Christian SeligI assume the new HomePod wouldn’t be any better than the HomePod mini as a desktop speaker in terms of reducing the huge lag when pausing/playing?
I wish Apple took whatever tech they use in AirPods that enables transferring audio to them to be seamless, as well as instant pausing/playing and put that in an on-desk speaker instead of in-ear headphones
Ryan Scullen@christianselig maybe the added U1 chip in the new HomePod enables this?
Scott Berrevoets@christianselig I don’t understand this either. AirPods are so good at basically everything and HomePod is like it’s made by a different company that somehow got ecosystem privileges.
Nic Hagan@christianselig I would love for my office stereo pair of HomePod mini to actually be my desktop speakers. Lag is just too much!
Daniel Kennett@christianselig That technology is "Bluetooth", and unfortunately the quality sacrifice is pretty extreme. It's fine for AirPods, but on a big speaker like the HomePod it'd sound like garbage.
Low latency just isn't a priority for a HomePod — it's needed on AirPods etc since you do audio/video calls on them.
@ikenndac Really? I Bluetooth to my car speakers and other speakers around the house and they sound great
@christianselig Yes, really. It’s _fine_, but it’s not _good_. Also in your car you’re fighting however many dB of road noise - anything detailed is lost anyway, so they’ll crank up the bass and call it a day.
@ikenndac Huh, maybe it’s subjective, even sitting still in the parking garage they sound a lot better than my OG HomePod
@christianselig How audio sounds is one of the most subjective things there _is_, yes.
@christianselig Visual example: crank up the saturation on a TV and people will say an extremely low bitrate stream looks awesome! There’s a lot less detail, but pretty colours!
@christianselig There are two sides to things like this: objective quality (how much of the original is lost to low-bitrate compression etc), and subjective quality (monkey brain like bass).
The objective quality of Bluetooth is low, since it has a low bitrate and a decent amount of detail is lost. But it can still _sound_ good, because the receiver has a sick sub and cranks up the bass or whatever. But a higher level of the former will always improve the latter, all else equal.
@ikenndac Cant Bluetooth do 256 kbps AAC bitrate? How is that not high enough quality, that’s exactly what you get when you download a song from iTunes and right around what most streaming services offer
@christianselig The latency on AAC Bluetooth is pretty high, and I’d be surprised if your car supported it (it might, though). Low-latency Bluetooth is what I said sounded crappy - you trade quality for latency for calls and etc.
@ikenndac the AirPods Max support 256 kbps over Bluetooth and pause/play instantly so it’s clearly possible and something Apple knows how to do
@christianselig Yup! It’s largely a solved problem if both ends can communicate the pause/resume commands to one another - you can kinda sidestep any stream latency. Like I said originally, that seems to not be a priority on the HomePod.
@christianselig I listen to Bluetooth headphones every day, I never said they weren’t good _enough_. Those same headphones sound noticeably better when I plug in an audio cable, though!
@ikenndac Sure, but if Apple defaults their music to 256 kbps (and what would be streamed over AirPlay to their nicest HomePod), that tends to indicate it's a sweet spot for most listeners, and something Bluetooth can deliver. I'm just saying I don't think Bluetooth is this low quality format from 2009 that you're making it out to be, Apple has shown it to be incredibly capable and could make a killer speaker with it.
@christianselig Yeah, I have no idea why they don’t let you use it as a Bluetooth speaker if you want.
@christianselig And with Aux in, it’d actually be a useful computer speaker.
colton@christianselig it’s Bluetooth. The instant play/pause is because they’re connected through Bluetooth and not airplay over Wi-Fi.
macfixerThis might do the trick (it's not from Apple though, and I'd really like to see if it's any good)
https://www.logitech.com/en-us/products/personal-workspaces/logi-dock.html
@macfixer Doesn't really seem like it has a focus on sounding good/audio which is mainly what I want it for
Jimmy Callin@christianselig I think that's a limitation of the AirPlay protocol rather than the speaker, so I assume not.
@callin What do AirPods use? I just want something that fast but on my desk rather than on my head haha
@christianselig Bluetooth, which Homepod doesn't support for playing audio. My sonos are instant and I love them for it, but don't work well for computer playthrough, where cords are still king.
@callin Bluetooth works perfectly! I use my AirPods Max every day 😥 I just want some speakers with Apple magic
bpmarkowitz@christianselig on birdsite I remember talking to you about making a “speaker stand” for the back of your monitor - I recently made something similar for my studio display. https://mastodon.social/@bpmarkowitz/109707132358326413
@christianselig you could just rig something like that with a Bluetooth speaker using the Aux in?
@bpmarkowitz It doesn't have the same "ease of transfer" as Apple stuff does. You change output to a Bluetooth speaker and it's not nearly as instant as AirPods Max are, for instance
@bpmarkowitz Ohhhh, I see, make sure the Bluetooth speaker also has aux. Ah ha, that's smart, hrm. Would have to also make sure it has the ability to stay topped up battery-wise
@christianselig for the big Jambox (which I had behind I small 32” TV) I just left it plugged in to the power and hooked up with AUX.
@bpmarkowitz Couldn’t find any speakers to shove back there that didn’t suck :(
@christianselig the best speakers for this were the old Jawbone Jambox. I used a “Big Jambox” as my speaker forever - sadly they stopped making them.
Willie Abrams@christianselig @bpmarkowitz I still have my USB SoundSticks hooked up to my iMac. The cables are yellowing and I’m sure there are better options, but none without volume control integrated (because they are USB). I was hoping that these HomePods would be better, too.
gh0sti 
@christianselig I’m still sticking to the mini in my bedroom. Maybe I’ll get 2 more for downstairs for the kids.
Peter Cao@christianselig They’d need to update AirPlay as a whole... which would presumably mean that all of the HomePods would benefit.
Sören@christianselig the way I understand @marcoarment’s explanation,
• AirPlay 1 has a fixed 2 second delay all devices rely on
• with AirPlay 2, the devices negotiate an appropriate delay that can be much lower
Guess which one macOS supports 😬