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The other day I wasted a good ten minutes trying to get our kitchen HomePod to play a specific song.
I forget which song now, but no matter how close to the speaker I got, and how clearly I enunciated the title and artist, it steadfastly refused to play the right song. I even tried spelling it! But alas, it kept playing some unrelated tune.
Is this the universal experience of using a HomePod? It certainly seems like it, talking to friends and coworkers.
To be fair, the HomePod does often get things right, and I was surprised the other day when I yelled a song request across the full length of our house and it picked it up, despite already playing some music at a pretty loud volume. It really is a pretty great speaker.
We use our HomePod almost all day, every day, which is why I’m interested in our top post today: Will older HomePods get Siri AI, Apple’s newer, smarter smart assistant?
I don’t want to give it away, but I came away from the post with a teeny tiny bit of hope!
Also in today’s newsletter:
This is a shame, and puts a slight damper on my enthusiasm for the first touchscreen MacBook.
And these rumors about Apple’s chip roadmap just compounds it!
Tim Cook is known for squeezing suppliers. Did he inadvertently cause the memory crisis that led to Apple’s eye-watering price hikes?
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Forget the doom and gloom and bathe in the glory of these beautiful Mac setups you can no longer afford.
This is something to watch: Skimpy memory in the upcoming base iPhone 18 may have interesting knock-on effects for Apple’s AI.
Because I’m a huge cheapskate, I often buy refurbished — same product, same warranty, but a much lower price. Thanks to yesterday’s price hikes, Apple’s official M5 MacBook Pro refurbs — which coincidentally just got listed — look especially good.
🔥 DEAL OF THE DAY: As Amazon Prime Day winds down, the wonderful Apple Watch Series 11 looks like one of the best Apple deals still going. The 46mm model is almost 30% off at just $309. #affiliate.
As if I didn’t have enough reasons to hate on Mark Zuckerberg, Threads (which I actually like) mysteriously nuked the Cult of Mac account! I just reinstated it, but we’ve gone from more than 30,000 followers to just a handful. If you'd like to follow us there, please hit the Follow button here. What’s really annoying is that we used to get great engagement on Threads, with lots of good interaction and constructive comments.
— Leander Kahney, EIC.
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One more thing ...
[On the delayed launch of the NeXT computer] It’s not late. It’s five years ahead of its time.
Today’s poll
Are you team HomePod, or team something else?
Results from yesterday’s poll:
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