Gadgetory

hey what is up guys I'm kitty HD here and in this box is one of the least anticipated new Apple products in a long time it was announced back in June of 2017 and it's been a couple months it got delayed now it's February of the next year 2018 and it's finally shipping and it's in our hands it's the home pod and now that it's here let's see what it's all about so this is Apple's entry into the sort of a newish smart speaker market it's pretty late obviously but this is what they've come up with it's a 350 dollar tissue box sized mesh cylinder that actually has some really excellent hardware so setting it up is pretty simple it has that w1 chip inside so you just get your iPhone somewhere near it and it shows up on your screen you name what room it's in and then you set it up in about a minute like the air Potts did so that's definitely the Apple advantage for easy pairing and setup of an accessory the weird thing is it didn't add it to my iMac or other computers as a speaker I kind of wish I could have tried to use the home pod as a speaker for my iMac but you can't oh well classic Apple but the hardware is clean and super Apple II especially this white one it's just this fabric bulb that sits in your living room or on a table or wherever you decide to put it a little screen up in the circle at the top and all that has is your volume controls and a little Siri indicator that lights up when you're using it the cable as you've probably seen is built in it's technically removable with like a lot of effort so it's pretty clear Apple doesn't want you doing that that's more for like a technician working on it after the fact but most other speakers have removable cables so that's kind of interesting this one is a high quality sleeved cable though so I'm not mad and if you ever pick up and hold a home pod because of the 3d fabric it's kind of squishy just a little I don't know why it ever pick up a speaker but it's true the one weird thing that with this hardware is it kind of has this seam on it it's not easy to see but you can kind of make it out it's on a different place on my two different home pods so I honestly have no idea why it's there you would think they would always put that seam on the back by the cord instead of on the side maybe I'm just being picky I don't know I've seen some tear downs but I'm sure Jerry rigged everything we'll have an answer for us soon enough on why that seam is there but once it's set up there's a lot of talk about the things home pod can do versus what it can't do it's supposed to be a smart speaker and I say it's supposed to be and I put it in air quotes because there's a lot of things that when you compare it to Google home or Amazon Alexa it just doesn't do but the things it does do it does really well and really quickly so the inside of pod is a little different it's seven tweeters all facing out from the middle and one woofer at the top firing upwards so in theory is creating this sort of at 360 degrees sound that you can hear the same from any direction around the home pod and then it also does this bit of analysis using six built-in microphones to figure out how close it is to things around like a wall or an open space it analyzes that space and then it adjusts the levels to sound best from every angle no matter where you are so it's kind of like this smart sound analysis mostly to not overwhelm me with bass but the home pod isn't overly bass heavy in the first place it's super balanced it does great instrument separation and honestly it overall sounds excellent especially for the size it's only a little bigger than a normal Google home which I think a lot of people forget about it's really small but it gets really loud I've listened to a lot of different music on these different smart speakers lately and this is in fact the best sounding one some people have debated about it versus Google home max the home max gets louder for sure at a hundred percent volume it's almost too loud but it also distorts a lot at that volume and the bass is overwhelming so you pretty much have to go outside to enjoy it that loud home pod does not get as loud but at a hundred percent volume it sounds really really good and again its unique being that sort of a circular 360-degree sound and most people put a speaker that's pretty directional near a wall or a corner anyway but you kind of get an extra bit of confidence if you can put this on a table or anywhere in a room and it'll sound just as good hey Siri play alta sure here's a personalized station abouta so the array of microphones listening for your voice is excellent it can hear you pretty much all the time from across the room when music is playing loud it's been great at that but again what it comes down to is what home pod can do and what home pod can't do it can play music through Apple music so you can ask Siri to play a song or playlist or play the radio and if you're an Apple music subscriber it's hooked up to your iPhone and it'll work but let's say you're one of the 70 million people who uses Spotify and not Apple music yes technically it can work kinda you can airplay from Spotify to a home pod but then your voice controls don't work as well you can't ask first certain song or a certain playlist you can go forward and backwards in your tracklist but that's about it it's not ideal but from their home pod can do pretty much anything Siri does so if you want to ask it questions like who is this person how tall is this person some weather trivia some spelling your classic things like that it can handle that you can also set reminders so if you ask it to take out the garbage at three o'clock it'll do that and it'll set a reminder in your reminders app on your iPhone hey Siri who's James Harden James Harden currently plays shooting guard for the Rockets hey Siri how tall is he James Harden is six feet five inches tall hey Siri what's the weather in Honolulu tomorrow the forecast is calling for thunderstorms in Honolulu Hawaii tomorrow the high will be 78 degrees and the low will be 66 it can also read your last text message out loud or send a text and we'll get to that in a second but it also can turn on and off homekit enabled lights it can connect to Evernote it's about it but here's what it can't do so for all the great microphones that are in home pod it can hear my voice from across the room it can't distinguish my voice from your voice so if you have a home podding you've been watching this video i've probably triggered your as multiple times because it thinks we're all one voice so that means anyone who's in the room with you and your home pod can ask it to read your texts out loud or send a text message for you because it thinks it's you so if you're not into that you definitely want to uncheck this show personal info tab either during the setup or after the setup you can change it but that's just a weird quirk about home pod you would think with mics so good and with Apple software so good it should be able to tell our voices apart home pod also cannot ever connect to anything that's not an iPhone it can't be used as a Bluetooth speaker and there's no audio jacks so you can't plug anything in to use its audio quality for anything other than an iPhone you also cannot set Spotify as your default music player anytime you ask it to play something via your voice it will have to be Apple music you cannot connect two of them together as a stereo pair yet that's apparently I've heard coming in a software update but as of right now you can connect to Google home maxes together as a stereo pair doesn't happen with home pod yet you can't order products online you can't food online you can't call an uber or a lift with it you can't have it read calendar events or set any calendar events you can't set multiple timers at the same time only one at a time which seems like something you would do in a kitchen with a smart speaker you can't have it make phone calls by your voice again that's something you have to setup on your phone and then airplay to the home pod you can't look up a recipe you can't use Find My Phone the list goes on and on there's so many things at home pod when you compared to other smart speakers just doesn't do so in conclusion home pod is a weird product it's 349 bucks right now which means you can compare it to other smart speakers like Google home or Amazon Alexa or some other dedicated speaker systems like Sonos it sounds better than any other Bluetooth speaker it sounds better than the other smart speakers and honestly it sounds better than a lot of the dedicated sound systems like a Sonos the audio engineering that went into this thing the clarity the instrument separation the bass response the 360-degree sound is next-level the engineers should be proud of this but in terms of smartness smartness Siri versus Alexa or Google home not even close so you've probably heard this conclusion before but if you're in the Apple ecosystem meaning you use an iPhone you use Siri a lot and you're an Apple music subscriber then this is the best sounding smart speaker that you can get but in most cases honestly you're gonna be better off buying a much smarter speaker that can do way more that sounds almost as good it really feels like getting a home pod right now and using it a lot just magnifies everything that's wrong with Siri and all series shortcomings so the engineering team that made it sound so good they should totally make a separate $350 Apple speaker with a headphone jack that anyone can connect to and that would do well in some competitive world but for now if you're in the market for a smart speaker I'd say shop around watch some other reviews this isn't the first choice until then thanks for watching talk to guys the next one taste