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Things Apple's $350 HomePod Smart-Speaker Can't Do: Answer Random Questions, Check Calendar, Work With an Android Phone, and More (businessinsider.com)
In June last year, Apple announced the HomePod, its first smart-speaker which will battle Amazon's sleeper hit Echo speakers and Google's Home speakers. Apple being late to enter a product category is nothing new, but the HomePod has a few other strange things about it. Apple said it won't begin shipping the HomePod until December that year, in a departure of its own tradition. Then the device's shipment was delayed till "early 2018" -- February 9 is the current shipping date. Bloomberg has reported about the difficulties Apple engineers faced over the years to come up with the HomePod.
At any rate, Business Insider now has more information about the device, and is reporting the things that Apple's first smart-speaker won't be able to do. From the report (condensed): 1. HomePod can't pair with Android phones.
2. HomePod doesn't recognize different people's voices.
3. HomePod can't check your calendar.
4. HomePod doesn't work well with other streaming services besides Apple Music. (Spotify, Tindal, and Pandora users won't be able to use Siri.)
5. HomePod can't hook up to another device using an auxiliary cord.
6. HomePod can't make calls on its own. (In order to make a call using HomePod, you have to dial the person's number on your iPhone, then manually select that the call play through HomePod.)
7. The HomePod version of Siri isn't prepared to answer random questions like Alexa and Google Assistant.
At any rate, Business Insider now has more information about the device, and is reporting the things that Apple's first smart-speaker won't be able to do. From the report (condensed): 1. HomePod can't pair with Android phones.
2. HomePod doesn't recognize different people's voices.
3. HomePod can't check your calendar.
4. HomePod doesn't work well with other streaming services besides Apple Music. (Spotify, Tindal, and Pandora users won't be able to use Siri.)
5. HomePod can't hook up to another device using an auxiliary cord.
6. HomePod can't make calls on its own. (In order to make a call using HomePod, you have to dial the person's number on your iPhone, then manually select that the call play through HomePod.)
7. The HomePod version of Siri isn't prepared to answer random questions like Alexa and Google Assistant.
My wife bought me an Amazon Echo Dot for my birthday (despite me not only not wanting one but expressing uneasiness with having a speaker listening in on us all the time). Her opinion was that I could have it in the kitchen reading recipes to me while I cooked. Our usage of it was as follows:
First Day: We asked a bunch of questions and started Googling funny things we could ask Echo. The kids got involved and had a blast asking her various things.
Second Day - End of First Week: My wife used it to play music while I was at work.
After First Week: It got unplugged and hasn't been used since. (Except, perhaps, for one or two times when we remembered about it, plugged it in, and used it for an hour or two before unplugging it again.)
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
We have 3 Echo devices and 1 Google device in the house. They are all the dot/mini versions. The Echos are in the kitchen, garage, and bathroom and the Google device is in the bedroom. The Echo is a great companion in the kitchen for setting timers, doing unit conversions, and getting basic info from calendars and the weather. In the bathroom and garage it's just a nice way to control music hands free. The Google device is far more capable and I'd swap them all to Google except the three Amazon ones are plugged into real speakers via the headphone jack whereas the Google one stupidly leaves out this feature. As such we mostly just use the Google one to control the Chromecast plugged into the TV and occasionally for calendar/weather/traffic functions.
As far as capabilities, using Alexa is like using DOS. Totally useless unless you know the right commands. Google's is like a voice search engine. You can ask it the most random of questions and it never ceases to amaze me in the answers it comes up with. It "understands" general questions better and allows you to refine and build upon previous queries. As far as the devices listening to bedroom activities (Google) and bathroom activities (Amazon), I could care less. Amazon can listen to me shit all day and I don't care and Google has far more embarrassing stuff on me in gmail and search history than any sounds I make in bed.
Yes it's an anecdote! Were you expecting original research in a Slashdot comment?
You're assuming nobody is handicapped in any way, and forgetting that people have strokes, aneurysms and car accidents.
A partially paralyzed auto accident survivor facing a grueling years-long recovery process is usually very willing to talk to a computer. Not least for streaming music - "Alexa, play 'Live from the Mars Hotel'" - while engaged in difficult or humiliating processes essential to therapy.
I wish these things had been available while my father was in the last stages of Parkinson's disease. Amazon Alexa would have enriched his life immeasurably.