Gadgetory

hey guys doston this is the Apple home pod and at three hundred dollars I have exactly one question why does it exist now no I'm not trying to say this is some useless product or there's not meant for anyone when you consider that the world is filled with Amazon echoes and Google homes that cost 40 or 50 dollars a $350 speaker that has Syrian side that's a little bit of a hard sell for most people so in classic Apple fashion the unboxing is super simple no giant stabbing knife needed so this has come out today and it's a little bit late I think this is originally supposed to come out late last year but the idea here is that this is a very high-end very good sounding speaker that just happens to have Siri you know I'll say this looks really nice so it has this fabric mesh all the way around it's nice and soft it's definitely a little bit of a different look although the power cables built-in okay we also have designed by Apple in California with what I assume is yes a single Apple sticker not a lot of accessories with a 3m $50 smart speaker but what really matters is how does it actually sound all right so 350 dollars a lot of money but I will say there actually are some nice things about the hardware so like I was saying this fabric finish feels pretty nice and it even comes across to the power cable there's a little bit tension to detail here but you won't find what the whole pod is anything besides this power cable so there's no USB there's no Bluetooth there's not even going to be any kind of aux input which now just think about it apples killed the headphone jack and everything else makes sense to kill it on the speakers which you will see however is a little tiny grid of LEDs that are below the sort of frosted panel on the top so it's kind of cool but there's not a proper screen it's more for kind of giving you notifications and sort of a little bit of a colorful thing when series listening like ear pods the setup is going to be pretty straightforward so if you have an iPhone and yes you're probably gonna want to have a lot of Apple products with a home pod to make sense you can see a little setup icon right here do that and it should sync with the Apple ID one thing you probably will want with the whole pod is Apple music so it does support airplay so things like Spotify and YouTube will work however if you actually want it to work properly just using your voice you're going to want to use Apple music they're very specific the home pod is for people who have everything Apple before we get started I'm gonna give everyone a warning new words hey Siri and hey Google about to be spoken many many times you've been warned sorry I can't search the web the main reason to pick up the whole pod though is from music and at least on paper this sounds pretty good so you're getting seven microphones that are paired up with an Apple a8 chip which no they are going to be listening for you to call Siri but also it's going to be able to tune the music for your specific room now to do that it uses the total of eight speakers inside this guy so there are seven small tweeters they're spread out all the way around to be able to give you a full 360 sound there's also going to be a single four inch subwoofer so at this point if you have Apple music you can just tell it to play a song however if you're like me and you Spotify you're gonna have to airplay it from your phone so of course you're gonna be listening to this on YouTube so everything is going to be compressed we do have a microphone here to hopefully give you a decent idea of what this sounds like in person let's give it a try I will say one thing this does a really good job of giving you that full 360 sound no matter really where this is placed your printer is gonna hear the same thing around something else is immediately apparent this guy even though it's obviously a very small speaker has a lot of things it's also really apparent that they're doing a good job of making sure that doesn't bottom out so even though there is a lot of base it's not really overpowering the rest of the music I mean when you crank it up to higher volumes it stays surprisingly well put together may guess 4-3 or $50 speaker you hope it sounds pretty good but I'm pretty impressed pause one thing I will say that the microphones do a really good job even when you're cranking it to be able to actually hear you pretty well however I think the best way of actually being able to properly test how well this sounds is put it up against this biggest competitor when I say biggest I mean biggest the Google home max so you guys are not familiar the Google home max is very much the sort of Google competitor to the home pod yes it is much larger but there's a lot of things that are going to be very similar so this has Google assistant whereas this has Siri they both have multiple speakers inside that are going to be working together and they both also do have a version of the sort of room sensing technology that will tune the sound based on what kind of environment that your end there are some advantages to the Google home though including the fact that knowledge is a have a USB port but it also supports bluetooth as well as aux end so you know if you're not living a 20-18 yet this has got you covered however the price difference is kind of surprising whereas the whole pod runs a pretty expensive $350 Google will charge you $400 for the Google home max a Google Play Hotel California okay Hotel California by Eagles so at first glance they're actually surprisingly different so the Google home acts is louder kind of expected with it being a much larger speaker however it completely lacks that 360 directionality of the home pod so from the side it's kind of okay but from the front it is very very loud now the home pod even though it's a little less bass II I think does a much better job of making sure that you really hear all the different instruments there's a lot of separation between the two but let's do a few other songs and kind of fully actually test to see what these guys sound like although to be fair Hotel California is the only song anyone actually needs to listen to but I guess I can play like two or three other songs you really want me to some weird reason he google play like whoa from logic like whoa by logic sure playing on Spotify okay so after listening to these both for a little while my impressions are pretty firm this sounds good it's decent in a vacuum but there's a lot of bass and it is very directional the whole pods there's just so much more separation you're all the different instruments you hear the different vocals like everything is very sort of layered whereas this it feels a little bit flat in comparison it's a good speaker but there's no doubt the whole pod sounds phenomenal however that's just one piece of the puzzle so sure if you're just going to buy one of these for pure audio quality you can stop watching now but I think what a lot of people are interested in is how the actual assistance on these guys work in Google when did the Olympics started competitions at the Pyeongchang 2018 Olympic Winter Games began on Wednesday February 7th 2018 and ends on Sunday February 25th 2018 PST hey Siri when did the Olympics start the 2018 Winter Olympics will be held February 9th to the 25th in Pyeongchang South Korea hey Google how many cups in 42 gallons 42 US liquid gallons equals 672 US customary cups hey Siri how many cups are in 42 gallons 42 gallons is 672 cups something I'm noticing is that Siri is a little bit more Curt and it gives you like much shorter answers where Google wants to give you all the details hey Google what's the news here's the latest news from NPR news now at 3:00 p.m. today live from NPR news Siri what's the news here's the latest news from NPR hey Google Play the latest episode of reply all okay playing the latest episode of reply all number 42 blind spot rebroadcast this episode of reply oh hey Siri play the latest episode of reply all sorry I couldn't finally apply all in your music if you have an Apple musical subscription podcast hey Google what do you think about Siri full respect being an assistant is hard work hey Siri what do you think about Google assistant I think the acquisition of information and intelligence by human beings through virtual assistants is a very good thing Google's like serious great I think the acquisition of information by human-like beings is excellent alright so what have we learned well I think that they're actually fairly evenly matched as far as the assistant side so for the basic stuff they're gonna be very similar for things like turning on and off your lights or kind of figuring out traffic or the basic kind of things and I think as you get to be a little bit more advanced I would give this slight edge to Google assistant I think a lot of people have sort of been complaining about Siri at least based on this they're not that far off now as far as the music set goes it's definitely a home pod win but for me if you're not gonna be really serious about music I think it's hard to recommend either of these so my house alright like using the Google home minis as well as a standard Google home they're much less expensive and unless you're really serious about the music they sound totally fine especially if you're really focused on the assistant side so should the Apple home pod exist in 2018 yeah it's actually not bad so be fair you need to be totally into the Apple ecosystem so I'm talking Apple music iPhones Macs the whole thing but if you are this is a really really good sounding speaker so I'm curious what do you guys actually think about home pod let me know in the comments below and I won't catch you in the next one