I ordered one for a sound bar for the Apple TV. I originally ordered two, but after reading the syncing won't be available until AirPlay 2, I cancelled one and will order the second once AirPlay 2 comes out (and assuming I like it).
The private issues are concerning, but the way Apple approaches privacy, it's less concerning to me. That may be foolish of me, but Apple seems to be the most interested in security (and has the least to gain from taking your data).
FWIW, I bought a Bose sound bar (the wide one) and wasn't overly impressed with it, particularly at $500. I'm hoping the "radar" technology of the HomePod will deliver a better single point surround sound. The technology sounds compelling.
The privacy thing is a little overblown by people that don't understand the technology.
Google Home, Amazon Echo, and all others do the same thing, they are continuously "listening" but only within the device itself. Audio is looped through an on-device audio processor which looks for the wake-word. If the wake-word is found that audio is sent to the cloud, but otherwise it just loops back over itself wiping out the previous audio sample. This can be easily verified with network monitoring or by reading about e.g. Qualcomm's Smart Audio Platform or competitors.
The next major privacy objection is typically "what if it gets hacked?!" Which, while impossible to address, ignores the smart elephant in your pocket. Which too has an always on speaker accessible to baseband as well as the primary OS.
Don’t be quick to assume that people just don’t understand the technology – it could be that their concerns are based on understanding history.
Apple doesn’t run an advertising and sales business and they’ve made privacy a major selling point. That gives many people reason to believe they won’t quietly change functionality in an update or start selling data from the cloud services backing these systems.
You can see this happening in the mobile space where Apple has been proactive about privacy concerns and Google has generally waited for public outcry or impending regulations before cleaning up their app store.
I think the worry isn't that they are listening to everybody all the time. I think it's more about the potential for abuse by Amazon, their employees, or law enforcement.
If the police approach Amazon with a court order saying they want to the microphone turned on in Someone1234's home, what do you think Amazon will do?
>What company do the police get to tap my computer?
Comcast, TWC, etc. Record everything over the wire since the patriot act and store it. Search with a FISA warrant. They could pay a private company to infiltrate it.
One can point out potential privacy/security flaws in one device while still recognizing the are other privacy/security flaws in other devices (smartphones, in this case).
I've never seen privacy/security minded individuals not acknowledging the latter.
To me, the biggest concern is taking my conversation and putting it up for sale on Amazon ad network. Already hate it when websites track me with ads about a search I did. Will be infinitely worse if now you get hoards of ads for something embarrassing you said and Alexa heard it.
Except the noise cancelling headphones. They were pretty much the best for a long time, and still pretty good today. I chose them after a personal shoot out of 3 NC headphones due to comfort and build quality.
>> Usually you buy Bose for the looks and the prestige, not for the sound quality.
Well people wouldn't buy Bose if they sounded bad. I don't think anyone who buys Bose hasn't been told they can get better sound for the money, but Bose does a few things well that can make them an easy purchase decision. They sound pretty good to the average person (to the non-audiophiles I know, they sound great), they look nice, they're well made and they're easy to set-up/use. In other words, the tradeoffs are worthwhile to their prospective buyers.
Bose is like the Starbucks of speakers -- they're the "premium mediocre" choice.
These might be tired cliches now but I've always known the joke of Bose's slogan: "Better sound through marketing" and of course the acronym "Buy Other Stereo Equipment".
Apparently, I didn't get the memo. I always bought Infinity speakers, but someone years ago convinced me Bose was good, so I gave them a try. They weren't.
I was thinking about getting it as an Apple TV speaker but however, after reading the reviews I found that it will drop the connection if you play something from another source. It would need to reconnect as an audio output. Can anybody confirm it?
I was using a speaker connected to an Airport Express as an Apple TV speaker over AirPlay for a while, but it made pausing and restarting video take a couple of seconds so I rigged an HDMI audio splitter instead. Will AirPlay 2 fix that?
also, resiliance to temporary network interference, as it sends large buffers faster than the audio plays, rather than a real time stream with a 2 second buffer (airplay 1.)
The private issues are concerning, but the way Apple approaches privacy, it's less concerning to me. That may be foolish of me, but Apple seems to be the most interested in security (and has the least to gain from taking your data).
FWIW, I bought a Bose sound bar (the wide one) and wasn't overly impressed with it, particularly at $500. I'm hoping the "radar" technology of the HomePod will deliver a better single point surround sound. The technology sounds compelling.