Apple's HomePod Failure 

Just to clarify: 1. We are in fact in the year 2021 lol 2. I think the HomePod was a high quality product, I own four and love them. I just wanted to focus on the reasons why it wasn't a sales success in this video.

HomePod mini should have been the HomePod and later they should have released the HomePod Max.

@0:10 “now here we are in 2020” i sure hope we don’t go back to then

I’m an Apple fan, most of my devices are Apple products but Google literally gave Google home minis and nest minis away for free. It’s hard to argue with competent and free.

I remember when the HomePod was released the sound blew me away

"No, it's Microsoft's Cortana." Ouch!

Im gonna need Apple to make a traditional bluetooth speaker with the sound of HomePod. Beats Pill is too expensive for its age

I hate that the HomePod is considered a “failure.” It’s not a perfect speaker, but perfect for the cottage I live at. I am playing them as I type. I love the sound, and I don’t use Siri like, say, others use Alexa. I do hope that Apple continues to support the speaker for as long as possible.

I love my stereo pair of HomePods and hope I can enjoy them for many more years.

The HomePod failed because it was too good for its own good. As you mentioned, people wanted more capabilities

I still use the HomePod the sound is good. The bass is good too

POV: you haven’t finished the vid yet

"We're stuck with Siri." "We're Apple, we can do anything!" "No, we're stuck with Siri "

I bought one about a year ago, and was really impressed with the audio quality. When I heard they were being discontinued, I ordered another while they were still available online. I'm even more impressed now that I can stream stereo to them. There is one thing though. Even if Amazon and Google's offerings were of similar sound quality, I wouldn't trust one of their devices in my home. About the only voice activated use I have with my smart speaker(s) is to run a timer for me when I'm cooking. I have smart central heating in my home. I also have fingers, so it's not exactly an issue to open the app on my phone and change the heating settings there. Nope, I don't regret my purchase at all. It's just a shame that the market is so fickle. Having said that, if you've never heard a HomePod, then you're not likely to appreciate why it costs more.

I believe once Mini builds up infrastructure Apple is going to release newer version of HomePod. Apple needs waaaaay more data for Siri to be even remotely useful. Heck I would even go and say that HomePod needs its own SiriOS.

Spotify is not available from HomePod directly

I use 2 Home Pod’s as a surround sound for my TV. It works well and cost half of what a good surround sound system from Sonos or Bose.

One of the features I’ll always love of my HomePod is the fact that I can just even whisper Siri’s name to get her attention. Alexa and Google I always either have to raise my voice or repeat myself, especially when listening to music

iPhone is my phone of choice but I feel second hand embarrassment for Apple every time I try to use Siri. It's truly amazing how long she's been terrible for with such a prolific company behind her.

This is the earliest I’ve been for this channel! I love this channel! Never stop! I’m going to miss the HomePod. It’s great! Apple just needs to focus on fixing Siri Period. Ive been saying this for the past 4-5 years now. Siri is truly holding apple back in my opinion.

I purchased 4 HomePods and it’s an amazing surround system! I have no regrets!

I want apple to make a full blown home surround system, I’d drop all the bands on that thing

I expect they'll release a hi-end HomePod (i.e. HomePod Max) which will essentially be a replacement for the original HomePod and make the mini the standard model.

Your videos are amazing. I dont understand why you dont have more visibility. I appreciate your work

The HomePod Biggie WILL come back.. bigger, stronger 💪🏾

It would be nice if Apple loosened its restrictions on usability. Its an awesome sounding speaker and should be allowed to spread its wings!

As great as the sound quality was, it was a glorified Bluetooth speaker with some Voice assistant features. Mini has been much better for me as the Siri features have improved the quality is still pretty good. Of course not as good as the Regular HomePod’s speaker quality.

When you were talking about expensive, and sound quality over functionality, iPod Hi-Fi came to mind, and sure enough, it was mentioned later in the video!

I definitely care about sound over “smart,” but my home has been Sonos integrated for 5 years. The product was too late for me.

I’m enjoying two home pods, I bought just recently with my 4K TV device .I still don’t understand why Apple canceled this super awesome product.

Seeing as there's no more HomePod, will they rename the HomePod Mini to just HomePod?

So pretty much they made a really good speaker, that happened to have some smart functions, while other smart speakers focused more on the smarts but cheaped out with the speaker parts

“Is that a new version of siri” “No... it’s cortana” Ouch that hurt!

I hope I can get one more HomePod before they sell out.

Really good video. Really enjoy the unbiased look towards Apple, in this one. Very informative and easy to digest. Will definitely reach a wider audience with this one.

I never bought a HomePod, had thought about it though. Anyway, I own both Amazon, and Google speakers. What I have found in my own experience of owning both, and looking at feedback from others combined with services I have tired: I have to conclude, that the echo studio from amazon is the best of both worlds. HiFi audio, good smarts, a hub, support for third party services (including Apple Music), and lossless audio through amazon music's HD tier which also includes 3D Music as well. While not a ton of music is available in 3D, the HD, and UltraHD audio I've listened to sounds great, and if the artificial spacial audio feature is disabled for the studio in the Alexa app, the audio is crisp and clean.

I only got a HomePod for music/speaker purposes and that’s it, if the HomePod Mini came out before I bought the HomePod, I probably would’ve bought that instead. I still love my HomePod, but I can see more justification for the price of the HomePod Mini compared to the original HomePod. You could get 3 HomePod Mini’s for less than the cost of 1 regular HomePod.

There's no denying that the homepod is legit great on sound even now, it is very satisfying but it's price tag totally scares me away also the fact that they gave less attention to the 'Smart' in 'Smart Speaker'

HomePod is having excellent sound quality..whoever bought that must be loving ❤️ that.

I remember watching the Apple Keynote on the original HomePod. I was amazed at all times. When they said the price I was like: “Oh! Cold bath warning, please.”

Agree with all accounts, but I would also say that I’ve had many connectivity issue to Apple TV devices. I regularly have sync issues - not timing, per se - but issues with my HomePod and Apple TV’s in my home. While the speakers fill my house with great audio, I often go without connectivity for weeks at a time. Then, like a fart in the wind, things start working.

You said that the HomePod mini is compatible with Spotify. But the way I know it, it isn’t. You can’t use Spotify connect or Siri to play a spotify song on the HomePod mini. People still have to use airplay to do it.

It's a bit surprising (for me at least) to see apple repeating past mistakes. Did they not make the same comparison to the hifi as you did Greg? Also, the dolby atmos support is cool, but wouldn't it be neat if it supported more than 2 speakers? Like 5 speakers.... 7.... or even beyond? It would make for a convenient home theater setup for the audiophiles, and perhaps even to some casual consumers (as costly as it could be, although I'm not sure if the tech has caught up to a point where wireless sound can almost rival wired sound in terms of audio quality).

You have such great videos very informative and interesting 🤔

I bought four of them and I didn’t regret that. Now I have three of the mini ones but I still hope the original ones will be back in a better version because I really like how they sound and their shape. *They should definitely let people chose between the big and the small ones as for the iPhones (regular and Max).*

I have my HomePod’s paired with my Apple TV 4K & it does sound good. Also have 3 HomePod minis in the bedrooms,for such a small speaker they sound great. I hope the OG HomePod’s are still supported for several more years.

Love your content, Greg!

I have three minis. Love walking throughout the house and hearing my music so seamlessly.

I always wanted one but It was too expensive for a speaker, I’ll totally get a homepod mini though

I love my stereo paired homepods! Using them with my AppleTV 4K. My guess is they might release homepods somewhere in between the original and the mini for a more affordable price to make it sell better

Although, Apple has very good experience in the sound department, and they can produce very high quality sound systems. I think Apple can make a really great speaker system, like bookshelf speakers or "computer" speakers that they will sound really great, have a ton of smart functionalities and ecosystem integration like Siri, HomeKit, AirPlay, smart EQ etc, but at the same time the ability to have a wired connection for those who want zero latency or something more audiophile oriented, and on top of that, with the design of Apple we all love and a price of around $700, a system like that will be an amazing choice for many people with a ton of use cases, like for the iMac, for a bookshelf or even for a TV set and if they have somehow the ability to connect with more speakers to create a 5.1 system for those who want it, it will be amazing knowing Apple's audio quality abilities!

It seems that the original HomePod isn't too competitive with other smart speakers like the Google Home/Nest and the Amazon Echo. The Mini model *is* competitive, though. #homepod #apple

2:30 Google Assistant is way better imo, and it would seem that they are outselling Echo speakers by a wide margin too.

Siri on HomePod, “Stupidity never sounded better!” Am quite happy with the 2 HPminis I bought even if Siri can be annoyingly obtuse or some services like podcasts don’t play correctly.

I’m absolutely in love with mine!! The perfect speaker for me

I think it just want marketed enough. After it was announced I never really heard or saw anything about it. I actually forgot about it until all the news came out about it being discontinued. If the Airpods Max can sell well, I don't see how the Homepod couldn't.

I don't care about "Smart" either. I was faced with the decision between home pod or Sonos. Due to the restrictions with Spotify etc I finally decided for Sonos. Siri is bad anyway and good sound is really important to me. So home pod mini is really one of Apple's worst products. I think they should have brought HomePod mini and HomePod simultaneously on the market, without restrictions, then both would have been a success. Also, they barely worked on Siri, nor are there any great new features like dolby vision or 5.1 or anything like that. Missed potential..

i was only able to see the HomePod twice in person. the audio quality was something literally out of this world, and i wished i had it in my home, but the price was…eughh. i’m sad to see it go, but maybe it’s for the better. the mini does still sound pretty good though

Great channel! Keep it up!

If I’m getting a speaker that size and mono, it needs to be portable. If it’s stationary it needs to be either very functional, or be stereo with a subwoofer, or not cost $700+. The Homepod never made sense to me as an Apple fan.

Great video and analysis. Although Apple still didn't fix the issue of having one of the first voice assistants and let it age without investing more to keep up to date with the competitors

I just received the HomePod mini and the sound is amazing I can’t imagine how good the actual HomePod is

The original HomePod was a sound station monster. Sad to see it go.

I’m a big fan of the original HP. Have 5 + 1 mini. Would like to get another 1 or 2 orig HPs before they are gone, but am worried about how much longer it will be functional. I use it almost exclusively for listening to Apple Music. Is this throwing good money after bad ? Any thoughts ? Suggestions? BTW. Great video !

The regular HomePod sounded amazing, shame it wasn’t a success. Bought a couple Minis and just loving them, they sound incredibly good for the size.

i remember seeing the homepod in an apple store and i thought it was good but i thought that google home and amazon echo were better

It was a good product but it was so much more expensive than the competition. And not using the other popular streaming services really hurt it.

Hi I own 2 homepod connected to apple TV as home theatre setup. i have placed 2 homepod on either side of my TV.My living room is bid would you recommend 2 more homepod (stero pair ) . so that i can place it on rear side of the room.

The OG HomePod is meant to be a stereo pair for the Apple TV. I feel that's all it is really meant for. But you need 2 of them. That is why it also failed. The limited it's ability as a computer speaker more and more throughout it's life. So really all it worked good as was for Apple TV. They even switched the software to tvOS in it. Now The HomePod mini gets paired function as a macOS speaker (in the new beta) and so much more. You can see the sales of the Mini have already exceeded the OG version.

I think Apple is setting itself up for a comeback for the HomePod. I think with the release of the mini, it will not only allow Apple to take more market share, but also give Apple more time to revisit the HomePod and make it better.

I love my HomePod. Still plan to buy a second one for a stereo pair.

Thank you I also wanted to know it

I love HomePod Mini... for great sounds plus more app choices... but I can't Bluetooth my Tab S6 to it yet... hopefully... Bluetooth 5 will be in it eventually... with the great audio it possesess and Apple needs to still open up more!

I bought two HomePod speakers & haven’t regretted it one bit. I listen to them all the time. And I’ve also bought 4 HomePod minis. My whole house is good to go.

Why is the page of the original HomePod still up on their site? (Can’t buy it anymore, though.)

I Think that the vid assumption were wrong. They targeted to sound quality because theirs competitors were companies like Sonos, not Amazon or google. From the beginning this was main way. I’ve never understood why so called RU-vid tech creators pushed speakers to area where they never wanted to be. I mean competition Siri vs Alexa. HomePod market was the market of Sonos and others connected speakers. What I see as the weakness of HomePod is lack of ecosystem. And I don’t mean Apple ecosystem but the ecosystem of speakers. Almost no integration with Apple TV, or subwoofer, poor integration with MacBooks as satellite speakers, no soundbar, no smaller effect speakers to work in 5.1 combination. No external connectors like mini jack or optic or hdmi. Blaming only Siri was the blind road from the beginning. 2nd, Price positioning against Sonos Play 1 even with added Alexa dot. This is main mistake. HomePod never should be compared with shitty poor quality speakers from Amazon or google, where main reason of existence of these devices was Assistant and voice quality speaker, not high quality of reproduction of music.

Hope they make Siri more intelligent, it’s far behind Alexa. Just bought 2 HomePods in December, another 2 after the announcement that they were done with HomePod. Stereo pair hooked to my Apple TV 4K is good but yeah, it can be a pain at times trying to get connected to Pandora. I bought 2 Echo’s and one Echo Dot back in 2016 and never even opened them until after I bought my HomePods. Much easier to work with but I still like the sounds from my Pods. Siri, go to school. I bought into the developer thing but haven’t done a thing. Maybe I should get off my butt and focus on this one product.

I love mine. Totally bummed they killed it. While they were comparatively more expensive, I’d been wondering what to do when $5000 stereo from the 90’s bit the dust. All my tunes in the cloud now a 5 CD changer wasn’t useful although the speakers still rule decades later. I don’t see a lot of quality products in the old HomePod’s price range.

I seriously looked at getting one of these when they first came out because the audio capabilities were very attractive. But having it tied to Siri and the Apple ecosystem was a major barrier to entry. We already had Google Minis with Google Play Music and Echos with Amazon Music in the house, and no one had an Apple Device or service. Switching over would not have practical because there was no HomePod Mini at that time to place around the house. For a long time Siri could not even have multiple timers, which was an important feature for us. It just didn't make since to spend so much money for better audio in some spaces, no audio in others, and a less capable smart assistant. I know tech businesses make money from their integrations, but I think the HomePod is one where Apple needed to work to be more inclusive in the services the device supported to attract non-Apple customers. I jumped full in with Sonos because it let me choose my Virtual Assistant and supports a wide range of music services.

Even though it kinda sorta was a failure, it did have impacts on the industry. Other companies like Amazon and Google pushed to make their own smart speakers sound better, and introduced more premium versions

It didn't help the original HomePod that both Google and Amazon speakers got *WAY* better in sound quality by the end of 2019. The Amazon Echo Studio that arrived at the end of 2019 was a particular killer of the HomePod, since it offered near-HomePod sound quality plus the full Alexa functionality.

I will say this about Apple HomeKit: I've had considerably less issues with my HomeKit stuff than my parents are having with their Google Nest or whatever. I'm constantly trying to help them with issues they're having, and even when setting stuff up, say, a smart bulb. On their Google Home stuff, I HAVE to download the bulb manufacturer app, make an account sometimes, and set t up there FIRST. Then, I can jump through some hoops to link the manufacturer app to the Google Home, or pair it there. This means removing devices can also be a chore. I'm still tripping over how to remove a smartlight from Google Home. With my HomeKit setup, I scan the code, name the appliance/device, BANG DONE! And removing it is so simple too. It's less hoops to jump through on setup, it kinda just works. With Google/Alexa, there is a wide range of devices that work with their Home setups, most are often cheaper. But it seems you get what you pay for, as the small bit more I spent paying for something that is listed as HomeKit compatible has well paid off. If you pay less, there doesn't seem to be nearly as much polish or simplicity. You get what you pay for. On a side note, the Google Nest Mini that my parents use sounds pretty good, functions well by itself, and is pretty capable, especially given how cheap it is! I like the speaker! It's the Google smart home ecosystem that leaves much to be desired though.

sad to hear. I have a HomePod and I LOVE that is sounds so good in my small apartment. it is a joy to listen to and there is really no other smart speaker that can both control my home AND sound this good

I just bought a HomePod mini and am disappointed with all the added Siri & HomeKit crap, and that I had to set up a “home” & “room” in order to use it (I have no need/interest in a smart home). I just wanted a “dumb” Apple Bluetooth/AirPlay speaker with seamless iOS integration and a rechargeable battery. Like AirPods but a speaker. Like a Beats Pill. 😒

The HomePod in my region is still being sold, both versions of it

I love my home pods. They sound amazing and link together perfectly

The homepod has given me a Dolby Atmos home cinema set up for around $600, and it is awesome at doing that. However, the Siri drawbacks are significant. I bought the mini as a speaker for my Mac Mini.... Well, hasn't that worked out well! It has 'settled down' when streaming from RU-vid, but I can't get it to work as a general computer speaker. I hope that changes with a software update soon.

I do hope they bring it back or release a newer version of the HomePod. As people continue to buy more smart devices, and the HomePod just comes with the punch and the bass that a tiny speaker can’t produce

I thought the AirPods Max were selling poorly compared to AirPods or AirPods Pro. At least that’s what Bloomberg said I think. Less than a million units. To be fair though, AirPods Max aren’t bad just like the HomePod. Both products are great and tried to serve a niche.

Loved the Homepod demo in the Apple Store, still never wanted to buy one because I don't have $350 just burning a hole in my pocket.

2:44 I quite hard have to disagree. Siri's reliability (on smart home level) is second to none in my experience. I was dabbling between homekit and mainly amazon. Google didn't work too well for me. Despite that, I tried all 3 voice assistants just to see which fitted me best. I can't count how many times alexa misunderstood my commands and replies with: did you mean (device x)? which was more often than not a totally different name/device. While Siri, yes she messes up 2% of the time, is far more reliable than i expected. Amazon Alexa's reliability i would rate at 65%, which honestly is not good. Voice commands should work pretty much always. Google Home app was a very bad experience so i gave that up rather quickly. I'm really sad that they don't make a homepod v2, but i guess i'm happy i own 5 and hope they last a very long time. Huge fan. I sold my echo dot after that rather quickly. The Mini imo is a silly product; Yes the smart assistant is omni present at a lower price. But the sound is so..... very underwhelming for me. I even noticed severe cracking during songs... Why.. Again, Thread is very cool to have, so.

Geez this video is so well-made

Siri got so much sarcasm instead of smartness.

Pity to see the end of the HomePod (maxi); I love mine as a pseudo home theatre system, sound is truly amazing. And I also have a couple of Mini's scattered around the place...

I loved my HomePod. Right up until it stopped working last week. Disappointed to say the least given the cost, will stick to traditional hifi with something like airplay.

I have subscribed to the channel but the poll never show up for me. Been following and watching videos for months now. Can anyone explain?

I’be been following this channel for around 3 months now. It’s the very first time That I hear you plainly admitting that an Apple product isn’t the best out there or try so hard to justify any of it’s short comings. I thought I’d never see the day. Lol just commenting on that because even tho this is an Apple special RU-vid channel you always seem to have a thing out of your sleeve to fanboyishly shield out negativity. I’m glad to finally hear some sincerity

Ok Google 'Turn on Apple HomePod' Google : 'Ok SIRI Bye Bye 👋'

I love my HomePod! I just wish it had native Spotify support but the sound quality is excellent, especially for a living room speaker.

I don't know if I could consider it a failure. The only thing truly wrong was that they have to compete with the $30 google home mini that I can grab from a nearby pawn shop for about $10-15.