Anyone getting the Apple HomePod when it’s launched?
I really want to go and hear one. I can’t see how a normal Apple Store would be a good place to see how good they are.
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I probably will get one. I have an iPhone, an AppleTV, a Macbook Pro and a Hackintosh. I guess I still need more Siri in my life and Alexa (or Computer as I call it) can retire. I just need to find the £319 it will cost…
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Get that pot set up HomePod! 
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Mines on pre-order 
pretty excited. Though to be honest, it’ll mostly be used for listening to podcasts before bed, and probably music at the weekend.
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I’ve got mine on order also and will probably use it as I make a lot of conference calls.
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Should be arriving at work 9th Feb 
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Mine will be arriving on the 9th and if it works as intended, it’ll be the centre of my home automation setup via HomeKit
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Same. Can’t wait. 
Fancy talking about what homekit gear you’ve got going on?
Yep. Ordered it the other day. Will collect from Apple store on the 9th.
Makes more sense to buy it, try it where you want it. If you don’t like, they’ll accept it back within the first 14 days, no problems.
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HomePot 
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I guess you’d have to be fully entrenched in the Apple ecosystem, HomeKit and Apple Music etc to want a HomePod, given how objectively terrible Siri is compared to Alexa and Google Assistant.
Although I’m biased, frankly a better option would be to buy two Google Home’s and two Google Home Mini’s for the same price. Home is about £100 and Mini is less than £50 so you can actually do this. That way you have actual proper multi-room audio and voice control all over your house. They support all connected home devices, multiple audio streaming services like Spotify, Deezer, Play Music, etc 
You don’t even need a Google smartphone to do this, works perfectly through the Google Home app on iOS as well. My cousin has a iPh7+ as his primary device, but has Google Home and Minis all over his house, plus Nest and Hue bulbs etc.
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If you’re going to come into an Apple thread and tell us to buy Google hardware you’re going to have to put up with us asking you where Apple Pay is in random threads
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Sounds like a fair deal 
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I would argue that maybe only a google home max is a fair comparison in audio quality terms. Even then at the moment reports say the HomePod sounds better.
I think if anyone is buying the HomePod for its smart features they’re going to be disappointed at the moment. Apple needs to step up on the Siri front big time.
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I haven’t seen any reports, but I know the Home Max is supposed to use machine learning to learn the shape of the room and adjust EQ accordingly. That’s pretty interesting and will likely improve over time. I guess Apple probably have done a similar thing?
That said…I’m not sure why Apple went straight for the high end audiophile market. Maybe because they know Siri isn’t competing on the assistant front?
Home Max is a niche product, and Google Home (at £100) and Mini (RRP is I think £50 but you can always get them for much less, usually £30) is where the real market domination is happening.
I don’t buy it that people who are interested in high-end audio are going to spring for this on that basis alone. Does a single HomePod sound better than a pair of high-end studio monitors in the same price range? Doubtful. I have a Chromecast Audio plugged into the aux port of my studio monitors for when I want to listen to streaming services at high quality - also comes with the benefit of being able to connect to a group with other Google Home products of other Chromecast Audios. Your average consumer will be more than happy with the quality of the £100 Google Home for listening to music, too.
I mean, I think this is exactly what’s going to happen. I really don’t think people interested in high quality audio are buying the HomePod for that reason. It’s a single mono speaker. So you’d be spending £650 for two, and while it might compete with SONOS, there’s no way it sounds better than a pair of, for example, Adam A5X or similarly priced Genelec studio monitors in the same price point.
So that narrows it down to people buying it because they like Apple. Which to be fair, is still a big market. But I’d be willing to bet that in 12 months time, there will be many orders of magnitude more Google Home devices in people’s houses than there will be HomePods.
Ultimately, anyone is obviously free to spend money on whatever they want! I just find it a little strange, since HomePod is objectively a worse choice on both smart features (compared to Google and Amazon devices) AND audio quality (compared to studio monitors, which you can easily make smart by plugging a £30 Chromecast Audio into). So what you have here is a device that actually doesn’t do any one thing particularly well.
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I don’t disagree with what you’re saying.
I think people who like Apple will probably buy this over a Sonos. A product which it is frequently compared with and said to be the same if not better in quality. I also think Apple focused on quality for two reasons.
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They go high end more than most, it’s their market.
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Siri can’t compete.
That being said my only interest in a speaker like this would be audio as I’m yet to really get behind any voice assistant, I find all of them somewhat awkward and limiting in each of their own ways. It’s embarassing how many times I hear my neighbour upstairs repeat his Ok Google command (I assume he got a google home or mini for Xmas because it’s non stop😂). He probably laughs at me only ever saying set a timer to my phone.
I think there is a place in the market for an Apple
‘Smart’ speaker but how big it is I don’t know.
The nice part about Google Home and Alexa is cheap buy in, you get it, you either use it everyday or not and if you don’t well you’ve lost £50 ish. I think I’d only be willing to spend £310 on a HomePod if I was looking to get a sonos in my life.
Don’t get me wrong though, I’m ready for the joined up tech voice controlled world, just nobody offers that at the reliability I would want yet.
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My neighbours probably feel the same way about me -
except I’ve had mine for over a year now 
Still, you’re in luck - it appears the next software update will allow for custom trigger sentences. I might start using “TARDIS” instead of Hey Google 
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