**A Reviewer's Dilemma: Apple's HomePod Ecosystem**

I still have my old original HomePod, which I've been using in my living room for daily use. It was great, and we loved it. However, when we got a new stereo pair, I had to move the old HomePod to somewhere else, as it wasn't compatible with the new one. Apple's products are known for their seamless integration, but sometimes, things don't work out that way.

As someone who values excellence over budget savings, I'm not bothered by the fact that my HomePod is no longer the center of attention in the living room. In fact, I appreciate that it can still be used elsewhere, and Apple's products are designed to last for a long time. It's essential to remember that not everyone shares this perspective, as some reviewers seem to be more concerned with saving money than enjoying the product.

A recent review by The Wall Street Journal highlighted the differences between the larger HomePod and the smaller HomePod Mini. While both offer similar smart features, including built-in temperature and humidity sensors, support for smart home technologies like Thread, and low-power networking protocols, the reviewer seemed to be disappointed that these features weren't more distinct between the two devices.

The journalist argued that Apple enabled some great features on the cheaper HomePod Mini, which is seen as a negative by some reviewers. However, I couldn't agree more. Why can't people just enjoy the product they want? The HomePod Mini is an excellent device in its own right, and it's designed to bring joy to those who use it.

In contrast to the reviewer's perspective, I'm excited about the new HomePod and its features. My office is now equipped with a stereo pair of HomePods, which have been bringing a lot of joy to my workspace. The first impressions video will be coming soon, but I can already tell you that these devices are exceptional.

**Productivity Course Update**

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On a separate note, I'm working on a side hustle project that I'm really excited about. It's been life-altering for me to be able to start my own side hustles, and I want to share how you can do it too. The project will launch soon, and I'll send out an email notification when it's ready. In the meantime, if you're interested in learning more, you can sign up using the form below.

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"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhey it's Chris got a couple new home pods that I ordered gonna do a review but first I had to hit some of these bad reviews that I've been seeing that almost make it seem like you'd have to be out of your mind to order a new home pod I hit a bunch of these sort of wacky homepod takes and first impressions in my first video which was like a week and a half ago or something like that and I don't want to rehash all those here but you know like people saying Siri is too stupid 99 of what this speaker is designed for is listening to music and having it sound good so the one percent where you can ask it to control your smart home stuff that's not good enough it also has to be chat GPT you know that's not my sort of complaint I'm interested in the thing for what it is see a lot of people still complaining about the price still and it's like news flash premium product from company known for making premium expensive products that lots of people buy is not cheap but that's not really the main consideration here if you want a cheaper speaker then you get the homepod mini and for some people that's too expensive this isn't the speaker for everybody in the world but what I really want to dive into in this particular video is what some of the reviews are saying about the homepod like here's a blurb from what Hi-Fi importantly there are upgrades and the new homepod is smarter and even more flexible in terms of placement than before it also crucially sounds even better tighter more solid and better organized both spatially and rhythmically it's all together more engaging exciting and enjoyable to listen to it's still not a sensible Choice unless you're already an avid Apple user and preferably an apple music subscriber if you are though then the homepod 2 is arguably the best speaker of this type you can buy well that unless there is the whole thing right I don't understand what they're trying to say like yeah this is for people in the Apple ecosystem who like Apple products who might want to use apple services with an apple speaker like apple music what do you mean by unless like it's not very good unless you're part of the target audience then it's really awesome here's another one from tech radar let's dig into this as it is its value is a bit all or nothing it's either a great buy for all in Apple users or a poor buy for everyone else so the score we've given it here is only for those who should actually consider buying it it's a great value but it'd be even better with some extra options what you mean it's it's made for Apple users and they might actually like it but if you're not an Apple user you may not actually like it who did they think was shopping for this thing honestly like PC Gamers Kindle users Samsung fans I could see the Samsung people looking for a speaker because the Bixby speaker that was promised a long time ago never actually turned in anything so what is this bit about it would be even better with more options you know like the Spotify thing if you dig into that thing maybe that's more on Spotify than Apple depends on your framing of the whole thing right but what other option are people really looking to have added here because I'll tell you this every time you add a hardware feature that's going to cost extra and people have already been complaining for a long time oh the big homepod it's too expensive so you can't have it both ways like add all these features but it's already too expensive well what is it they took out some of the mics you know took out some of the tweeters made it a little cheaper to make make it a little bit more attainable for people and people are still complaining doesn't do enough and by the way I'm not sitting here saying oh it's perfect as is there's nothing on the planet that can't be improved in some way but uh let's continue here's what TechCrunch has to say I have quibbles apple music has its shortcomings y54 is ancient and the lack of backward stereo compatibility with the first gen sticks out like a sore thumb but the homepod 2 works well looks nice and sounds great it's going to fit perfectly for a select cross-section of consumers it continues to not be for everyone and there's part of me that strongly bags that Apple wouldn't have it any other way I guess I have quibbles with the quibbles let's start with Wi-Fi for thinking back when I got my stereo pair set up and I started to play some music because I was going to test it I remember thinking to myself you know it sounds good but there's just a mental taint there because I know it's not Wi-Fi six it's just tainted it's dripping with Wi-Fi for oh wait that didn't happen because I didn't care and I just heard it and I thought this is exactly what I wanted and it sounds amazing people buying Apple stuff just want it to work some people like to get in dig under the hood and kind of do their own thing make upgrades and then there's other people just like I just want to be hands off and I want to look good and be excellent at what it's designed to do and I don't really care about all the details Wi-Fi for Wi-Fi six your average person is just not gonna care now the backwards stereo incompatibility you can't stereo pair a brand new home pod with an old homepod I don't even know why that's a thing or not I haven't dug into it but I also just haven't cared you know I was still using the old original homepod it was living in the living room and it was in daily use we were using it loving it it was great and then we got the new stereo pair I've got it in the office right now but when I get new stuff and it doesn't work with the old stuff sometimes I just move the old stuff if it's still working and apple stuff works for a really long time and I use it somewhere else and it's not the end of the world everybody is different but it's not a deal killer for me because I wasn't in it to just try to save the most money and that's something that happens a lot in the Apple ecosystem you got people who are like it's not budget enough but not every Apple user is only after just saving money they're after Excellence like this last sentence it continues to not be for everyone oh come on I have a feeling that this kind of reviewer wants the government to step in and sort of force Apple to turn the iPhone ecosystem into something that looks more like the Android side of things we can do all kinds of side loading and stuff look you already have options you know you don't have to use Apple's iPhone or this home pod Apple's not forcing anybody to do any kind of purchasing right if you don't like it you don't have to you just go do something else here's the Wall Street Journal while the larger homepod is nice especially if you want fantastic room filling sound the two Siri Power devices now offer essentially the same smart features talking about the big and small the new 299 homepod on shelves Friday has built-in temperature and humidity sensors plus support for smart home Technologies including the low power networking protocol thread and so it is a homepod Mini Apple unlock the same sensors in the existing 99 homepod mini in a recent software update so Wall Street Journal almost seems to be mad for a totally opposite reason of the previous review chunk that we just looked at because they're saying these things aren't different enough we need more separation and segregation between the features of the more expensive and the least expensive essentially now we're mad because Apple enabled some great features on the cheaper homepod it's like seriously it's like a no-win situation except it's not because Apple's doing really well and that's sort of the nail in the coffin for all these arguments against Apple's products here's my big thing here with this like why can't somebody just be allowed to enjoy the product that they want to enjoy it's one thing if the homepod was more bad than good but you can tell by all these reviews it's actually really lauded they like what it was designed to do it does its job really well the problem is there's all kinds of people with opinions on what it should be and that's the great thing about a free market if you don't like it there's other options for instance one of the reviews has the opinion that Apple played it to Safe well what I really prefer is if they just said you know in my opinion Apple played it to save and I prefer what is coming down the pipeline with Sonos or what's already available with Google or Amazon like just say that but that opinion also has no bearing on whether or not I should check out the new home pod so like usual I'm finding the mainstream reviews to be kind of comical but I do have two of these set up as a stereo pair in the office and I've been enjoying them spoiler alert they've been bringing a lot of joy into the office into my ears that first impressions video will be coming out soon I gotta let you know I've been working on productivity course if you're new around here it's a big thing like it's taking me longer than I thought it would but that's because I'm packing it full of so much useful information so it's still coming you can still get signed up to get pinged by email using the form down below no spam also I'm working on something new it's a side hustle side hustle I'm really psyched to help people start their own side hustle it's been life-altering for me to be able to do my own side hustles and one turned into my actual full-time thing but others continue to just make me more money and improve the quality of my life and I want to share how you can do that too so I've got another form down there if you want to get signed up for when that side hustle project launches and that's going to be sooner than the course and the final thing is don't miss out on the newsletter a lot of people don't know about this from Daily Tech every Friday we send out a newsletter that puts on autopilot the discovery of awesome apps and accessories for your Apple life so check all that stuff out and I'll catch you in the next video layhey it's Chris got a couple new home pods that I ordered gonna do a review but first I had to hit some of these bad reviews that I've been seeing that almost make it seem like you'd have to be out of your mind to order a new home pod I hit a bunch of these sort of wacky homepod takes and first impressions in my first video which was like a week and a half ago or something like that and I don't want to rehash all those here but you know like people saying Siri is too stupid 99 of what this speaker is designed for is listening to music and having it sound good so the one percent where you can ask it to control your smart home stuff that's not good enough it also has to be chat GPT you know that's not my sort of complaint I'm interested in the thing for what it is see a lot of people still complaining about the price still and it's like news flash premium product from company known for making premium expensive products that lots of people buy is not cheap but that's not really the main consideration here if you want a cheaper speaker then you get the homepod mini and for some people that's too expensive this isn't the speaker for everybody in the world but what I really want to dive into in this particular video is what some of the reviews are saying about the homepod like here's a blurb from what Hi-Fi importantly there are upgrades and the new homepod is smarter and even more flexible in terms of placement than before it also crucially sounds even better tighter more solid and better organized both spatially and rhythmically it's all together more engaging exciting and enjoyable to listen to it's still not a sensible Choice unless you're already an avid Apple user and preferably an apple music subscriber if you are though then the homepod 2 is arguably the best speaker of this type you can buy well that unless there is the whole thing right I don't understand what they're trying to say like yeah this is for people in the Apple ecosystem who like Apple products who might want to use apple services with an apple speaker like apple music what do you mean by unless like it's not very good unless you're part of the target audience then it's really awesome here's another one from tech radar let's dig into this as it is its value is a bit all or nothing it's either a great buy for all in Apple users or a poor buy for everyone else so the score we've given it here is only for those who should actually consider buying it it's a great value but it'd be even better with some extra options what you mean it's it's made for Apple users and they might actually like it but if you're not an Apple user you may not actually like it who did they think was shopping for this thing honestly like PC Gamers Kindle users Samsung fans I could see the Samsung people looking for a speaker because the Bixby speaker that was promised a long time ago never actually turned in anything so what is this bit about it would be even better with more options you know like the Spotify thing if you dig into that thing maybe that's more on Spotify than Apple depends on your framing of the whole thing right but what other option are people really looking to have added here because I'll tell you this every time you add a hardware feature that's going to cost extra and people have already been complaining for a long time oh the big homepod it's too expensive so you can't have it both ways like add all these features but it's already too expensive well what is it they took out some of the mics you know took out some of the tweeters made it a little cheaper to make make it a little bit more attainable for people and people are still complaining doesn't do enough and by the way I'm not sitting here saying oh it's perfect as is there's nothing on the planet that can't be improved in some way but uh let's continue here's what TechCrunch has to say I have quibbles apple music has its shortcomings y54 is ancient and the lack of backward stereo compatibility with the first gen sticks out like a sore thumb but the homepod 2 works well looks nice and sounds great it's going to fit perfectly for a select cross-section of consumers it continues to not be for everyone and there's part of me that strongly bags that Apple wouldn't have it any other way I guess I have quibbles with the quibbles let's start with Wi-Fi for thinking back when I got my stereo pair set up and I started to play some music because I was going to test it I remember thinking to myself you know it sounds good but there's just a mental taint there because I know it's not Wi-Fi six it's just tainted it's dripping with Wi-Fi for oh wait that didn't happen because I didn't care and I just heard it and I thought this is exactly what I wanted and it sounds amazing people buying Apple stuff just want it to work some people like to get in dig under the hood and kind of do their own thing make upgrades and then there's other people just like I just want to be hands off and I want to look good and be excellent at what it's designed to do and I don't really care about all the details Wi-Fi for Wi-Fi six your average person is just not gonna care now the backwards stereo incompatibility you can't stereo pair a brand new home pod with an old homepod I don't even know why that's a thing or not I haven't dug into it but I also just haven't cared you know I was still using the old original homepod it was living in the living room and it was in daily use we were using it loving it it was great and then we got the new stereo pair I've got it in the office right now but when I get new stuff and it doesn't work with the old stuff sometimes I just move the old stuff if it's still working and apple stuff works for a really long time and I use it somewhere else and it's not the end of the world everybody is different but it's not a deal killer for me because I wasn't in it to just try to save the most money and that's something that happens a lot in the Apple ecosystem you got people who are like it's not budget enough but not every Apple user is only after just saving money they're after Excellence like this last sentence it continues to not be for everyone oh come on I have a feeling that this kind of reviewer wants the government to step in and sort of force Apple to turn the iPhone ecosystem into something that looks more like the Android side of things we can do all kinds of side loading and stuff look you already have options you know you don't have to use Apple's iPhone or this home pod Apple's not forcing anybody to do any kind of purchasing right if you don't like it you don't have to you just go do something else here's the Wall Street Journal while the larger homepod is nice especially if you want fantastic room filling sound the two Siri Power devices now offer essentially the same smart features talking about the big and small the new 299 homepod on shelves Friday has built-in temperature and humidity sensors plus support for smart home Technologies including the low power networking protocol thread and so it is a homepod Mini Apple unlock the same sensors in the existing 99 homepod mini in a recent software update so Wall Street Journal almost seems to be mad for a totally opposite reason of the previous review chunk that we just looked at because they're saying these things aren't different enough we need more separation and segregation between the features of the more expensive and the least expensive essentially now we're mad because Apple enabled some great features on the cheaper homepod it's like seriously it's like a no-win situation except it's not because Apple's doing really well and that's sort of the nail in the coffin for all these arguments against Apple's products here's my big thing here with this like why can't somebody just be allowed to enjoy the product that they want to enjoy it's one thing if the homepod was more bad than good but you can tell by all these reviews it's actually really lauded they like what it was designed to do it does its job really well the problem is there's all kinds of people with opinions on what it should be and that's the great thing about a free market if you don't like it there's other options for instance one of the reviews has the opinion that Apple played it to Safe well what I really prefer is if they just said you know in my opinion Apple played it to save and I prefer what is coming down the pipeline with Sonos or what's already available with Google or Amazon like just say that but that opinion also has no bearing on whether or not I should check out the new home pod so like usual I'm finding the mainstream reviews to be kind of comical but I do have two of these set up as a stereo pair in the office and I've been enjoying them spoiler alert they've been bringing a lot of joy into the office into my ears that first impressions video will be coming out soon I gotta let you know I've been working on productivity course if you're new around here it's a big thing like it's taking me longer than I thought it would but that's because I'm packing it full of so much useful information so it's still coming you can still get signed up to get pinged by email using the form down below no spam also I'm working on something new it's a side hustle side hustle I'm really psyched to help people start their own side hustle it's been life-altering for me to be able to do my own side hustles and one turned into my actual full-time thing but others continue to just make me more money and improve the quality of my life and I want to share how you can do that too so I've got another form down there if you want to get signed up for when that side hustle project launches and that's going to be sooner than the course and the final thing is don't miss out on the newsletter a lot of people don't know about this from Daily Tech every Friday we send out a newsletter that puts on autopilot the discovery of awesome apps and accessories for your Apple life so check all that stuff out and I'll catch you in the next video lay\n"