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