Tune into Apple home speaker
Apple has done pretty well being late to the party. They didn’t make the first smartphone or MP3 player, yet the iPhone and iPod went on to capture the imagination of more than a billion customers around the world.
Apple’s HomePod will soon arrive in Ireland but it’s late to the smartspeaker party and already has stiff competition. It is positioned squarely against the queen of the smart home assistants, Amazon’s Alexa. Then there’s the excellent Google Home and if you’re more of an audiophile, the Sonos One appeals to music lovers and has Alexa built in.
Unpacking and setting up any Apple product these days is a joy. Available in two colours, the HomePod is just shy of seven inches tall, cylindrical and about five inches across. It’s neat, beautifully-made and sturdy. So sturdy in fact, it weighs in at a hefty 2.5kg, perhaps illustrating how much tech is packed inside. Using an iPhone, it can be set up wirelessly in seconds and a couple of sci-fi style sound effects tell you it’s ready to go. There’s a light on the top, and volume controls are inlaid in case you don’t have your iOS device to hand. The sound quality of smart speakers varies vastly. Makers need to pack in enough punch to make an enjoyable listening experience, but the device needs to be a discreet size to sit comfortably in the living room. Apple have done a good job with audio quality. There’s a seven tweeter array at the base of the HomePod that produces excellent higher frequency sound. The firm, crisp bass is also good, and thankfully not full of rumble. I tried various types of music and found the only weakness in the audio is the middle frequency, particularly on lighter jazz tracks.
The integration of Siri, Apple’s voice assistant, into the HomePod is welcome, but it does come up a little short.
You can speak to the HomePod just like you do to Siri on your iPhone. Apple Music and iTunes can be controlled by your voice, but not other apps like the high-definition Tidal service which require you to manually select AirPlay to get around the limitation. With Amazon Alexa and Google Home you can control a multitude of smarthome gadgets with your voice. With Apple’s speaker though, you are limited to devices compatible with Apple’s HomeKit. That’s not untypical of Apple but it does limit the products you might buy, from smart kettles to electronic curtain openers or some smart bulbs. The HomePod is a great speaker and if you are an Apple Music subscriber you’ll use it all the time. As a smart-home hub though, it falls short of the Amazon Echo and Google Home which offer broader connectivity options for the home. Apple fans will probably love it and, given the way Apple’s products evolve over time, this is good start for a latecomer.
THE FIRM, CRISP BASS IS GOOD AND NOT FULL OF RUMBLE