HomePod mini Launches in Austria and Ireland, Coming to New Zealand Later This Month

Does anyone know why the rollout is slow around the world? Is it technical or legal? A Siri-language issue? 3 years after the original HomePod release, you still cannot officially buy it in rich, Apple-loving countries like Switzerland, Norway, Sweden, the Netherlands, or in other large European countries like Portugal, Italy, Poland, Belgium etc.

I sold my Homepod MINI. Disappointed with the sound quality, it didn't play nice on a mesh Wifi network, and Siri was as useless as it is on any other Apple device.

Same functionality as HomePod. And yes as stereo pair, can be set as default, can play dolby Atmos,can play lossless audio, works fine on previous generation 4K AppleTV. (No idea on older, would presume it does stereo pair but older does not do Atmos does it? I don't have one, so I don't know). A future update is supposed to allow Dolby Atmos directly for music played on mini, right now, you can airplay from any device.

Yeah but it's a tiny speaker and sounds like a tiny speaker -- a good one, but still. I bought a Mini and returned it after a few days in favor of a full-size HomePod. The sound just isn't in the same league at all.

Does anyone know why the rollout is slow around the world? Is it technical or legal? A Siri-language issue? 3 years after the original HomePod release, you still cannot officially buy it in rich, Apple-loving countries like Switzerland, Norway, Sweden, the Netherlands, or in other large European countries like Portugal, Italy, Poland, Belgium etc.

Wonder the same, why would it take so long for apple to launch the HomePod in other countries? It is really disappointing. There are more examples of such slow roll-outs, like the swipe to type feature in iOS which is not available in parts of Europe, I suppose the live text feature wont be available in like a decay too :)

it is actually not convoluted at all. that way you can run the scenes from appletv, your Mac, your iPhone your appleWatch, from Sirii. Maybe it is not the way you would think, but it actually makes a lot on sense. One scene - use it everywhere. I have basically 2 set up HomePods on and HomePods off and then set them in shortcuts as Music on and Music Off. cheers

Thanks 👍 I’ll try it.

The sound of the original HomePod wasn't bad enough, so Apple had to try again...
This time they succeeded!
I remember when most people had HiFi in their homes... Uncompressed CD sound on big stereo speakers! TWO of them!!!

Well, all random dude snark aside. Professional testers have rated the HomePod as sounding great. (I wold agree). The mini also sounds fantastic. I have a pair set up in a room with a HomePod, you can play on all three speakers, set the volume so that it splits the sound field in the middle and then move between the HomePod and mini, the tone and musical characteristics are pretty much identical, except for a heavier bass sound on the HomePod, but not unpleasantly so.