New HomePods Haha

I am really enjoying the recent romance between the tech media and HomePods. People appear to be replacing their surround systems with a pair of HomePods because of how good Dolby atoms is on the HomePods.

Note: I have not personally tested the new HomePods, and currently I do not see any reason to do so. Isn’t it cool that my job doesn’t require me to review every product Apple release 😝

If it suits your use case, go for it. Here’s why it’s not for me:

• the first iteration had scarred me and Apple appeared to do the minimum to relaunch these
• As a stereo pair for my study, they were terrible at best. Latency from videos as annoying and constant disconnect from the Mac was frustrating. I have my KEF connected via USB-C to my MacBook and my god they work very well. No latency. Response time is instant when pausing/skipping music etc. I cannot say the same about the HomePods/minis
• Siri has improved but will always be 3rd best smart assistant depending on your needs. For me, I tend to use smart assistants sparingly (for timers mostly)

Most importantly, Apple cannot defy physics and cannot replace a 5 speaker surround system. Even if it could, I am still very much old school. I prefer a wired connection to avoid any latency and compression of the audio.

Perhaps, in the future, there will be a HomePod or two in my home. Today, I have zero HomePods. Not even a HomePod mini.

I have many Sonos speakers and a pair of beautiful KEF speakers. They support AirPlay and work very well even as multi room surround.

I won’t be fooled again into thinking this is some magical speaker just because Apple made it.

This proverb comes to mind:

Fool Me Once, Shame on You; Fool Me Twice, Shame on Me

Apologies for the abrupt ending… My wife very loudly advised me that I have not done any of my house chores this weekend….