. This
`happens faster if you’re playing music with a lot of bass.
`
`Then, it creates a virtual array of soundbeams using that seven-tweeter array. Placed near
`a wall, the HomePod creates three beams: one pointed out the front for “direct” sounds like
`vocals and guitars, and two pointed at the wall to reflect “ambient” sounds like applause
`and room noises. This is called “beamforming,” and it’s a nifty, complicated idea; Apple told
`me it has something like 200 patents for the HomePod.
`
`https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/6/16976906/apple-homepod-review-smart-speaker
`
`3/17
`
`

`

`3/9/22, 2:10 PM
`
`Apple HomePod review: locked in - The Verge
`
`So the HomePod is using all seven physical speakers to create an array of virtual speakers
`and assigning those virtual speakers different parts of the music for increased clarity and
`bass. It’s not trying to create wide stereo separation — later this year, you’ll be able to pair
`two HomePods for that — it’s just trying to get as much from the audio you’re playing as
`possible, while eliminating the effects of the room you’re in.
`
`To figure out what to play on those direct and ambient soundbeams, the HomePod
`compares the left and right channels of the song and figures out what sounds are mixed
`more prominently and what sounds are mixed into the background. Prominent sounds are
`sent to the direct soundbeam, and background sounds are sent to the ambient
`soundbeams. Apple told me the process is similar to what surround sound systems have
`
`https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/6/16976906/apple-homepod-review-smart-speaker
`
`4/17
`
`

`

`3/9/22, 2:10 PM
`
`Apple HomePod review: locked in - The Verge
`long done to upmix stereo audio so it plays on all your speakers, but it’s a very different
`application of that basic idea.
`
`In terms of ideas I’m into, a virtual array of soundbeams that points guitar solos at my face
`is super high on the list.
`
`While all of this is happening, that seventh microphone inside the HomePod measures the
`position of the subwoofer as the other six mics measure the reflections of bass in the room,
`and it adjusts the bass output constantly to keep it from overwhelming the rest of the music.
`I asked Apple directly what the buzzword salad of “transparent studio-level dynamic
`processing” means on the HomePod spec sheet, and it refers to tuning the bass response
`in this way: it’s a custom multiband compressor that’s constantly tweaking the bass levels.
`And because the HomePod knows about the bass driver’s specific position and the sound
`it’s creating in the room, it can push it right up to the edge of distortion in a way normal
`speakers can’t.
`
`THE HOMEPOD CAN PUSH THE BASS SPEAKER RIGHT UP TO THE EDGE IN A WAY OTHER SPEAKERS CAN’T
`
`The wild thing is that all of this happens at once, without needing any help from you, within
`about 10 seconds of playing music for the first time. If you move the HomePod, an
`accelerometer detects the motion and does it all over again seamlessly. That’s much faster
`and simpler than something like Sonos TruePlay, a manual process that requires 45
`seconds of waving a phone around the room every time you move the speaker, or the
`Audyssey calibration systems on home theater gear that take forever to set up correctly.
`
`https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/6/16976906/apple-homepod-review-smart-speaker
`
`5/17
`
`

`

`3/9/22, 2:10 PM
`
`Apple HomePod review: locked in - The Verge
`
`https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/6/16976906/apple-homepod-review-smart-speaker
`
`6/17
`
`

`

`3/9/22, 2:10 PM
`
`Apple HomePod review: locked in - The Verge
`
`https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/6/16976906/apple-homepod-review-smart-speaker
`
`7/17
`
`

`

`3/9/22, 2:10 PM
`
`Apple HomePod review: locked in - The Verge
`
`All of this means the HomePod sounds noticeably richer and fuller than almost every other
`speaker we’ve tested. You get a surprisingly impressive amount of bass out of it, but you
`can still hear all of the details in the midrange and the bass never overwhelms the music.
`And it’s immediately, obviously noticeable: set in a corner of my kitchen, the HomePod
`sounded so much better than everything else that our video director Phil Esposito went
`from thinking the whole thing was kind of dumb to actively pointing out that other speakers
`sounded bad in comparison.
`
`Compared to the HomePod, the Sonos One sounds a little empty and the Google Home
`Max is a bass-heavy mess — even though Google also does real-time room tuning. The
`Echo and smaller Google Home aren’t even in the same league. The only comparable
`speaker that came close in my testing was the Sonos Play:5, which could match the detail
`and power of the HomePod in some rooms when tuned with Sonos’ TruePlay system. But it
`also costs more, is larger, and doesn’t have any smart features at all.
`
`THE HOMEPOD SOUNDS IMMEDIATELY, OBVIOUSLY BETTER THAN OTHER SPEAKERS
`
`The Apple engineers I talked to were very proud of how the HomePod sounds, and for good
`reason: Apple’s audio engineering team did something really clever and new with the
`HomePod, and it really works. I’m not sure there’s anything out there that sounds better for
`the price, or even several times the price.
`
`Unfortunately, Apple’s audio engineering team wasn’t in charge of just putting out a
`speaker. It was in charge of the audio components of a smart speaker, one that simply isn’t
`as smart as its competitors.
`
`https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/6/16976906/apple-homepod-review-smart-speaker
`
`8/17
`
`

`

`3/9/22, 2:10 PM
`
`Apple HomePod review: locked in - The Verge
`
`H
`
`ere’s what’s good about Siri on the HomePod: the microphones are terrific at
`detecting the “Hey Siri” wake command. It was better at hearing me over loud
`music than my other smart speakers, and very good at hearing me from across
`rooms with weird echoes. You can ask Siri to tell you more about the music that’s playing
`on the HomePod, and it will tell you things like who’s playing the bass on a given track.
`That’s neat.
`
`But, really, here is the current state of Siri on the HomePod: it cannot set two timers at
`once.
`
`Apple told me that while researching what most people ask their smart speakers for, it
`found that music the most popular use, asking for the weather is second, and setting timers
`and reminders is third. So it’s baffling that the HomePod can’t set more than one timer or
`name those timers; anyone who cooks with a smart speaker in their kitchen knows how
`incredibly useful that is.
`
`You can’t ask Siri to look up a recipe. You can’t ask Siri to make a phone call. (You have to
`start the phone call on your phone and transfer it to the HomePod to use it as a just-okay
`speakerphone.) Siri also can’t compete with the huge array of Alexa skills, or Google
`Assistant’s ability to answer a vast variety of questions.
`
`SIRI CAN’T COMPETE WITH AMAZON ALEXA OR GOOGLE ASSISTANT
`
`You can’t ask Siri to play something on an Apple TV, as both Google and Amazon’s
`assistants can do with their respective TV devices. It’s also very inconvenient to use the
`HomePod as a TV speaker: you can set an Apple TV to AirPlay to it, but it drops that
`connection when you play music again, and you have go back into the Apple TV’s settings
`to select the HomePod again every time. There’s no way to get other TV sources like a
`PlayStation or your cable box to play out of the HomePod at all.
`
`Siri as a smart home controller on the HomePod works fine if you have compatible devices
`and have done the work of setting up HomeKit, but nothing about HomeKit is particularly
`simple or fun to use. But that’s basically the state of every smart home system, so I don’t
`think Apple’s too far behind there.
`
`https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/6/16976906/apple-homepod-review-smart-speaker
`
`9/17
`
`

`

`3/9/22, 2:10 PM
`
`Apple HomePod review: locked in - The Verge
`
`And, in the worst omission, Siri on the HomePod doesn’t recognize different voices. This
`doesn’t sound like a big deal, but if you just click yes during all the setup prompts, literally
`anyone can ask the HomePod to send or read your text messages. Seriously, it’ll just read
`your texts to anyone if your phone is anywhere on the same Wi-Fi network, which usually
`reaches far beyond the same room as the HomePod. If your HomePod is in the kitchen and
`you’re in the basement, anyone can just roll up on the HomePod and have it read your
`texts. If you have kids, they can just text anyone at will while you’re in the bathroom and
`you can’t stop it. I tried it with the HomePod behind a closed door and it picked up my voice
`and it happily read my texts aloud, a nightmare for anyone who lives in a dorm.
`
`ANYONE CAN WALK UP TO THE HOMEPOD AND HAVE IT READ YOUR TEXTS IF YOU’RE NOT CAREFUL DURING
`SETUP
`
`This is also baffling: iPhones don’t answer to just anyone saying “Hey Siri” once you’ve
`trained them to your voice, and the HomePod runs a variant of iOS on an A8 chip, which
`allows for “Hey Siri” on the iPhone 6 when it’s plugged into the wall. I asked Apple about
`this, and there wasn’t a clear answer apart from noting that the personal requests feature
`that enables texting can be turned off. I agree: until Apple adds personalized voice
`recognition to this thing, you should definitely turn personal requests off.
`
`Look, Siri has been behind its competitors for some time now, and the HomePod doesn’t
`move it forward in any notable way. Two timers and telling people apart when they speak.
`That’s the bar.
`
`https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/6/16976906/apple-homepod-review-smart-speaker
`
`10/17
`
`

`

`3/9/22, 2:10 PM
`
`Apple HomePod review: locked in - The Verge
`
`T
`
`he biggest limitation of the HomePod is how tightly it’s tied to Apple Music. I am an
`Apple Music subscriber, and I use it as my primary music service on my phones
`and Sonos system. Apple Music is also growing in popularity: The Wall Street
`Journal just reported that it’s on pace to overtake Spotify in terms of paying subscribers in
`the US this summer.
`
`In general, however, Spotify has way more subscribers than Apple Music, and the
`HomePod doesn’t even really know Spotify exists. The HomePod also doesn’t really know
`that Pandora exists or Tidal or Google Play Music or SiriusXM or TuneIn Radio or
`SoundCloud or any of a thousand other music services that you might use throughout the
`course of listening to music in your lifetime. It’s an incredibly frustrating limitation: Amazon
`owns Amazon Music, but lets you set Spotify as the default on the Echo. Google runs
`Google Play Music and YouTube, but lets you set Spotify at the default on the Google
`Home.
`
`APPLE MUSIC DOESN’T MAKE THE HOMEPOD BETTER IN ANY PARTICULAR WAY — JUST MORE LIMITED
`
`You can play music from other services on the HomePod over AirPlay from your phone, but
`you lose most of the voice controls apart from play, pause, and volume when you do that.
`(Third-party music apps can be updated to tell the HomePod what track they’re playing over
`AirPlay so you can ask Siri for music trivia, however.)
`
`Tightly tying hardware to software and services is at the core of Apple’s DNA, so
`complaining about Spotify might seem ridiculous here. The iPod didn’t work so well with
`other music stores, after all. But streaming music services really just offer access to music,
`especially on a screenless device you control with your voice. It doesn’t matter if you’re
`paying Spotify or Apple or Tidal when you ask for a song; you just want it to play. Apple
`Music doesn’t make the HomePod better in any particular way — just more limited. I’d bet a
`lot of serious audio nerds would love to send that brilliant speaker array uncompressed
`audio from Tidal if they could. You can do it over AirPlay; it’s not at all clear why Apple won’t
`let you do it with your voice as well.
`
`In any event, Apple Music doesn’t offer any tools to make importing your Spotify playlists
`simple, and while I think the HomePod sounds amazing, I don’t think it sounds so good that
`
`https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/6/16976906/apple-homepod-review-smart-speaker
`
`11/17
`
`

`

`3/9/22, 2:10 PM
`
`Apple HomePod review: locked in - The Verge
`
`it’s worth that much pain.
`
`https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/6/16976906/apple-homepod-review-smart-speaker
`
`12/17
`
`

`

`3/9/22, 2:10 PM
`
`Apple HomePod review: locked in - The Verge
`
`https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/6/16976906/apple-homepod-review-smart-speaker
`
`13/17
`
`

`

`3/9/22, 2:10 PM
`
`Apple HomePod review: locked in - The Verge
`
`https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/6/16976906/apple-homepod-review-smart-speaker
`
`14/17
`
`

`

`3/9/22, 2:10 PM
`
`Apple HomePod review: locked in - The Verge
`
`I
`
`f I had to bet, I would say that 99 percent of people will never compare a HomePod and,
`say, a Sonos One head-to-head in their kitchen. And if you don’t do that, you will never
`know that the HomePod can put out more bass and clearer mids than the Sonos One.
`You will instead think that the Sonos One sounds extremely good for its size and price while
`offering you the ability to use virtually any music service, including Spotify and Apple Music,
`and working with Amazon Alexa and (eventually) Google Assistant.
`
`That’s really the crux of it: the HomePod sounds incredible, but not so world-bendingly
`amazing that you should switch away from Spotify, or accept Siri’s frustrating limitations as
`compared to Alexa.
`
`Apple’s ecosystem lock-in is actively working against a remarkable product with the
`HomePod, and I say that as someone who uses Apple Music as their primary music
`service. Sometimes I want to listen to a radio station from TuneIn or SiriusXM; sometimes I
`want to just let Pandora handle it. Sometimes I want to ask the voice assistant in my house
`a random question and get a useful answer. And sometimes I want to have people over
`without remembering to turn off the feature that lets them access my text messages when
`I’m not in the room.
`
`THE HOMEPOD SEEMS DESIGNED FOR A VERY DEMANDING PERSON WHO LIVES ALONE INSIDE APPLE’S
`ECOSYSTEM
`
`All of this is why I started thinking of the HomePod as “lonely.” It feels like it was designed
`for a very demanding person to use while living alone entirely inside Apple’s ecosystem. It’s
`tied more closely to a single iPhone and iCloud account than any other smart speaker, and
`Siri has none of the capability or vibrancy of what’s happening with Alexa. Apple can try to
`move mountains by itself, or it can recognize that the HomePod is a little iOS computer for
`the home and let developers build on it as they have for so long and with such great
`success with the iPhone, iPad, and Mac.
`
`The HomePod is a remarkable new kind of audio device. It does more to make music
`sound better than any other speaker of this kind has ever done before, and it really, truly
`works. But unless you live entirely inside Apple’s walled garden and prioritize sound quality
`over everything else, I think you’re better served by other smart speakers that sound almost
`as good and offer the services and capabilities that actually fit your life. ■
`
`7.5
`
`VERGE SCORE
`
`https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/6/16976906/apple-homepod-review-smart-speaker
`
`15/17
`
`

`

`3/9/22, 2:10 PM
`
`Apple HomePod review: locked in - The Verge
`
`APPLE HOMEPOD
`
`GOOD STUFF
`Best-in-class sound for the price and most prices above it
`Looks very nice
`You get to say “beamforming” when you show it to friends
`
`BAD STUFF
`Voice controls only work with Apple Music
`Siri is still frustratingly limited
`Can’t tell different voices apart
`
`Buy for $349.00 from Apple
`
`Buy for $349.99 from Best Buy
`
`Buy for $299.00 from Walmart
`
`MICROSOFT
`Clipchamp is Microso’s new video editing app for Windows 11
`
`APPLE
`The best phone to buy right now
`
`https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/6/16976906/apple-homepod-review-smart-speaker
`
`16/17
`
`

`

`3/9/22, 2:10 PM
`
`Apple HomePod review: locked in - The Verge
`
`REVIEWS
`Best laptop 2022: 15 best laptops you can buy
`
`View all stories in Reviews
`
`https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/6/16976906/apple-homepod-review-smart-speaker
`
`17/17
`
`