Apple’s HomePod arrives in homes today. It’s already sold out online, but if you’re lucky you might still snap one up in an Apple store. And you probably should, because the HomePod looks to be just about the best small speaker you can buy — in terms of musical performance, anyway.
If you want to find out how to set up and get the best of your new HomePod, or if you want to read a bit more before deciding whether to get one, you’re in the right place. Below you’ll find all our HomePod coverage: how-tos, reviews, tips and opinions.
HomePod how-tos
Photo: Apple/Charlie Sorrel/Cult of Mac
The Basics:
How to connect HomePod to your Apple TV
The HomePod makes a great speaker for watching TV and movies. Here’s how to hook it up to your Apple TV using AirPlay.
Here’s how you’ll update your HomePod software
Apple will issue software updates for HomePod with important bug fixes, performance improvements and (hopefully) new features. Here’s how you will update yours.
These are the touch gestures you can use with HomePod
Forget Siri — the easiest way to control the HomePod is by tapping it. Here are the touch gestures you can use with Apple’s new speaker.
HomePod in the House:
How to control your smart home with HomePod
One of HomePod’s most underrated features is the ability to control HomeKit enabled devices, making it a hub for your smart home.
How to stop HomePod from marking your fancy furniture
The silicone bottom of the HomePod doesn’t play well with some wooden furniture pieces and leaves behind a white ring. Apple confirmed this can be expected but there are a few tricks you can use to prevent it from happening.
Music:
How to stream music to anybody’s HomePod
A HomePod pairs itself with one single iPhone, but it can have a fling with others thanks to AirPlay. And with peer-to-peer AirPlay, you don’t even have to give away your home Wi-Fi password.
How to control Apple Music and HomePod with Siri
HomePod is completely controlled by Siri, so you should get to know all the commands you can use to play organize your music. (These tricks all work on your iPhone, too.)
HomePod reviews and opinions
Video Reviews:
HomePod unboxing video: First look at Apple’s smart speaker
Take a video tour of what’s in the HomePod box, see just how easy it is to set up, and watch Apple’s new smart speaker get put through the paces. A HomePod first look.
HomePod Review: Sounds great but you’re locked in
If you’re already invested in Apple’s ecosystem and you love music, then HomePod is well worth your money. It is an amazing speaker with sound quality you won’t find anywhere else in its price range.
Expert Analysis:
HomePod meta review: Superb sound, stupid Siri
The first HomePod reviews rave about the sound quality. However, Siri and the lack of support for third-party apps hold back Apple’s smart speaker. A HomePod reviews roundup.
Pro-grade acoustic tests show HomePod is indeed superior
Professional grade acoustic tests appear to confirm that the HomePod is indeed the real deal as far as speakers go.
Is HomePod love at first listen? It’s complicated.
High-quality audio is the signature feature of Apple’s new HomePod. Will it meet your ears’ expectations? A HomePod first listen.
Opinions:
Why Apple’s HomePod smart speaker is poised to bomb
Cult of Mac‘s Buster Hein explains why he thinks $350 is too much to pay for the best AirPlay speaker available. (And he rags on Siri.)
Why HomePod is actually a steal at $349
Cult of Mac‘s Killian Bell argues that Buster knows nothing, and reports that audiophiles reckon you’d need to spend “in excess of $85,000” to get something as good as the HomePod.
Why you should spend $39 on AppleCare+ for HomePod
The out-of-warranty service fee on the HomePod costs nearly as much as a brand new HomePod. Make sure to get AppleCare+ incase an accident happens.
Why audiophiles compare HomePod to $85,000 speakers
The CultCast team discusses the HomePod.
HomePod news and analysis
Photo: The Loop
Get Apple’s official HomePod user guide right now
This handy guide is a full-on user manual that covers everything from setup to controlling your home using the HomePod and Siri (and even excluding your teenagers’ music from your listening history). Here are the highlights.
Peek inside the lab that perfected HomePod audio
To promote the launch of its new HomePod speaker, Apple gave journalists a behind-the-scenes look inside the custom audio lab it built to fine-tune every aspect of HomePod’s sound. Not only did Apple one of the best audio teams in the world, but it also gave them tools no company in the world can match.
Apple confirms supported audio sources for HomePod
HomePod can get audio from any app on your iPhone via AirPlay, but it can also play music from several sources direct.
HomePod will play music from your iTunes Match library
You’ll need an Apple Music subscription to make the most of HomePod. But new details that have emerged since the device went on sale last week suggest you’ll be able to play tracks in your iTunes Match library, too.
HomePod version of Siri comes with big limitations
Based on early reviews and leaked info, it appears that Apple has seriously crippled Siri on the new HomePod speaker and removed some features, making it vastly different than the version of Siri that lives on your iPhone.
Charlie Sorrel writes reviews and how-tos. Follow Charlie on Twitter at @mistercharlie, and at micro.blog on @mistercharlie
67 responses to “Everything you need to know about HomePod”
I have an Invoke paid $200 then it went on sale for 99… had I known I would have waited because at 99 its a good buy at 200? Knowing it dropped to 99 I feel I paid too much. It has great sound Harmon Karden… so that part like the Home pod is fine they canceled Groove streaming so no I use I heart and its fine. As for the Cortana AI I finally ordered my Easy Order at dominos pretty cool.
Do I like it sure, better at $99…can’t imaging spending 349
The Invoke’s aren’t going to sound very good In comparison. come on. Those Invoke Speakers are probably more like the Amazon Echo, which we already know suck as far as a speaker is concerned.
The Invokes sound great it not an ECHO… Harmon Kardon gets sound
I doubt that. Do you know who is one of Apple’s main audio engineers? Tomlinson Holman. DO you know who he is? He’s the chief designer of THX, that’s what the TH stands for. It’s his initials. They also have a former technology engineer from Dolby Labs as well as an audio DSP engineer. Trust me, they know what they are doing.
Now, as far as Harmon? Nah, they don’t really get great audio. Harmon bought several high end stereo mfg. Mark Levinson, Revel, Lexicon, and Infinity, but when they bought those companies, they lost their best engineers. But that’s not Harmon Kardon. Harmon Kardon has done NOTHING to prove they know high end audio, they are low end consumer audio.
I doubt anyone would pick an Invoke over a HomePod if blindfolded. You would if you knew what it was because you are obviously a fanboy of Harmon and an anti-Apple fan. But if you were blindfolded and you didn’t know which was which? You’d pick the HomePod.
…until i saw the price
Aren’t you the life of the party? Bespin, I come from a background having bought and listened to many systems over the years that are considered HIGH END.
Just to let you in on a little inside secret. Spending $350 on a speaker is considered cheap and for someone on a limited budget. So if spending $350 on a speaker is in the stratosphere, then you need to get a better job and maybe hang around some high end audio stores and see/hear what’s out on the market that’s beyond your $100 speaker.
Now, if $350 is a lot of money for you, that only tells me that A. You are a young person that doesn’t have much money. Which is understandable.
B. You are an adult that doesn’t have much money. Again, understandable.
C. REALLY clueless about anything about serious audio gear, which is also understandable.
But there is a whole other world beyond your small micro-environment for which you live in. Some of us, have been around VERY expensive audio gear, which is mfg. by hundreds and hundreds of companies that don’t sell through the typical computer store. Computer stores is typically where you find the low fi products. Specialty audio stores is where the expensive stuff is. $350 for a speaker is still VERY inexpensive, and still on a small budget.
But constantly making immature comments about something that’s really not that expensive is getting old, tired, worn out and I think you need to find. yourself something more productive for yourself and those that read your comments.
With your next immature comment, the most you’ll get out of me is a YAWN.
Lets get serious homepod is a small speaker and NOT to be compared to expensive real speakers
It’s a high end low end speaker.. So out of the low end speakers on the market, it’s amongst the highest quality sound. It’s been tested against every smart speaker in terms of sound quality, and it’s the best rated. It’s rates better than the larger, more expensive Google Home Max. it’s been rated as better than even some of the Sonos speakers, as well as anything coming out of Amazon and that silly thing you bought. Apple’s not going to have to drop the price by 50% in order to move inventory like Harmon had to do.
For some people, it’s all they need or want, and at $350, they don’t mind spending the money on it.
For 350 its overpriced and possibly marginally better sounding than the Invoke notice they did not test it against the Invoke. So the Invoke at 99 is hands down dollar for dollar a much better buy considering the fact it has a much better AI and much better connectivity options. Also looks a whole lot better.
Sound is like most things good enough is all anyone needs. Heck Apple was the champion of MP3 in iPod and its 90% loss off data. So its funny they tout sound as a thing. No one cares. Only card carrying fanboi would even consider a HomePod.
It’s not as expensive as the McIntosh Labs RS100, which is $1,000 per speaker, so your way of looking at this is just from a “I don’t have any money standpoint.”. Yeah, you don’t have enough money, so for you, it’s overpriced, but the reality is this. If something is overpriced it’s based on the market. If people aren’t buying the product at the offered price point, then it’s overpriced, But, if it’s selling at the offered price point, then it’s priced to the market. Obviously, the market dictated that the Invoke was overpriced at $200, and $99 is the right price because they have unsold inventory they are trying to get rid of. Harmon just got sold off to Samsung and they are probably dumping as much unsold inventory they can, trying to figure out what products they are going to sell and not sell.
Begone Bespin. You sound like a very bitter, jealous person that has nothing better to do but to troll around bashing Apple.
I have plenty of money and perhaps the way I think is why. I chose for well over a decade to put 18% of my pay away into many quality investments and refinanced my so cal ocean view house to take years off of payments and will have that fully paid off in 20 versus 30 years saving well over 90K at 2.71%.
Now that my financial acumen is known, the home pod is way overpriced and offers limited functionality tied to expensive apple ecosystem
In essence, everything apple makes is overpriced, this is especially evident in a pudgy home speaker and apple tv both are underwhelming.
Buying apple is not a good financial decision at all.
Then go enjoy your beach house while it’s still around and stop posting such hate filled comments. People will buy whatever they are going to buy and you aren’t going to change people’s minds. You like Microsoft and Android eco systems. I don’t.. I used Microsoft ecosystem for years and learned to hate it. I won’t even deal with Android because it has inherent flaws that aren’t going to be resolved anytime in the near future. And you still using that Windows phone that’s now been reduced to trash since Microsoft abandoned selling Smartphones? WOW. Talk about getting stung by Microsoft. And you think that was a good buying decision?
You obviously don’t factor in trade in value towards old apple products when getting a new one. Either way, people use what they like using and they justify the price by the lessor amount of headaches or hassle.
I used Windows for about 10+ years and it got to the point where I just hated using them, setting them up, having to administrate them and they just cost more of my time. Even IBM found that out and they are saving money with Apple’s eco system, so obviously there are others that disagree with you.
True there is a subset of users that will pay extra because they have all along. Those users may buy a 349 home pod outside of those users those the home pod is a non-starter. You have been away from windows for a decade seems like so your opinion is jaded. I on the other hand use my wife’s unused ipad 3 to monitor my Wyze camera and see what ios offers.
IBM and Apple (and cisco) are partnering to try to counter AWS and Azure so of course they will speak “highly” of apple. While enterprises and countries laugh.
I do use my 3yo 950 what about it? Probably best pictures of your ios phone and does everything I need it to.
The average apple customer does not factor “trade in” that a fanboi thing, the average apple customer waits until the phone ceases to function even accepts cracked screens.
Are my comments hate filled or is the home pod simply way overpriced an this is the reality?
I said I used Windows for OVER a decade. But I still check them out just to see if anything has changed. I still can’t stand the UI with Windows. I have friends that owned various versions of Windows. like Windows 7, 8 and 10, and they’ve come to me to get their computer working when they can’t figure it out, and as far as I’m concerned, not much has changed. It’s still not that great of an OS. There are a couple of things here and there that I like about the UI, but I found ways to enhance macOS to do the same thing. Other than that. Windows is just a different facade around the same crap underneath and it’s still has a long way to go before I’d ever reconsidering it again. I just don’t think the UI is very intuitive.
The HomePod is only overpriced if you THINK it is, but the market dictates that, not you. You only dictate that for YOU, not the market. I’m not YOU. I’m me and I am still doing my research to find out what I will end up with, but I won’t be getting a freaking Invoke.
Huh? I use my iPhones for about 3 to 3.5 years before I trade in and I usually get $300 back for it. Even my iPhone 4 that I only paid $400, I got $300 credit for a 6+, and then I traded in the 6+ 3 years later for an 8+. Never have I had a cracked screen, I get a screen protector and a protective case and I take care of them well, so I have never had a single problem with any of the iPhone’s I’ve purchased. Haven’t had to replace a battery in any Apple product. Not even my laptop, which I use constantly, and it’s now going on 4 years old. I’m getting ready to buy a new laptop so when the new MacBoo Pros come out, I’ll probably buy one of those, and I already have a buyer lined up for my existing laptop, so I’ll give them a decent deal on it, and still get back a decent amount of money.
IBM has proven that they save tons of money using Macs over PCs. Through a 4 year lease program that they there is no difference in how much they pay for a more expensive Mac vs a PC of similar specs. The price of the Mac is more, but they get back a higher price at the end of the lease term, so it ends up being a wash, but the real savings IBM sees is the deployment, support and costs associated with dealing with Macs vs PCs on a large scale. Even IBM Japan has ditched Windows and now Macs are the standard issue laptop. IBM has to hire Admin people and they have to hire PCs admin at a rate of 1 per 242 PCs. Macs? they have 1 admin person per every 5,000 Apple devices and they have higher customer satisfaction ratings from their employees on the Mac side. Macs have far less problems, their Mac users don’t have to constantly have a PC tech visit them to get their computer up and running and all of that support costs is WAY cheaper for them to have Apple products vs Windows and Android.
This a real world example of a large scale implementation with people analyzing every cost they have to deal with so they can properly determine how much it costs them to use Macs vs PCs. Sorry if the truth hurts, but this a far more detailed and analyzed comparison than you’ll ever do.
No one is expecting HomePod’s to completely take over the industry and Apple’s not expecting that either. It’s aimed directly at Apple Music subscribers, because they have 36 Billion paid subscribers and that’s growing.
Well,, you r 950 isn’t going to last forever and when you do have to replace it, good luck in getting anyone to pay you a dime for it since Windows phones are dead. So, now you are going to have to buy either an iPhone or an Android phone and relearn everything you know about using your smartphone and then you are going to have to deal with integrating either phone with your Windows computer.
You don’t know what the average Apple customer factors in. I factor it in because I either sell off my old device to someone that I know, or I trade it in. Other people factor in the trade in price, but not all.
Actually, the average iPhone user trades it in since most iPhone users trade in their phone within 1 to 3 years depending on their financial situation and what kind of deal they can get. I know some iPhone users that upgrade yearly, some every 2 years, some every 3 years. But it’s typically between 1 and 3 years with an average of 2.
IBM has a large customer base and they added Apple to their platforms within the company is what I was referring to. That was completely separate from what they sell to their customers. IBM had employees they need to hire and they were getting more and more people wanting Apple products, so they opened it up to allowing the employee choosing what they want rather than them dictating, which is how the PC industry got so much market share. Moving forwards, large companies are adopting a different model for their employee, some force PCs onto their employees, and some have BYOD, and some give the employee a choice. It has NOTHING to do with their partnership with Apple. That’s a totally different partnership. It was their IT Admin person that’s trying to serve his “customers’ which are IBM employees. It was the brainwashed mentality like yourself which prevented Apple from selling to companies like IBM, but it took someone AT IBM to talk to Apple, find out what they are doing internally and they found out they use far less support people internally per employee (user) than IBM was. Walmart did a similar evaluation and they also found out Macs were less costly for them to use than PCs and now Walmart is going to deploy about 100,000 Macs over the next year. Cisco has had 30% of their employees using Macs for many years now.
So your assumption is totally 100% wrong. it has to do with what makes sense for their own business and what their users want, which platform costs less, etc. Plus, if someone gets a Mac and still wants to run Windows, they can, and all they need is a license, and they split the drive into two partitions.
It’s your misinformed perspective and you simply being a Microsoft fanboy trolling for attention because you have nothing better to do. You are also making a LOT of assumptions and using fallacious reasoning.
Again, if a product is overpriced is based on the market, not one person. One person can only dictate if something is overpriced for them self and NO ONE ELSE. Most people think that anything they can’t afford is overpriced. Or you are just someone that thinks that everything that Apple makes is overpriced because you don’t like their products. Well, I think Microsoft has been ripping people off with their licensing of their OS and applications. How many times do I have to pay for Microsoft Office? Over the years, I’ve had to pay for Office at least 2 or 3 times. Talk about a rip off, and there wasn’t that much of a difference to warrant spending the money on it. I should only have to pay for the first copy of it, and then maybe a paltry amount for an upgrade from an older version to a newer version. I don’t even have to use Office anymore since I get Numbers for Free with my Apple products and it runs Excel files just fine and I don’t NEED to pay Microsoft for Office anymore.
But you are trying to do what Microsoft does which is try to brainwash others into forcing YOUR mentality onto others. Why do you bother going to Apple centric sites in the first place? You should be asking yourself why you do that? If I was interesting in something Windows, then I’d go to a Windows centric site.
You need to find something else to do, you don’t even realize that your efforts aren’t being listened to because no one was asking you for your opinion, as misguided and myopic as it is.
Ipad 3? That is old, outdated since it’s a 32 Bit processor and Apple has officially moved away from 32 Bit code for iOS. That’s a 6 year old tablet. What’s the matter with you? You can’t even run IOS 10 with that, nor can you load most of the newer Apps with that old of a device.
Its old yet still works fine has 9.3.5 on it, I would not waste money on another one that would instead be better spent on a Surface whatever
But nothing runs in 32 Bit mode. You are behind the times pal. Surface? You have to spend 2x the price of an iPad to get something decent with an Orafice Pro. Plus software for Windows is more expensive.
And you have to get a subscription for virus protection with Windows.
I use my iPad Pro all of the time, but I also use my MacBookPro and sometimes I actually use both at the same time, believe it or not. It’s all what you prefer using. Surface Pros are WAY too expensive for what you actually get, WAY overpriced. At least go for something that’s cheaper.
I know the 3rd gen iPads still will work, but it’s 32 Bit, software is now 64 Bit, so how can you tell what’s on the iOS platform? Isn’t that what you said? How can you see what software is available, when most of it won’t run on 32bit processors? Sounds like you are lying.
Go run along and play with your Surface and stop bothering people. If anyone here was interested in anything regarding Windows, then we’d go to a Windows centric site.
Please stop your trolling. you are wasting everyone’s time here.
Not wasting anyone’s time… is the home pod not outrageously priced and tied to apple eco? That money much better spent on other.
Is it outrageously priced? Not really, not for what’s inside the box. From a superficial standpoint of just looking at the outside, it’s not that big, but if you look on the inside and what they are actually doing, it’s priced about right. As far as being tied to Apple’s Eco system? Yes and no. Of course it’s tied to Apple’s eco system, what is apple doing to do ignore their own eco system? Your Invoke only supported Microsoft’s eco system but because they sucked at their own streaming service, they had to shift gears as they shut down their own Streaming service and support Spotify. But I wanted to stream Spotify to the HomePOd, all I have to do is have Spotify on my iPhone or iPad and launch the Spotify app and AirPlay it over to the HomePod. Yes, it’s more functional with Siri with Apple Music, but it’s not completely shutting out other streaming services or other methods of playing music.
Microsoft typically does the same thing, and sometimes even worse. Google does the same thing. Even Samsung does it to a certain extent.
ALL companies that develop, maintain, and support their own eco system ALWAYS support and tie their products to their own ECOSYSTEM first and foremost. Then, if they can, they then focus on other ecosystems second. Stop blaming Apple for something that others do.
Does your Invoke support Apple Music? NOPE. So for Apple Music subscribers, your Invoke is WORTHLESS. and it’s pretty much not getting much attention at all in the media. They typically compare Amazon, Google and Apple smart speakers and not Cortana smart speakers as much and it’s probably because they don’t sell well. You are the first person that I have run into that actually bought one and willing to admit it.
Oh, I was watching a comparison between the Invoke, Play 1, Google Home Max, HomePod and Amazon Show. There was an audience of about 7 people, and 1 person liked the Google Home Max, there were about 3 people that liked the HomePod the best and then there was 1 or 2 that was split between the Google Home Max and HomePod, and I think 1 person liked the Amazon Show. NO ONE liked the Sonos Play 1, and NO ONE liked the Invoke in that comparison with a small group of people. They played the same song at approximately the same volume level. While I know it’s not a 100%scientific eval, but it does prove that the Google Home Max and HomePod are the two winners in listening tests. The problem with the Google Home Max is size, price, and it does start to distort when you crank it up to full volume. The HomePod doesn’t distort.
I wonder what you would have voted for if you were blindfolded and they had 5 different speakers to compare. I highly doubt you could pick out the Invoke out of a batch of 5 speakers and think it’s the better sounding unit.
The thing with speakers is you have to like how they sound, if you don’t, then over the course of owning them, you won’t spend much time listening to them. You do at first because it’s the honeymoon phase, but if the system isn’t that great sounding, then you’ll spend less time listening to them. THat’s where people will get the most value. If they listen to them a lot. If the average person likes it and listens to it for 4 years and spends at least an hour or two, then they get more value out it than if they spent $100 on something they ended up not listening that much. either you get value out of by using it or you don’t.
People simply don’t sit around listening to music over speakers lets get real. First off the likelihood your neighbors will get po’d is high next the likelihood others in the room don’t care is high. So investing 349 in a speaker is lame.
I do. I don’t use headphones or earbuds when I’m at home. I work at home and I listen to music all of the time. I am also a musician that does spend time listening to songs learning what’s being played so I do spend a LOT of time listening to speakers. I just don’t need anything that expensive for my bedroom and for me, $350 isn’t a big deal. I could spend more, but the other aspect is size. If I could have a bigger box on my night table, then I’d get the Elac Discovery Z3 at $500. it’s kicks all of these smart speakers a$$es in terms of sound quality, it just isn’t a smart speaker and it’s kind of a large foot print. But I want something small that has a decent sound quality and since I live in an Apple ecosystem, buying something that doesn’t work with Apple’s ecosystem is a waste of money. there’s plenty of other speakers that do support AirPLay or I could get one that also supports PlayFi, but I would have to use that app and that’s more of a pain in the a$$ to deal with my library.
I wish I could set up my other system in my bedroom, but it takes up too much room and I can’t crank it up that loudly, if I could, I wouldn’t even think about using anything else. That’s why I am interested in the HomePod. And no, Apple isn’t expecting everyone that uses an Apple product to run out and buy one. They are probably expecting a couple of million units in the first year and Apple has over 1 billion iOS devices in service. So they are probably only estimating a small percentage of Apple users to buy one.
very niche use …as a musician you have special needs. The average person does not sit around listening to music in the open for the reasons I listed earlier. As such a speaker is used occasionally and in reality any Anker BT is approximately as good as the Invoke or HomePod for 35 bucks again for the average person. The smarts of either Home pod or Invoke are limited and even the Echo is marginally more than a bunch of scripted commands.
The future will be ambient computing its just painful and expensive to get there
There’s a lot of people that just want a small speaker that sounds good to have music playing in their home/apartment. Maybe you don’t because it sounds like you aren’t much of a music lover and definitely not someone that cares about sound quality either.
Ambient computing? Whatever that means.
Average consumers want something small, simple to operate/setup, and sounds “good enough”. But what happens is when something comes out that the masses get exposed to, they sometimes change their mind. The average person doesn’t do to audio specialty stores and plunk down $1000 or more on a stereo, but there is a fair amount that do. Obviously the more you spend the less number of people buying that type of product, but there are more wealthier people and when you have lots of money at your disposal, people tend to want nice home theater systems and stereo systems. That’s why there are literally thousands of companies spiitting out speakers that sell anywhere from $200 a pair on up to $1 Million for a pair of speakers.
But Apple does tend to cater to a higher income type of consumer and spending $350 isn’t really a lot of money, especially when you factor in that Apple sold about 30 or 40 million smartphones last quarter that were over $1,000 a phone. That means they have PLENTY of customers that won’t think that $350 is a lot of money. You obviously don’t fit in that demographic, like most people don’t but they certainly a large enough demographic that does have plenty of disposable income and $350 for a speaker isn’t a big deal. I’ve already talked to some that want by multiple units for each bedroom and for the kitchen living room area.
Stop looking at this from a myopic standpoint. You don’t represent the entire market.
Ok who are these people that 350 is not a lot? I am considered a Millionaire and 350 is still a lot. This thinking people with money are stupid and buy everything just because they can is ridiculous. I can speak for myself thats stupid and you never know when you’ll need your savings.
I think many just have no financial sense and those throwing around 350 on home pods likely seriously lack in other areas of finance…not to mention 1000 iPhones.
I can by a Mercedes cash , I don’t thats stupid.
You don’t place any importance on sound quality, that’s why spending anymore than $100 on a speaker is a lot of money to you. What’s trash to one person is gold to another. It’s all based on one’s perception and what they put a value on. Just like if you were on a deserted island, who would be worth more, you, the millionaire that has no food, or someone that’s poor that has a McDonald’s happy meal? You’ll pay ANYTHING for that Happy meal since there’s no other food to eat. That Happy meal becomes valuable, doesn’t it.
$350 is insignificant to someone like you that’s about to dump $70K or so on a new Mercedes. Heck, you’ll pay more for the one with the better stereo and trust me, the markup on factory car stereos is about the biggest ripoff, yet you are paying outrageous prices for that car stereo.
You settle for less than second best when it comes to your stereo, did you do the same with your wife too? If you are buying a Mercedes for cash, why don’t you buy a Bentley? Not as many people own those and then you can really spend your money on a fine motorcar. Mercedes are a dime a dozen, anyone can buy one and act rich.
Many people think it’s stupid to spend a lot of money on a new car that’s going to depreciate 20% in the first year. You’ll lose more money if you sell that car after one year vs. someone selling a year old HomePod. They might lose $100 or so after a year, but you’ll lose thousands, maybe even tens of thousands of dollars after the first year of buying a brand new Mercedes. And all you did was go from point A to point B in the same manner as you would if you bought a 20 year beat up pile of crap car you spent $1500 on as long as it runs. You know, there are collectors that have paid hundreds of thousands of dollars on a barn find in barely running condition that’s all rusted, etc. etc. and they wouldn’t even drive the car as a daily driver. Some collectors pay more if the dirt is original dirt and the car was never washed. Go figure that one out.
If you buy a speaker that costs $350 and keep it for 5 years and spend 1 hour a day listening to it, you paid about $.19 an hour to use that device for that time period and after 5 years, if it’s still in great condition, you might be able to sell it to someone for $75 or maybe even $100 as long as it still works as new and it’s still supported by Apple, and get some of your money back to buy a new one that’s better and maybe a little more expensive. How much per hour is that Mercedes costing you in the price of the car, cost to maintain, insurance, etc.? even when it sits in the garage.
Here is a mental exercise.. . add up all apple products and services your family has purchased then look at your savings
I haven’t really spent all that much on Apple products over the years, probably less than you think. And? What’s your point?
Remember, I consistently get some kind of trade-in value if I refresh every 3 years, and that goes towards the purchase of a newer unit. If need be, I could refresh my laptop every 5 years, but I won’t get as much trade-in value, and the product won’t be as new and I like to keep up to date as technology makes drastic improvements about every 3 years. they only get incremental better each year, which is why I don’t refresh on a yearly basis.
My bank account hasn’t really gone down as a result of my Apple purchases. Good try.
As you have not listed it , i can see your rationalization in action, your bank account over years should rise not stay stable or decline.
This rationalization is basically a form of leasing something way beyond your means.
Lets say you buy a maxed out macbook pro in 2015 and pay 3000 then in 2018 you sell it for 1500…you still spent 1500 now you want a better mac book pro and pay an additional 1700 to get a new 3200 maxed out one…. that means since 2015 you paid apple 4700 + TAX just to use an overpriced mackbook pro…now lets do the math on iphone and watch…..
Actually, let’s say someone buys a brand new MBP in 2015 and spends $3000 and gets $1500 after 3 years by selling it to a private party, that means they only spent $1500 for a top end laptop over a 3 year period. That’s how much a month? $1500 divided by 3 years divided by 12 months, equals $41 a month. That’s not out of line at all. I don’t know how that’s $4700 Apple tax. That’s only if you bought a new one for $3200 but didn’t factor in the resale value after another 3 years of usage. But you’d be able to use that for another 3 years and then get another $1500 or so selling it. So that would only be $6200-$3000= $3200 for using 2 top end laptops for 6 years and getting a decent amount in resale value selling to a private party. Sorry, but you don’t know how to calculate anything. You didn’t apply the trade in value on the second laptop and factor in that you’d use it for another 3 years. How you became a millionaire is beyond me. What did you do for that money? Inherit it? Steal it? Doing tricks in Hollywood Blvd? PURE LUCK? It certainly wasn’t though having good math skills, that’s for sure.
I probably spent less money on Apple products in the last 3 years than you spent in insuring your Mercedes Benz. :-)
LOL thought so
Thought so? What do you mean? What’s funny is you spent about $600 on that Lumia phone and 3 years later, it’s worth $0. Are you one of those that bought a Zune too? Or how about a Surface RT? did you get suckered into that pile of garbage?
I spent 298 on my 950 plus MOZO leather back 35. Its not worth 0 , yet worth much more to me than the price I could sell it for, plus any alternatives are downgrades,.
I did not buy:
Zune
Band
Or any earlier surface before 4
I did buy a Surface Pro 4 and Invoke along with Surface Modern BT KB and my 950, 640, 635 and 520 the later four because I spent less than 400 on all 4.
The 950 was a $600 phone. How did you get it for $300? Did you buy it used? If so, then that’s not a fair comparison. Did you have a trade in from another phone? Did you get these on 2 year contracts where you actually paid full price over the course of 2 years and aren’t factoring in what you really paid?
I don’t believe you got all of those phones and only spent a total of only $400. Microsoft/Nokia were probably hard up for sales.
I only paid $150 for my iPhone 4 as I paid $450 for the phone on a 2 year contract and got $300 back 3.5 years later as a trade in, so that phone only cost $150 out of pocket. Never had a problem with it.
Att new in fact the associate was astonished. The other phones were either 29 or 39
Huh? The Lumia 650 MSRP was $600, you probably got on a plan where you paid for the balance with a 2 year contract. Trust me, these cellular companies hide the real price you are paying. either that or Microsoft/Nokia was hard up and had a short term sale because sales were piss poor. typical of companies that have large warehouses filled with unsold product. Kind of like your Invoke. No one is buying them and they have to move inventory somehow, so they drop the price to get cheap suckers like you in the door, and then do things like cancel their streaming services. I remember when you were boasting about Microsoft’s Streaming music sit and how proud you were to have it. I was Laughing so hard when Microsoft stopped the service. All I could do was think of you and how embarrassed you must be because your beloved Microsoft can’t run a streaming music service and get enough suckers to sign up for it. Plus, you were overstating how many actual songs they had.
You are a typically misleading Windows fanboy trolling around. Why don’t you enjoy the money you have and stop bothering people here. This isn’t Microsoft centric site, it’s an Apple centric site.
Dude I know what i paid…. First smartphone Lumia 520 in bubble wrap was 39, second phone 635 was 39 from Microsoft, third was 29 from Microsoft forth 298 from Microsoft. All sold individually without a contract took to ATT to get a sim.
No Lumia phone sold for $39 dollars from Microsoft. PROVE IT. I want to see 100% irrefutable proof that you only paid $39 for a brand new phone from Microsoft.
Even now, after they’ve ditched those phones are being sold for $79 and they are close out specials because Microsoft is just dumping inventory as Windows phones are officially DEAD.
You can’t even get an Uber or Lyft driver to pick you up with a Windows phone, that’s how useless they are. They are DEAD phones that are being taken off the market. Closeout specials don’t count. . Basically you just bought unsold inventory collecting dust from Microsoft’s warehouses.
You bought all of those phones recently? Why would you waste money on phones that are going bye bye? They fail that quickly you have to have a bunch of back up phones? What a waste of money.
How much did you spend on the Surface Pro 4? Which configuration did you get? And it’ll be worthless in 3 years because Surface Pros don’t hold their value. They can’t barely sell them new.
$800 + type cover. Upgraded free later to i5
How much did you spend on alcohol last year? I spent $0. I don’t drink.
Thats gas lighting and your “haven’t spent all that much” on Apple is same as “I did not drink that much”
Either way, you are stuck with Microsoft’s fledgling eco system. They can’t get it together with mobile players, mobile phones, desktops and quite possibly even laptops or tablets. They don’t really sell all that many Surface devices. I’m sure some people like them.
I still have yet to see a Surface Book out in public places.
Not stuck. I choose what’s best.
You also forgot something. If you look at music creators, musicians, etc. Apple has a HUGE market share in that market. It’s very difficult to find a professional recording studio that doesn’t have a Mac as their main DAW, it’s almost impossible to find a band that uses computers during their performance that doesn’t have MacBooks and iPads that they use. I’d say that most of the people in the music industry that are industry professionals more likely are going to be Apple users, it’s just a fact. If you attended a music convention like NAMM, you’ll predominately Apple laptops and iPads, VERY rarely you might find a Windows computer and even MORE rare to find an Android device. That’s just the fact of the matter. Some of the big companies only support Apple that make music related software and hardware. Sure, it’s still a niche, but it’s a BIG niche but more importantly, it’s the MUSIC industry. And people in the music industry listen to music far more than the average person.
You can also listen to PodCasts and what company spearheaded PodCasts and hosts the majority of PodCasts on the planet? Apple.
not listening to podcasts on even the Invoke thats what my Anker BT or Moto surround BT or AKG Headphones are for
You can’t listen to podcasts on the Invoke, that’s one more reason it’s a waste of money.
Face it, when it comes to tech gadgets you just like collecting cheap products. I get it. I don’t like collecting cheap tech gadgets like you do.
I don’t wear earbuds all that often, I don’t even own a pair of headphones because I hate wearing them. I even hate using headphones when I do recording sessions.
Hey Cortana play Macbreak works like a charm good for laughs
Didn’t work.
Oh, Do you know why the Invoke was selling for $99 on sale? it wasn’t selling and it wasn’t worth $200.
So Homepod worth 349 ..don’t think so
Yawn.
Excuse you.
Best speaker under $85K? That’s stretching it.
Can you play iTunes Match without having an Apple Music subscription? And will Siri work with it?
I’m waiting for Siri to work on my iPhone.
LOL!
You are so original. I personally don’t have much luck using any of the voice assistants on a phone in outdoor conditions. I have friends with Samsung S7’s and S8’s and they try to impress me with Google’s Assistant and they are constantly trying to get it to understand them too. So, in noisy areas, none of them work.
I use Siri indoors in a quiet room and it does fine for what I use it for, but I’m not some lazy millennial that has to rely on voice assistants. I see very little use for them as it is, and I think the majority of the population is in agreement with me. We just aren’t conditioned into using them all that much.
Good for you.
“If you are lucky”? HILARIOUS!!!
You can get either colored HomePod at any of our 5 Apple Stores here in the Twin Cities.
I stopped in on Friday to check it out. The whole time I was there no one seemed even remotely interested. Even I was surprised,
After listening to one, neither was I. Reminds me of the Bose baloney from the 90s. Except, at least the Bose boxes has stereo.
They haven’t released the Stereo software yet, but if it splits up right and left between two speakers, then it would be real stereo.
Good. I hope it’s real stereo and not simulated stereo.
uber and Lyft are on w10M, not sure why you think my phone is useless. I hold onto my 950becuse it takes great pictures and has every app I need. Frankly android and ios stink. I’ll wait for WCOS mobile. Should arrive December to keep me from stepping down
No one will care except for the Microsoft fanboys that bleed Microsoft. Go elsewhere I’m tired of you. You bore me.