Rather less than three years in the past, we employed a contractor to complete our basement, turning it from a makeshift plywood-floored storage room right into a multimedia room. As a part of the transition, I used to be lastly capable of transfer my document assortment and turntable out of the lounge, the place my spouse had mentioned they made her really feel like she was dwelling in a 22-year-old bohemian’s condominium, and into the basement, the place I might play them as loud and so long as I wished.
However I nonetheless prefer to hearken to music throughout dinner and after I’m doing dishes and different chores upstairs. So, in November 2020, I dropped $299 on an Apple HomePod speaker to switch the information and turntable. I selected the HomePod as a result of we have been an Apple household. All of us have iPhones or iPads as our major private gadgets, and my digital music has been locked up on an previous iMac since 2010.
The HomePod sounded nice, working equally nicely throughout a lot of several types of music — jazz, rock, hip-hop, 80s dance hits, ambient — you identify it. The bass was loud and the midrange clear. It sounded significantly better than varied cheap Bluetooth audio system I’ve used through the years, and superior to the Sonos techniques I’ve heard.
However the software program and total consumer expertise was at all times buggy. It by no means preferred my eclectic mixture of digital information from totally different sources — I’ve quite a lot of tunes from ripped CDs and vinyl, in addition to a handful of iTunes downloads and subsequent songs I’ve added to my assortment from Apple Music, the place we have now a household subscription. It could typically choke on songs that weren’t accessible on Apple Music. I speculate it was attempting to stream every little thing from the cloud as a substitute of pulling it straight from my telephone through Bluetooth, and whereas I discovered a pair workarounds, they often stopped working and the music would simply seize up in the midst of a track. It was somewhat annoying, however it sounded so good and appeared cool, a mysterious black cylinder in the midst of our front room, so we did not exchange it.
Just a few nights in the past, it stopped working completely. Not solely did it disappear from my house community, it will not activate or present something on the show. I attempted varied methods from Apple’s assist websites to try to reset it, then lastly adopted the assist suggestion and made a Genius Bar appointment on the Apple Retailer within the mall close to my home.
I defined the issue and the service tech plugged it in, tapped the display screen a few instances, agreed with me that it was useless, then checked her iPad for choices.
“We do not restore HomePods within the retailer,” she defined. “We exchange them, we do not restore them.”
However they would not exchange mine, because it was out of AppleCare guarantee. I requested in the event that they repaired it off website, or knew anyone else who might take a look at it. Nope. However she’d be joyful to promote me a brand new one for $279, though it solely got here with a 90-day guarantee…
I interrupted what I acknowledged as her AppleCare upsell pitch, pondering perhaps I might get one thing out of the previous HomePod earlier than I despatched it to the landfill. Possibly they’d refurbish it and resell it, as Apple has accomplished with previous iPhones for some years now. “Can I get any cash towards an alternate?”
“Simply recycling.”
This lovely $300 speaker I might purchased lower than three years in the past was price not more than the uncommon earth metals inside it. It is actually heavy, although, which makes it good as a doorstop.
Apple doesn’t restore HomePods, in response to an Apple Retailer worker.
Matt Rosoff, CNBC
I checked on-line once more to see if Apple had every other choices, like sending it in for repairs. It simply guided me again to my native Apple Retailer. A lot for that.
I haven’t got any deep conclusions from this complete expertise, however it crystallized the overall lack of enthusiasm I’ve felt for Apple merchandise in recent times. The iPhone remains to be a tremendous invention and I choose it to each Android telephone I’ve ever used, however we have all gotten used to them after 15-plus years. The enhancements every year appear smaller and extra incremental. I purchase new iPhones when my previous ones break, however primarily out of inertia. The Apple Retailer used to really feel like a church of know-how, with an array of gorgeous devices and enthusiastic individuals that will help you use them and repair them if one thing went incorrect. Now it feels extra like a rental automobile stand, the place the principle objective is to get you out and in quick with as many add-on providers hooked up as potential.
Apple remains to be a worthwhile juggernaut of an organization, and lots of of its merchandise nonetheless encourage devotion, notably the AirPods (I choose over-the-ear Beats) and Apple Watch. However the unique HomePod was at all times a bizarre transfer. It appeared like a little bit of a rush job to capitalize on the sudden reputation of Amazon‘s Alexa speaker, and now that the fad has handed it looks as if Apple is not notably within the product anymore. Purchaser beware.
An Apple spokesperson didn’t instantly reply to a request for touch upon the corporate’s restore coverage towards HomePods.
