Apple Releases HomePod Software 15.4

I'm not sure exactly what people are expecting from a $100 speaker (though I'm sure I'll learn shortly), but it's been a runaway hit in our household.

Santa delivered one this past x-mas for my 8-yo daughter. She loves it. Every morning, she wakes and asks Siri the weather and then dresses accordingly. By default, she has become the household weather report. She is constantly playing music, that she chooses - building independence and developing her music tastes along the way. The other day, I walked into her room and she was painting to classical music. I hear her asking Siri what words mean or other queries. IDK, from my use case of one, it's already paid for itself several times over. It's been such a hit, I wouldn't be opposed to having a few others scattered around the house. I find the fidelity on par with other speakers in its class. While it's not live concert caliber, I have never once thought about a lacking fidelity when it's been playing. If anything, I've impressed with its sound, in her room for, its size.

Now one thing I would like to see Apple offer, is a wireless version. That, for me, would be an insta-buy.

So we can now take our HomePods with us to our hotel rooms? 🤣

Yes, you can, but I think it'll find a lot more use on university/college campus residence hall ("dorm") networks ("ResNet" networks). And that means you can sell a whole lot of $99 devices to parents to give to their kids going away to college for the first time.

(Such networks generally have a required registration procedure to get on the network, and there's generally no other network available - yeah, back in the day, we had some kids' parents try to get the cable company to come install cable TV and networking - that didn't go over well.)

Make some new HomePods please!

Why does Handing Off a phone call require you to confirm the switch? Yes, I want to switch it over to the HomePod, thats why I’m holding it close to the speaker. This confirmation is not required for music, just phone calls.

I'm guessing because calls could be handed off on accident. Imagine being in the living room on a sofa with a HomePod next to you on a stand. A call comes in and randomly transfers over to the HomePod after you answer on your phone because you were close to the HomePod.

Just updated my HomePod minis and… they still work.
Now to update my original HomePods.

Once it was the thrill of a new update with exciting discoveries of nice new features
Now it's: it still works!

Now one thing I would like to see Apple offer, is a wireless version. That, for me, would be an insta-buy.

They're already WiFi, I'm actually a bit annoyed they don't have provision for ethernet. If you mean battery powered, (a), you can already use them with a battery pack, and (b), if they built in any sort of useful battery, the size would grow considerably.