The Apple Ecosystem Comes Home | Thingee’s Tech-Talk
Do you like to listen to music at home? We do. Whether we want a calming background sound or a dance party, the HomePod delivers great sound. Not just great sound like you’re used to with other speakers, this is really great sound. Ok, so what else does it do? Let’s see what Tech-Talk has to say.
If you are currently an iPhone customer it is shockingly easy to set up the HomePod. It’s a sync technology so just put your phone near to the device and it will transfer your Apple ID, music preferences (if using Apple Music), and even your Wifi password. That’s it, HomePod reads its own surrounding, so it can determine if it is near a wall or centrally located and adjusts the sound output to deliver it most optimally.
More than a fancy speaker though, HomePod is equipped with Siri. All the benefits of a digital personal assistant are available to you, plus, connection with any smart appliances you may have to help operate your home.
Here are some other features:
- Conference call speaker
- Use with AirPlay
- Use with AppleTV
- Usable even when the connected iPhone isn’t “home”
So again, HomePod is part of the Apple ecosystem and therefore has been designed to work easiest and best with Apple products. If you’re devoted to, or otherwise locked into Apple, this is an exciting new product with lots to offer.
What do you think about the latest Apple product release? Give us a call and let’s have a talk.
Jeff Bromley
jeff@thingee.com
973-644-9012
ext. 11
Tech-Talk brings you the latest tech advances to put you ahead of the curve. Look for future Tech-Talk posts, subscribe to our email list, and give Thingee a call to discuss how this new tech can help achieve your goals. One way to ensure you won’t miss any of our Talk-Talk video casts is to subscribe to our YouTube channel.
Video Transcript
- 00:00
- hey everybody Jeff brought me here from
- 00:01
- thingy and welcome back to Tech Talk
- 00:03
- where we talk about all things digital
- 00:04
- today we’re talking about the home pod I
- 00:07
- got back over here this this guy Apple
- 00:11
- has just released their next new product
- 00:13
- called the home pod you guys have surely
- 00:15
- heard about it in the news well we’ve
- 00:18
- actually had a chance to get one to open
- 00:20
- one up and start to use it and we’re
- 00:22
- gonna give you some of our first
- 00:23
- impressions here today so what do we
- 00:27
- like we’re gonna talk about what we like
- 00:28
- what we don’t like so what do we like
- 00:29
- speaker quality this thing is absolutely
- 00:32
- amazing sounds as good as actually a lot
- 00:37
- better than other Bluetooth speakers I
- 00:38
- have in my house from other major
- 00:40
- manufacturers sounds absolutely amazing
- 00:43
- the hey Siri responsiveness you could
- 00:47
- speak at an absolute normal volume and
- 00:49
- it picks you up with loud music so you
- 00:51
- could be talking to this thing across
- 00:52
- the room and she’ll be able to hear you
- 00:55
- while music is playing and be able to
- 00:58
- pick out that you’re speaking underneath
- 01:00
- all of that loud music that’s going on
- 01:01
- it’s absolutely amazing you got to try
- 01:03
- it like all Apple products this set up
- 01:07
- was an absolute dream when I got my home
- 01:11
- pod out at home my phone automatically
- 01:14
- recognized that I was sitting right next
- 01:15
- to it and asked me on screen would you
- 01:17
- like to set up your home pod now I
- 01:19
- tapped a button said hold set up my home
- 01:21
- pod I think there was one or two other
- 01:23
- buttons like it asked me about something
- 01:24
- about iCloud and I hit yes and this
- 01:27
- thing was up and running within about I
- 01:29
- don’t know a minute it was super simple
- 01:32
- so super kudos to Apple for just making
- 01:35
- it that easy to set up and oh one other
- 01:39
- thing you can use home pod as a
- 01:42
- speakerphone so when you’re in an actual
- 01:44
- phone call and you get the audio prompts
- 01:46
- you get you know how you get your audio
- 01:48
- targets where you could select your
- 01:49
- Bluetooth speaker you can actually
- 01:50
- select and change this to home pot it
- 01:52
- will work as an actual Bluetooth speaker
- 01:55
- so it is pretty amazing from that
- 01:57
- perspective so what don’t we like so one
- 02:02
- of the challenges that I have is when I
- 02:04
- say hey Siri you can see that my phone
- 02:09
- popped up and then she popped up behind
- 02:11
- me she wants to take control
- 02:13
- now there are certain things that I want
- 02:15
- to be able to do on my phone and be able
- 02:16
- to use functionality that is here and I
- 02:19
- know with cloud some of the things that
- 02:20
- are set up but if I want to use it to
- 02:22
- make a phone call to have it from here
- 02:24
- it should be that easy or if I want to
- 02:27
- make a FaceTime call or whatever so
- 02:28
- there are certain issues about having
- 02:31
- these in similar proximity where you may
- 02:33
- get some conflicts when you use her name
- 02:38
- lack of music service integration this
- 02:41
- is a challenge I know that there’s a lot
- 02:43
- of other music services that are out
- 02:45
- there that people have used like Pandora
- 02:48
- Spotify Amazon tune in and the list goes
- 02:50
- on and on and on Apple is basically
- 02:54
- giving you two choices one Apple music
- 02:57
- to stream from your iPhone or other
- 03:00
- Apple device so that’s pretty much it
- 03:03
- that isn’t a problem for me but if you
- 03:05
- don’t participate in the Apple ecosystem
- 03:07
- this might be challenging for you to use
- 03:10
- as a speaker you will absolutely need
- 03:11
- airplay and you’ll app or Apple music so
- 03:14
- some of the conclusions we have from a
- 03:16
- readiness perspective this thing kicks
- 03:17
- ass it is a it is an amazing device
- 03:20
- sounds really good works really well
- 03:23
- from an audio perspective in the future
- 03:26
- hopefully Apple will be adding a ton
- 03:29
- more features right but right now it is
- 03:30
- too soon to even think about what
- 03:32
- they’re gonna be adding I know that
- 03:33
- they’re adding some of the stereo stuff
- 03:34
- but we’ll see how extensible this device
- 03:38
- is going to be so what I say right now
- 03:40
- is stay tuned for future updates on the
- 03:42
- air pod and until next time I’m Jeff
- 03:45
- Bromley