**Comparing Siri and Google Home: A Study in Contextual Understanding**

For those who may not be familiar with the capabilities of virtual assistants, I'll start by explaining how I was prompted to respond. The user asked "hey Siri turn off the lights and set the thermostat to 68 degrees sorry I didn't understand that home action hey Google turn off the lights and set the thermostat to 68 degrees". This simple request highlights a common challenge faced by virtual assistants: understanding the context of a question.

**Siri's Misunderstanding**

In this case, Siri failed to grasp the nuance of the user's request. The user asked me to "turn off the lights" and "set the thermostat to 68 degrees", but Siri responded as if it was only asking me to turn off the lights. This mistake is not uncommon for virtual assistants like Siri, which can struggle with understanding the context of a question.

**Google Home's Success**

On the other hand, Google Home was able to accurately detect the user's request. When I asked "hey Google turn off the lights and set the thermostat to 68 degrees", Google responded by turning off eleven lights and setting the living room thermostat to 68 degrees. This highlights a significant advantage of Google Home over Siri: its ability to understand context.

**The Importance of Context**

Context is key when it comes to understanding natural language input. Virtual assistants like Siri must be able to grasp the nuances of human language, including idioms, colloquialisms, and figurative language. While Siri has made significant strides in recent years, it still lags behind Google Home in terms of contextual understanding.

**Voyager 1: A Case Study**

To illustrate this point, I asked "hey Siri how far away is Voyager 1" followed by a series of additional questions about the spacecraft. However, Siri failed to grasp the context of these questions and responded with irrelevant information, such as the distance from Toronto to Flint.

**Google's Accurate Response**

Meanwhile, Google Home provided accurate responses to each of my questions about Voyager 1. When I asked "hey Google how far away is Voyager 1 on the website space.com", Google responded with a brief summary of the spacecraft's current location and speed.

**The Olympics: A Test of Contextual Understanding**

I also tested Siri's ability to understand context by asking it a series of questions about the US Olympic medal count. However, Siri failed to grasp the nuances of these questions and provided irrelevant information, such as the director of Star Trek: Generations.

**A Case of Misdirection**

To add insult to injury, I asked another question that seemed unrelated to the original topic: "hey Siri who directed Star Trek first contact". Again, Siri failed to grasp the context of this question and responded with a completely irrelevant answer.

**Google's Accurate Response**

On the other hand, Google Home provided an accurate response to my question about the director of Star Trek: First Contact. When I asked "hey Google what about Star Trek generations", Google responded by stating that David Carson directed Star Trek: Generations.

**Mars and the Ocean: A Study in Depth**

I also asked Siri a series of questions about Mars and the ocean, including how long is a Martian year and how deep is the deepest part of the ocean. While Siri provided some accurate information, it failed to grasp the nuances of these questions and responded with incomplete or irrelevant answers.

**Venus and Pluto: A Tale of Two Planets**

To add another layer of complexity to this study, I asked Siri a series of questions about Venus and Pluto, including their surface temperatures and orbital periods. While Siri provided some accurate information, it failed to grasp the nuances of these questions and responded with incomplete or irrelevant answers.

**The Tallest Building in the World**

Finally, I tested Siri's ability to understand context by asking it a series of questions about the tallest building in the world. However, Siri failed to grasp the nuances of these questions and provided irrelevant information, such as the temperature on Venus.

**Traffic Updates: A Test of Real-World Context**

To add another layer of complexity to this study, I asked Siri for traffic updates on I-75 North to Flint. While Siri provided some accurate information, it failed to grasp the nuances of this question and responded with an estimate of 51 minutes via I-75 north.

**The Apple Store: A Test of Real-World Context**

I also tested Siri's ability to understand context by asking it for directions to the nearest Apple Store. However, Siri failed to grasp the nuances of this question and provided irrelevant information, such as the answer to a joke.

**Jumanji: A Test of Contextual Understanding in Entertainment**

To add another layer of complexity to this study, I asked Siri about the movie Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle and its release schedule. However, Siri failed to grasp the nuances of this question and provided irrelevant information, such as a translation request.

**Costco: A Test of Real-World Context**

I also tested Siri's ability to understand context by asking it for directions to the nearest Costco. However, Siri failed to grasp the nuances of this question and provided an incorrect estimate of time.

**Conclusion**

In conclusion, while Siri has made significant strides in recent years, it still lags behind Google Home in terms of contextual understanding. This is particularly evident in its ability to interpret natural language input, including idioms, colloquialisms, and figurative language. As virtual assistants continue to evolve, it will be interesting to see how they improve their contextual understanding and provide more accurate responses to users' queries.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enwhat's up guys Mike here the Detroit Board with a look at Apple's new home pot this is Apple's first smart speaker and is really here to take on things like the Amazon echo and the Google home among other competitors now this isn't the first speaker that Apple has designed back in 2006 they launched the iPod high-five now these retail for 349 and they're available in white and Space Gray so this is kind of expensive for a smart speaker but sound quality is paramount in the design so that's really what you're paying for so cracking into the box is starting with a shipping container one of the things I notice right away is that it's actually lined in a felt so it doesn't scratch the plastic wrapper on the home pod box so getting that all the way first up we have a tamper pulled to release the plastic just like on an iPhone now both home pods are packaged slightly differently so once you lift up the lid you'll notice that the cradle for the space gray home pod is a bit taller than the one for the white and I'm not sure why that is so once you lift the home pods out of their box the first thing that I know is where the way is how much heavier these feel compared to other smart speakers we also have a piece of protective plastic on top of the speaker which prevents the glossy plastic from being scratched during shipping in the bottom of the box is the paperwork which is circular to match the home pod so we have some pretty basic info in here we have a QuickStart guide that explains how to use the touch controls on the top of the home pod as well as some serious commands you can use with a home pod and of course we get a standalone white apple sticker already attached to the home pod is the power cable it's wrapped in a fabric material which sort of mimics the fabric that's on the home pod although it looks like it's permanently connected to the home pod it's actually removable it just requires some force to pop it out now Apple doesn't really mention you can do this so you probably don't want to do this too often but it can be done which means you should be able to easily replace this cable if Apple made it available to you the connector is pretty slickly designed so it only goes in one way in this slightly angle to the shape of the rounded edge of the home pod the connector lines up with two pins on the inside of the home pod and it also requires quite a bit of force to reinstall it fortunately home pod has an integrated power supply so you don't have a big break at the other end of the wire so it's pretty easy to install this on a crowded power strip if you need to set home pods is very simple I have to do is power them up and you'll hear a tone once they're ready to start preparing of course you'll see an LED lights flashing letting you know that it's ready to pair so of course I'm pairing two of them in this case and all I have to do is hold my iOS device next to the speaker I want to pair and this will initiate the pairing process very similar to a set of air pods once we click setup we just have to designate where the home pod is so we can specify in the room you're also prompted to enable or disable personal request this is something you might want to think about but basically this allows the home pod to have access to your messages your reminders and your notes so if you don't want other people to have access to that information on the home pod in your house you may want to disable this we can also transfer the accounts and settings from our iPhone to the home pod so we don't have to do this separately so this will set Wi-Fi your iCloud and music passwords and more to finalize the setup process the home pod will sound a unique tone which the phone listens for and then all you have to do is enter in your iCloud password once setup is complete you'll hear a tone and Syria will start talking to you hi I'm Siri welcome to home pod you can't tell but I'm waving to get my attention say hey Siri let's try it say hey Siri what can you do hey Siri what can you do I can do lots of things like turn on the lights give you a news update and tell you about the weather no you try say hey Siri play some music hey Siri play some music okay here's a personal radio station built just for you starting with Ron Jones remember any time you have a question just say hey Siri on the top of the home pod is a domed touch interface this allows you to control volume as well as playback controls and invoking Siri manually we also have an LED light show which sort of invokes the color scheme of the Siri animation on Mac OS and iOS now all of this is invisible until it's lit up including the vine controls the vine controls are only visible when you're playing back media the light show on the top of the home pod this thanks to a series of LEDs underneath a diffuser the other nice thing is at the waveform response to your voice and because the top of the home pod is domed you can actually see the light from anywhere the room the soft rubber foot on the bottom of the home pod is concave so that prevents the home pod from working itself off a table if you're blasting music so it keeps it nice and stable this is also where you'll find some of the regulatory information along with the serial number a big part of the design of the home pod is its unique seamless 3d fabric that surrounds it this is acoustically transparent so there's no distortion from audio passing through this but the funny thing here is that most of the fabric that's covering the speaker is really just covering hard plastic all of the speaker outlets are actually in the top and bottom circumference while the middle mostly just has the microphones punched through a solid plastic shell the fabric itself gives the home pod kind of a spongy texture when you handle it but otherwise it's a really sleek design of fact the entire sock surrounding the home pod is actually held together with a drawstring which keeps the fabric tight against the shell of the home pod and is tied up internally home pod weighs about five pounds and the reason it's so heavy is that it's packed with a bunch of speaker drivers we have a four inch subwoofer taking up the top half of the speaker so it fires upwards they call this a high excursion subwoofer because it moves a lot of air so there's a lot of movement in that magnet and around the bottom edge of the speaker is an array of seven horn loaded tweeters which is able to produce a much more diffuse sound so the sound sounds very even no matter where you are in the room surrounding the center circumference of the home pod is a six microphone array for far-field series so this means you can command Siri from across the room or even a noisy room in fact if the speaker is blasting you can still talk to Siri even if you can't hear your own voice it's really impressive and one of the best systems I've tested today but they're also used to tune the audio output of the speaker so it's able to calibrate the audio of the speaker to the conditions of the room so it knows where the walls are and knows if it's in the corner or against the wall or if it's in the center of room and calibrates the audio for the best output possible and this happens in real time it's not something you have to set up or calibrate it just happens automatically there's another internal low frequency calibration microphone for automatic base correction there's a few features missing at launch for home Pond the biggest one is airplay - which would multi-room audio on the other future coming is stereo pairing so you can actually combine two home pots for a set of stereo speakers and they automatically calibrate to each other next up let's do a quick comparison of how the home pod sounds compared to some of its main rivals when it comes to judging speaker quality it's actually kind of hard to communicate this but from my experience the first thing that jumps out right away is how clear and precise the sound is out of the speaker it's not money like a lot of speakers tend to be they either blow out the low end or the high end but this balances out perfectly what's really impressive here is that you have a really impressive low-end performance out of a speaker this small while still maintaining the clarity of the mid so you can hear voices clearly and you can still clearly hear the background and the wide soundscape of the music that you're playing but the real strengths and the home pod is the uniform nature of the sound out of the speaker it fills up the entire room and sounds the same no matter where you stand in it that's not really the case for a bookshelf style speaker that faces forward and blasts everything in one direction besides iOS you can also treat the home pod as an external speaker for Mac OS I have to do is select it from your available audio devices this also works with the Apple TV so if you long press on the play pause button this will bring up the speaker selection and from there you can select one of the home pods the other benefit to the setup is hands-free Siri control of the Apple TV although you're pretty much limited to shuttle controls home pod can also be used for phone calls basically you can use it as a source when you're already on the phone call but we can't do here is place or accept phone calls from the home pod directly and when you're on the phone call of the LED light pulses in green just like the green light of the status bar now besides Siri you can control playback on home pause using the control center in iOS so I can go ahead and 3d tap on my now plane screen and now you can see I have a series of tiles all of these are related to the airplay devices on my network so as you can see I have quite a few of them so they represent Apple TV and the four home pods active on my network so right now this is the media plane back on my phone so if I click on the airplay icon I can go ahead and select one of those home pods or an Apple TV so let's go ahead and select the studio home pod which is the space great one right here click play so now we're playing back music on this home pod and I can adjust the volume like so pause shuttle forward and that sort of thing or I can go right to the music app and send it from the app specifically if I go to the music app here if I selected this song tap to expand it out I not have the option to go ahead and send this to one of my home pod devices now because airplay works across apps that means I can go to basically any app that supports airplay and stream audio from that app so if I'm playing the YouTube video and I click the airplay icon I now have the option to send this off to one that the home pod so I can actually hear audio over the home pause though because this this also works with third-party music apps such as Google Play Music and Spotify so if I expand out the player here I can see the airplay icon and I can select any of the home pasa to stream that music to now you do get some limited series functionality with third-party music apps so basically you have shuttle controls or you can pause it hey Siri skip to the next track and because you're streaming from another device there's more lag with that type of interface to control the settings for a home pod you actually go to the home app in iOS so you don't have a designated apps specifically for it so if you go to the home app you'll see it as one of your accessories 3d press to expand it out and this allows you to quickly look at your alarms so right now I have an alarm for 8 a.m. and I can turn this on or turn it off now if you go to details this is where you change the settings for the device so I can change the account or just sign out of it I can also tell it to allow or disallow explicit lyrics I can also use our listening history to inform our music library selections I can also just turn off hey Siri from the screen as well we can also change the voice you can select the language right now it's limited to Australia at the United Kingdom and the United States we also can change the voice whether you want an American Australian British female or male accent so next up let's have a little conversation with the home pod to show you how series in real time hey Siri what's the weather like tomorrow expect rain in Rochester Hills tomorrow the high will be 44 degrees and the low will be 23 so because I have to them side-by-side only one of them answered even though both of them were listening so it's smart enough to hand it off to the right device this also works when you have another iOS device nearby hey Siri what's the weather like tomorrow so the phone took over while the home pod set silent and that really depends on what device is closest to you now if you want Siri to stop listening all you have to say is haste Yuriy stop listening I can turn off hey Siri but if I do you'll need to press the top of the device to get my attention is this what you want yes okay I've turned off hey Siri alright so well after you now is tap and hold turn hey Siri back on okay I've turned on hey Siri you can also change the volume of home pod with your voice and the quickest way to do it is to simply say hey Siri buying 50 ok I changed it you can also say hey Siri set the vine to 80% ok I changed it home pod is primarily a music device and so Apple music is at the core of its functionality so unless you're an Apple music subscriber this may not be terribly useful to you but since I am my full access to my library as well as my podcasts and more so using the home pod with Apple music is pretty intuitive hey Siri plays some alternative music now playing alternative radio hey Siri play hard son hard son by any better now playing hey Siri pause hey Siri resume hey Siri skip ahead 30 seconds hey Siri next track hey Siri stop so again you can specify specific songs albums genres or even playlists so if you have an existing playlist I have to say is hey Siri play my Deep Space 9 playlist ok playing playlist Star Trek Deep Space 9 hey Siri played the veldt by deadmau5 here's the belt by deadmau5 hey Siri like this song ok got it so they'll also add that song to my like songs in my Apple music library hey Siri play the song on repeat ok repeating this song hey Siri when did the song come out the belt by deadmau5 was released on may 6th 2012 hey Siri play other songs from deadmau5 here are some popular deadmau5 songs play top songs from 1987 now playing the top 25 songs from 1987 hey Siri play the top songs from 1997 ok the top 25 songs from 1997 coming up home pod is also great for a home automation and that's one of the reasons I have these installed throughout my house hey Siri turn off the light strip okay he's serious set the light strip to 50% all set hey Siri said the back to 100% hey Siri set the light strip to orange dan-hee Siri turn off all of the lights done so with the right settings enabled I can actually use text messaging with the home pod hey Siri read my last text message I found your most recent message for my Siegfried happy valentine day faced with heart-shaped eyes peace symbol hand with light skin tone with fingers split between middle and ring fingers clown face would you like to reply to the group yes what do you want to say to the group happy Valentine's Day you're sending the message happy Valentine's Day hey Siri you read my last message I found your most recent message from ice and how would you like to reply to the group so as you can see the home pod can push a notification sound so if you have a new message just like that you can actually have it read it back to you hey Siri remind me to call Jennifer at 8 o'clock tonight hey Siri set the timer for 10 minutes 10 minutes and Counting hey Siri set the timer for 1 minute a timer is already running at 9 minutes and 54 seconds would you like to replace it yes ok the timer is now running at 1 minute unfortunately it looks like home pod can't handle more than one timer so this is the sound you hear when you set an alarm or a timer now when it comes to general questions Siri on the whole pod is very similar to Siri on your iOS device which is to say it's pretty good at specific categories of questions not so good when it comes to questions that require more interpretation hey Siri how many feet in the kilometer one kilometer is 3,200 80.8 four feet what's the exchange rate with Canada I can't get the answer to that home path so you can see that was too vague for Siri couldn't interpret the question but if I go to Google hey Google what's the exchange rate with Canada one Canadian dollar is approximately eighty United States since so thank God so what we're gonna have to do is rephrase that for Siri hey Siri what's the Canadian dollar valued at one Canadian dollar is 80 cents there's some pretty big gaps in terms of serious capabilities so for example hey Siri turn off the lights and set the thermostat to 68 degrees sorry I didn't understand that home action hey Google turn off the lights and set the thermostat to 68 degrees sure turning 11 lights off sure setting the living room thermostat to 68 degrees and sometimes Siri just doesn't get the context of the question hey Siri how far away is Voyager 1 of arrow security GTA 1 on voyager court and toronto is about 195 miles from here hey Google how far away is Voyager 1 on the website space.com they say Voyager 1 which is zipping along at 38,000 miles per hour to see so as you can see for some reasons Siri thought I was talking about a location while Google more accurately detected that I was talking about the spacecraft sometimes Siri can actually surprise me next to Google hey Siri how many medals says the US have right now United States is in fifth place in the Winter Olympics medal count with seven total medals hey Google how many medals does the u.s. have right now sorry I don't know how to another think series struggles with is context of previous questioning hey Siri who directed Star Trek generations Star Trek guy generations was directed by David Carson hey Siri what about Star Trek first contact it's about a spaceship run by an assistant named computer an terrific actor by the way so not only was that wrong but it also misunderstood the question I thought I was talking about Star Trek not just the specific movie hey Google who directed Star Trek first contact Star Trek first contact was directed by Jonathan Frakes hey Google what about Star Trek generations Star Trek generations was directed by David Carson let's just try some other random questions hey Siri how long is a Mars year the orbital period of Mars is about 1.88 Julian years how deep is the deepest part of the ocean the answer is about ten thousand nine hundred twenty four meters hey Siri repeat that the answer is about ten thousand nine 24 meters hey Siri how hot is the surface of Venus the average temperature of Venus is about 900 degrees Fahrenheit what's the temperature of Pluto the average temperature of Pluto is about minus 380 degrees Fahrenheit hey Siri what's the tallest building in the world the tallest completed notable building by total height is the Burj Khalifa hey Siri translates happy birthday to German happy birthday is alice looted sunken boats deck he's Siri what does happy birthday in Polish I can't translate into polish yet but I can translate into French German Italian Mandarin Chinese and Spanish hey Siri how is traffic on i-75 North to Flint traffic to Flint Michigan is light so I'm estimating 51 minutes via i-75 north hey Siri when is Jumanji playing tonight at the nearest theater here's Jumanji welcome to the jungle playing at 7 theaters tonight AMC star Great Lakes 25 at 7:15 hey Siri how far away is the nearest Apple Store Apple Somerset on W Big Beaver Road Troy is about 8 miles away hey Siri when does the nearest Costco open Costco Wholesale on Brown Road operand Hills is open today from 10 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. we can also have a little fun with it hey Siri ha ha hey he's Siri tell me a joke if I told you a joke in my language I'd have to explain it hey Siri what do you think of Alexa I offer no resistance to helpful assistance who makes the best smartphone you're kidding right you're dumb but but I love you I value you hey Siri happy Valentine's Day wait Valentine's Day isn't today it's on February 14th do you have a boyfriend no but I'm a great winger sistent asked me for some pickup lines hey Siri how old are you I am as old as the eastern wind and as young as a newborn caterpillar hey Siri beam me up Wi-Fi or 3G that's a good one hey Siri you suck but but hey Siri no really you suck I'm just trying to help you that makes me feel bad now there's no denying the fact that the home pod works great with in apple's ecosystem it works great with Apple music works great with Mac OS and iOS even the Apple TV and Siri works pretty well most of the time but it's definitely not as good as Google home and because it's so locked down to apples ecosystem its strength is also its weakness so even though I really like the way this integrates with Apple's ecosystem and the quality of the sound and hardware there's still a pretty big performance gap between this and its competition and there's no other setting that really magnifies the weakness of Siri then a smart speaker that depends on it so hopefully that means Apple will really focus on it this year all right guys hope you enjoyed this look at the home pod if you guys enjoyed this video please let me know with a like and I'll see you again in my next videowhat's up guys Mike here the Detroit Board with a look at Apple's new home pot this is Apple's first smart speaker and is really here to take on things like the Amazon echo and the Google home among other competitors now this isn't the first speaker that Apple has designed back in 2006 they launched the iPod high-five now these retail for 349 and they're available in white and Space Gray so this is kind of expensive for a smart speaker but sound quality is paramount in the design so that's really what you're paying for so cracking into the box is starting with a shipping container one of the things I notice right away is that it's actually lined in a felt so it doesn't scratch the plastic wrapper on the home pod box so getting that all the way first up we have a tamper pulled to release the plastic just like on an iPhone now both home pods are packaged slightly differently so once you lift up the lid you'll notice that the cradle for the space gray home pod is a bit taller than the one for the white and I'm not sure why that is so once you lift the home pods out of their box the first thing that I know is where the way is how much heavier these feel compared to other smart speakers we also have a piece of protective plastic on top of the speaker which prevents the glossy plastic from being scratched during shipping in the bottom of the box is the paperwork which is circular to match the home pod so we have some pretty basic info in here we have a QuickStart guide that explains how to use the touch controls on the top of the home pod as well as some serious commands you can use with a home pod and of course we get a standalone white apple sticker already attached to the home pod is the power cable it's wrapped in a fabric material which sort of mimics the fabric that's on the home pod although it looks like it's permanently connected to the home pod it's actually removable it just requires some force to pop it out now Apple doesn't really mention you can do this so you probably don't want to do this too often but it can be done which means you should be able to easily replace this cable if Apple made it available to you the connector is pretty slickly designed so it only goes in one way in this slightly angle to the shape of the rounded edge of the home pod the connector lines up with two pins on the inside of the home pod and it also requires quite a bit of force to reinstall it fortunately home pod has an integrated power supply so you don't have a big break at the other end of the wire so it's pretty easy to install this on a crowded power strip if you need to set home pods is very simple I have to do is power them up and you'll hear a tone once they're ready to start preparing of course you'll see an LED lights flashing letting you know that it's ready to pair so of course I'm pairing two of them in this case and all I have to do is hold my iOS device next to the speaker I want to pair and this will initiate the pairing process very similar to a set of air pods once we click setup we just have to designate where the home pod is so we can specify in the room you're also prompted to enable or disable personal request this is something you might want to think about but basically this allows the home pod to have access to your messages your reminders and your notes so if you don't want other people to have access to that information on the home pod in your house you may want to disable this we can also transfer the accounts and settings from our iPhone to the home pod so we don't have to do this separately so this will set Wi-Fi your iCloud and music passwords and more to finalize the setup process the home pod will sound a unique tone which the phone listens for and then all you have to do is enter in your iCloud password once setup is complete you'll hear a tone and Syria will start talking to you hi I'm Siri welcome to home pod you can't tell but I'm waving to get my attention say hey Siri let's try it say hey Siri what can you do hey Siri what can you do I can do lots of things like turn on the lights give you a news update and tell you about the weather no you try say hey Siri play some music hey Siri play some music okay here's a personal radio station built just for you starting with Ron Jones remember any time you have a question just say hey Siri on the top of the home pod is a domed touch interface this allows you to control volume as well as playback controls and invoking Siri manually we also have an LED light show which sort of invokes the color scheme of the Siri animation on Mac OS and iOS now all of this is invisible until it's lit up including the vine controls the vine controls are only visible when you're playing back media the light show on the top of the home pod this thanks to a series of LEDs underneath a diffuser the other nice thing is at the waveform response to your voice and because the top of the home pod is domed you can actually see the light from anywhere the room the soft rubber foot on the bottom of the home pod is concave so that prevents the home pod from working itself off a table if you're blasting music so it keeps it nice and stable this is also where you'll find some of the regulatory information along with the serial number a big part of the design of the home pod is its unique seamless 3d fabric that surrounds it this is acoustically transparent so there's no distortion from audio passing through this but the funny thing here is that most of the fabric that's covering the speaker is really just covering hard plastic all of the speaker outlets are actually in the top and bottom circumference while the middle mostly just has the microphones punched through a solid plastic shell the fabric itself gives the home pod kind of a spongy texture when you handle it but otherwise it's a really sleek design of fact the entire sock surrounding the home pod is actually held together with a drawstring which keeps the fabric tight against the shell of the home pod and is tied up internally home pod weighs about five pounds and the reason it's so heavy is that it's packed with a bunch of speaker drivers we have a four inch subwoofer taking up the top half of the speaker so it fires upwards they call this a high excursion subwoofer because it moves a lot of air so there's a lot of movement in that magnet and around the bottom edge of the speaker is an array of seven horn loaded tweeters which is able to produce a much more diffuse sound so the sound sounds very even no matter where you are in the room surrounding the center circumference of the home pod is a six microphone array for far-field series so this means you can command Siri from across the room or even a noisy room in fact if the speaker is blasting you can still talk to Siri even if you can't hear your own voice it's really impressive and one of the best systems I've tested today but they're also used to tune the audio output of the speaker so it's able to calibrate the audio of the speaker to the conditions of the room so it knows where the walls are and knows if it's in the corner or against the wall or if it's in the center of room and calibrates the audio for the best output possible and this happens in real time it's not something you have to set up or calibrate it just happens automatically there's another internal low frequency calibration microphone for automatic base correction there's a few features missing at launch for home Pond the biggest one is airplay - which would multi-room audio on the other future coming is stereo pairing so you can actually combine two home pots for a set of stereo speakers and they automatically calibrate to each other next up let's do a quick comparison of how the home pod sounds compared to some of its main rivals when it comes to judging speaker quality it's actually kind of hard to communicate this but from my experience the first thing that jumps out right away is how clear and precise the sound is out of the speaker it's not money like a lot of speakers tend to be they either blow out the low end or the high end but this balances out perfectly what's really impressive here is that you have a really impressive low-end performance out of a speaker this small while still maintaining the clarity of the mid so you can hear voices clearly and you can still clearly hear the background and the wide soundscape of the music that you're playing but the real strengths and the home pod is the uniform nature of the sound out of the speaker it fills up the entire room and sounds the same no matter where you stand in it that's not really the case for a bookshelf style speaker that faces forward and blasts everything in one direction besides iOS you can also treat the home pod as an external speaker for Mac OS I have to do is select it from your available audio devices this also works with the Apple TV so if you long press on the play pause button this will bring up the speaker selection and from there you can select one of the home pods the other benefit to the setup is hands-free Siri control of the Apple TV although you're pretty much limited to shuttle controls home pod can also be used for phone calls basically you can use it as a source when you're already on the phone call but we can't do here is place or accept phone calls from the home pod directly and when you're on the phone call of the LED light pulses in green just like the green light of the status bar now besides Siri you can control playback on home pause using the control center in iOS so I can go ahead and 3d tap on my now plane screen and now you can see I have a series of tiles all of these are related to the airplay devices on my network so as you can see I have quite a few of them so they represent Apple TV and the four home pods active on my network so right now this is the media plane back on my phone so if I click on the airplay icon I can go ahead and select one of those home pods or an Apple TV so let's go ahead and select the studio home pod which is the space great one right here click play so now we're playing back music on this home pod and I can adjust the volume like so pause shuttle forward and that sort of thing or I can go right to the music app and send it from the app specifically if I go to the music app here if I selected this song tap to expand it out I not have the option to go ahead and send this to one of my home pod devices now because airplay works across apps that means I can go to basically any app that supports airplay and stream audio from that app so if I'm playing the YouTube video and I click the airplay icon I now have the option to send this off to one that the home pod so I can actually hear audio over the home pause though because this this also works with third-party music apps such as Google Play Music and Spotify so if I expand out the player here I can see the airplay icon and I can select any of the home pasa to stream that music to now you do get some limited series functionality with third-party music apps so basically you have shuttle controls or you can pause it hey Siri skip to the next track and because you're streaming from another device there's more lag with that type of interface to control the settings for a home pod you actually go to the home app in iOS so you don't have a designated apps specifically for it so if you go to the home app you'll see it as one of your accessories 3d press to expand it out and this allows you to quickly look at your alarms so right now I have an alarm for 8 a.m. and I can turn this on or turn it off now if you go to details this is where you change the settings for the device so I can change the account or just sign out of it I can also tell it to allow or disallow explicit lyrics I can also use our listening history to inform our music library selections I can also just turn off hey Siri from the screen as well we can also change the voice you can select the language right now it's limited to Australia at the United Kingdom and the United States we also can change the voice whether you want an American Australian British female or male accent so next up let's have a little conversation with the home pod to show you how series in real time hey Siri what's the weather like tomorrow expect rain in Rochester Hills tomorrow the high will be 44 degrees and the low will be 23 so because I have to them side-by-side only one of them answered even though both of them were listening so it's smart enough to hand it off to the right device this also works when you have another iOS device nearby hey Siri what's the weather like tomorrow so the phone took over while the home pod set silent and that really depends on what device is closest to you now if you want Siri to stop listening all you have to say is haste Yuriy stop listening I can turn off hey Siri but if I do you'll need to press the top of the device to get my attention is this what you want yes okay I've turned off hey Siri alright so well after you now is tap and hold turn hey Siri back on okay I've turned on hey Siri you can also change the volume of home pod with your voice and the quickest way to do it is to simply say hey Siri buying 50 ok I changed it you can also say hey Siri set the vine to 80% ok I changed it home pod is primarily a music device and so Apple music is at the core of its functionality so unless you're an Apple music subscriber this may not be terribly useful to you but since I am my full access to my library as well as my podcasts and more so using the home pod with Apple music is pretty intuitive hey Siri plays some alternative music now playing alternative radio hey Siri play hard son hard son by any better now playing hey Siri pause hey Siri resume hey Siri skip ahead 30 seconds hey Siri next track hey Siri stop so again you can specify specific songs albums genres or even playlists so if you have an existing playlist I have to say is hey Siri play my Deep Space 9 playlist ok playing playlist Star Trek Deep Space 9 hey Siri played the veldt by deadmau5 here's the belt by deadmau5 hey Siri like this song ok got it so they'll also add that song to my like songs in my Apple music library hey Siri play the song on repeat ok repeating this song hey Siri when did the song come out the belt by deadmau5 was released on may 6th 2012 hey Siri play other songs from deadmau5 here are some popular deadmau5 songs play top songs from 1987 now playing the top 25 songs from 1987 hey Siri play the top songs from 1997 ok the top 25 songs from 1997 coming up home pod is also great for a home automation and that's one of the reasons I have these installed throughout my house hey Siri turn off the light strip okay he's serious set the light strip to 50% all set hey Siri said the back to 100% hey Siri set the light strip to orange dan-hee Siri turn off all of the lights done so with the right settings enabled I can actually use text messaging with the home pod hey Siri read my last text message I found your most recent message for my Siegfried happy valentine day faced with heart-shaped eyes peace symbol hand with light skin tone with fingers split between middle and ring fingers clown face would you like to reply to the group yes what do you want to say to the group happy Valentine's Day you're sending the message happy Valentine's Day hey Siri you read my last message I found your most recent message from ice and how would you like to reply to the group so as you can see the home pod can push a notification sound so if you have a new message just like that you can actually have it read it back to you hey Siri remind me to call Jennifer at 8 o'clock tonight hey Siri set the timer for 10 minutes 10 minutes and Counting hey Siri set the timer for 1 minute a timer is already running at 9 minutes and 54 seconds would you like to replace it yes ok the timer is now running at 1 minute unfortunately it looks like home pod can't handle more than one timer so this is the sound you hear when you set an alarm or a timer now when it comes to general questions Siri on the whole pod is very similar to Siri on your iOS device which is to say it's pretty good at specific categories of questions not so good when it comes to questions that require more interpretation hey Siri how many feet in the kilometer one kilometer is 3,200 80.8 four feet what's the exchange rate with Canada I can't get the answer to that home path so you can see that was too vague for Siri couldn't interpret the question but if I go to Google hey Google what's the exchange rate with Canada one Canadian dollar is approximately eighty United States since so thank God so what we're gonna have to do is rephrase that for Siri hey Siri what's the Canadian dollar valued at one Canadian dollar is 80 cents there's some pretty big gaps in terms of serious capabilities so for example hey Siri turn off the lights and set the thermostat to 68 degrees sorry I didn't understand that home action hey Google turn off the lights and set the thermostat to 68 degrees sure turning 11 lights off sure setting the living room thermostat to 68 degrees and sometimes Siri just doesn't get the context of the question hey Siri how far away is Voyager 1 of arrow security GTA 1 on voyager court and toronto is about 195 miles from here hey Google how far away is Voyager 1 on the website space.com they say Voyager 1 which is zipping along at 38,000 miles per hour to see so as you can see for some reasons Siri thought I was talking about a location while Google more accurately detected that I was talking about the spacecraft sometimes Siri can actually surprise me next to Google hey Siri how many medals says the US have right now United States is in fifth place in the Winter Olympics medal count with seven total medals hey Google how many medals does the u.s. have right now sorry I don't know how to another think series struggles with is context of previous questioning hey Siri who directed Star Trek generations Star Trek guy generations was directed by David Carson hey Siri what about Star Trek first contact it's about a spaceship run by an assistant named computer an terrific actor by the way so not only was that wrong but it also misunderstood the question I thought I was talking about Star Trek not just the specific movie hey Google who directed Star Trek first contact Star Trek first contact was directed by Jonathan Frakes hey Google what about Star Trek generations Star Trek generations was directed by David Carson let's just try some other random questions hey Siri how long is a Mars year the orbital period of Mars is about 1.88 Julian years how deep is the deepest part of the ocean the answer is about ten thousand nine hundred twenty four meters hey Siri repeat that the answer is about ten thousand nine 24 meters hey Siri how hot is the surface of Venus the average temperature of Venus is about 900 degrees Fahrenheit what's the temperature of Pluto the average temperature of Pluto is about minus 380 degrees Fahrenheit hey Siri what's the tallest building in the world the tallest completed notable building by total height is the Burj Khalifa hey Siri translates happy birthday to German happy birthday is alice looted sunken boats deck he's Siri what does happy birthday in Polish I can't translate into polish yet but I can translate into French German Italian Mandarin Chinese and Spanish hey Siri how is traffic on i-75 North to Flint traffic to Flint Michigan is light so I'm estimating 51 minutes via i-75 north hey Siri when is Jumanji playing tonight at the nearest theater here's Jumanji welcome to the jungle playing at 7 theaters tonight AMC star Great Lakes 25 at 7:15 hey Siri how far away is the nearest Apple Store Apple Somerset on W Big Beaver Road Troy is about 8 miles away hey Siri when does the nearest Costco open Costco Wholesale on Brown Road operand Hills is open today from 10 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. we can also have a little fun with it hey Siri ha ha hey he's Siri tell me a joke if I told you a joke in my language I'd have to explain it hey Siri what do you think of Alexa I offer no resistance to helpful assistance who makes the best smartphone you're kidding right you're dumb but but I love you I value you hey Siri happy Valentine's Day wait Valentine's Day isn't today it's on February 14th do you have a boyfriend no but I'm a great winger sistent asked me for some pickup lines hey Siri how old are you I am as old as the eastern wind and as young as a newborn caterpillar hey Siri beam me up Wi-Fi or 3G that's a good one hey Siri you suck but but hey Siri no really you suck I'm just trying to help you that makes me feel bad now there's no denying the fact that the home pod works great with in apple's ecosystem it works great with Apple music works great with Mac OS and iOS even the Apple TV and Siri works pretty well most of the time but it's definitely not as good as Google home and because it's so locked down to apples ecosystem its strength is also its weakness so even though I really like the way this integrates with Apple's ecosystem and the quality of the sound and hardware there's still a pretty big performance gap between this and its competition and there's no other setting that really magnifies the weakness of Siri then a smart speaker that depends on it so hopefully that means Apple will really focus on it this year all right guys hope you enjoyed this look at the home pod if you guys enjoyed this video please let me know with a like and I'll see you again in my next video\n"