Ye Tragedy of the HomePod 🔊

April 20, 2022

If Shakespeare were alive today, he'd surely write a new play about Apple's unloved smart speaker: Ye Tragedy of the HomePod.

The full-size HomePod is really an exceptional speaker. It's compact yet sounds great, especially in a stereo pair.

Siri works well (most of the time) for queueing up music, playing the radio or podcasts, setting timers and answering simple queries.

I seriously love mine.

I set up a stereo pair in the kitchen and they rock.

Yesterday, I stood close to one laughing at the deep, low-end bass the subwoofer was pumping out. It was vibrating our concrete countertops. I was so impressed, I called the kids in to experience it. They just rolled their eyes.

It's a tragedy that Apple killed the original HomePod due to low sales. But ironically, the speaker's now going up in price -- see our top story today.

Plus, there are strong rumors it's coming back as a combo device.

Citing lackluster sales, Apple discontinued the original HomePod — the big one — in March 2021. Cupertino chose to focus on the HomePod mini. But now the original version is surging in value in online marketplaces, showing surprising resilience.

As rumors fly about the upcoming iPhone 14 series, a top analyst is doubling down on his recent assertion that high-end iPhones in 2024 — likely iPhone 16 Pro models — will feature an under-display camera along with under-display Face ID.

If you’ve been using your ex-girlfriend’s parents’ Netflix password for years, there’s a dark day coming. The video streaming service says it’s going to crack down on the 100 million households around the world using another household’s account. But the company is also considering a cheaper, ad-supported option.

Never worry about losing your pet again with one of Nine Twenty Eight’s new AirTag dog collars. The family-run Canadian retailer — new to the Cult of Mac Store — designs the collars with a double-stitched slot for an AirTag, which is included with some models. That way, you have a secure, comfortable collar for your pooch that also lets you use Apple’s AirTag tracking technology to help ensure he or she never gets lost.

What might be the most visually stunning and scientifically accurate dinosaur documentary in a generation will soon premiere on Apple TV+. The first full trailer for Prehistoric Planet shows it’ll explore many parts of the world of the dinosaurs, from the Arctic to the oceans.

We love serious audio here at Setups Central. But is it possible for the audio gear in your computer setup to be too serious? For example, can your desktop speakers be too comically oversized, as if you’re making some sort of visual joke about your life being all about the music?

The tech site dissects a recovered iPhone 4 prototype, publishing a teardown that shows what’s inside the soon-to-be-released device.

The Mac offers a lot of options for taking screenshots without installing any third-party apps. You can take a screenshot of the entire screen, get a clean image of a specific window or select specific areas to capture. There’s also a built-in way to take a video of your screen and even record a voiceover from your microphone, headset or AirPods. We'll show you various ways to take screenshots on Mac, so you can decide what’s best for your needs.

Tweetz o' the day

One more thing ...

"I'm brutally honest, because the price of admission to being in the room with me is I get to tell you you're full of shit if you're full of shit, and you get to say to me I'm full of shit, and we have some rip-roaring fights. And that keeps the B players, the bozos, from larding the organization, only the A players survive. And the people who do survive, say, 'Yeah, he was rough.' They say things even worse than, 'He cut in line in front of me,' but they say, 'This was the greatest ride I've ever had, and I would not give it up for anything.'" -- Steve Jobs

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