Getting ready for an HomePod

Dec 10, 2019

The stereo we have at home is and old one that was given to us by an old man as he had not been using it for a while. It is fine for casual listening, say while cooking or vacuuming, or as background music during dinners with guests, but not so much in nearly any other situation: speakers crackle or don't work at all from time to time and sound quality is not really worthy of notice.
I myself, then, cannot say to be an audio expert, but I kind of have an ear for music and I love when it's so well reproduced I can get lost in the stream of it.

The HomePod is a beast I have been observing since its introduction 2 and a half years ago at WWDC 2017 and kept on getting excited as reviews came out.
Last summer, I finally got a chance to experience it at a friend's house and I was amazed: playing songs and musics I well knew revealed frequencies and details I had never heard. Basses were played aptly without being prevalent, the whole frequency range was reproduced with no distortion to my ear and the room was pleasantly filled by that single device.
The only problem was: it's a quite expensive device! I like music, but not as much as spending more than 300$ on a single speaker.

Then, 2 things happened: I found a nice offer for a heavily discounted new unit and I was able to earn some extra money with an unexpected side job building a website. All and all, I decided to go for it and allow myself for one early Christmas gift.
While I now have to wait for a few days to get my hands (and ears) on it, I thought to prepare myself for its coming by reading some literature.
Here are the notable resources I found and read, in case you are getting an HomePod for Christmas too and want to be prepared.

• Early John Gruber review at Daringfireball that has luckily been surpassed with regards to lack of software features, but holds true for hardware capabilities;
• this famous Audiophile’s Review of Homepod that, I think, convinced many of us into buying one;
• Inside Apple’s HomePod Audio Lab by The Loop to appreciate just how much care Apple puts in its devices and see where the new 16" MacBook Pro exceptional speakers come from.

Lastly, besides exceptional audio, what intrigued me about the HomePod is its capability as HomeKit hub. As for that, MacStories is such an exceptional resource for that kind of tips and tricks: I just searched for HomePod on their website and began reading what looked interesting. Notably, the HomePod was among the few devices Federico chose back in March '18.

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