Gadgetory

what's up guys and girls this is our Apple byte home pod review we've had it for about I would say like five or six days straight and I really wanted to dig into a lot of things that some people aren't even talking about and again this is the home pod it's apples $349 smart speaker but they shouldn't even call it that I really feel like they should just call it the Apple music speaker and we'll get into all that but this isn't about bashing the home pod but really finding out what the home pod can do what it can't do and who's this really for so let's start off with the sound everyone is raving about the sound on this thing and for its size it's a real impressive like there's great mids and there's deep lows that really stand out it can kind of lose some of the highs and some details and voices at least when I heard it that's compared to some other speakers that are out there but it really comes down also to the genre of music you listen to as well but for me I liked it a lot like a whole lot also the other thing that sticks out is the sound is 360 degrees and it's a room filling 360 degrees sound there's other speakers that have this big great sound but they're only shooting that sound from the front so if you walk to the side of the speaker or behind them they're gonna sound completely different but that's not the case with the home pod the engineering they did you know all these years they spent to make this the best speaker at this size really it's an accomplishment and impressive and honestly it better be for three hundred and forty nine dollars so there's no denying this home pod sounds amazing but this is also really the most walled off Apple product we've ever seen so let's start off with Bluetooth there is no bluetooth streaming at all now that instantly eliminates every Android phone and non-iphone user from plane directly to the home pod from their phone also if you don't own an iPhone running iOS 11 you can't even set up the home pod so some of you running older iPhones I know some of you don't want to update to iOS 11 and I don't blame you it won't even work for you and this is when people say this isn't a product made for non Apple users I think that's a load of crap like why not Apple allows the air pods to work with Android even if they have some the less functionality the Apple music service works for just Android users and this is a speaker with Apple music like it only supports that service natively so come on they could have done something more it has Bluetooth I point oh and completely blocking on iPhone users that's a classic Apple dick move to me and don't think for one moment you know Apple was gonna include a 3.5 millimeter headphone jack on the home pod either because guess what they didn't all right you know you can stream third-party apps from your phone like Pandora Spotify and YouTube music over airplay to the home pod that's if you have an iPhone but Apple music is the only service that you can control with your voice on the home pod and at the time of this review airplay - that's still not ready which means the promise of using two home pods for stereo sound or even doing things like multi room speaker support that's still not available and there's another feature where they're trailing the rest of the industry okay so one of the kind of weird things about this when you set up the home pod you have to hold your phone near it and it's supposed to pair similar to how ear pods do by detecting and using the w1 chip unfortunately that process hasn't been easy sailing for everyone some people got blank white screens with a setup I had to reset my phone even reset the home pod just to make sure that prompt shows up so you might find that a little difficult also Android users with an Apple music subscription now if you've invested in this and you are an Android user you can actually use the home pod but it still needs an iPhone with iOS 11 you need to know someone that has that to initially set it up so once it's set up you can change the account in the home pod settings from an Apple ID to an Android Apple music one you can go in there change the credentials completely but at first none of my personally created playlist worked on it at all this is from my Android phone and I would say things it wouldn't pop up so what did I do I'm like okay let's reconnect the Apple ID account there all the play-offs that I have on my phone that I've saved in the cloud worked perfectly I went back to putting my android apple music account and then it works so I just want to let you know there might be some difficulty doing that but bottom line it does work for Android users Apple music does actually work again the sound is really apple's first priority they clearly nailed it but let's talk about this as a smart speaker now after using it and putting it through everything I possibly could I'm gonna just say this right now it's probably the dumbest speaker with an AI that you can get and I don't say that lightly it also lets break down some of these reasons so you understand what I'm trying to now everyone knows it's ridiculously behind Amazon echo and the Google home but Siri on the home pod can't even do the same things that Siri does on your phone now we know this home pod does messages notes and reminders you can add a note by voice if you want to but the home pod won't read your latest note it'll actually prompt you to look at it on your phone hey Siri read my last note you'll need to authenticate on iphone to continue see that's kind of annoying we also know the home pod doesn't support multiple users and can't distinguish between different voices like the competition it's really made to support one person right now and what do I mean by that well you probably saw the option during setup to turn on personal requests this lets you use messages reminders and notes with the home pod it also lets anyone else in the room do that as well now someone can send and hear your messages add reminders and notes without your knowledge whatsoever but if you leave the home or if you're out of range of your home pod and your phone leaves with you messages notes and reminders they don't work at all like the home pod just becomes this thing for general knowledge and music playing to Apple music and it can't even do general knowledge very well hey Siri tell me about Bruce Lee Bruce Lee is a town in West Baton Rouge Parish Louisiana you know hey Siri stop no it's not he's not so see check that out if your home people can mess around with some of your personal apps but when you're gone the whole pod becomes really extremely limited now speakerphone you would think at least the home pod could be a great speakerphone but again it's not you'll still have to make the call from your phone and then change the audio output to the home pod from your screen now you can't tell the home pod something like this hey Siri call Shawna sorry about that see that doesn't work as well now another part of this equation the smart speaker it's great in the kitchen right you can listen to music and you're cooking up a meal but still to this day Siri doesn't support multiple timers if you're cooking with something in the oven or you got something else boiling and other things just cooking you need multiple timers like this is basic so let's check this out hey Siri set a timer for 10 minutes 10 minutes and Counting okay let's do another one hey Siri set a timer for 30 minutes a timer is already running at nine minutes and 53 seconds would you like to replace it no okay it can't do it all right so that's another bummer and here's a fun fact for y'all it's not all bad if you want to pack this up and the cord is in the way if you're really willing to pull really hard you can just pop the power cable out from the home pod so we'll the whole pod get better yes it has really no other choice - but right now who is this for well number one if you're the diehard Apple user who's deep into this ecosystem you have an apple music subscription and you only really care about listening to music and you don't care about the smart home but hey say you might want to dabble with some lights and you're willing to spend 349 this is the product for you but the priority above all things would be listening to music number two let's say if you're not completely married to the Apple ecosystem you care about what the best tech product is no matter what the company is don't get a home pod number three if you're someone who's prioritizing the smart home the voice assistant and you like the ability to listen to music but it's just like kind of an added benefit you're better off looking at the echo or the Google home or the Sonos one the home pilot 349 this is not for you and number four if you're an Android phone user even if you have an Apple music subscription I'm gonna help you out right now by giving you a big Heil no to the home pot like this is not for you so that's my Apple home pod review this is just the start we'll see how it evolves over time there you go BT Z's Apple bite home pod take care you