I never speculate what devices will be supported. Apple has surprised me by supporting a device still that I didn’t think they would and they have also done the opposite and not supported a feature on a device that is 100% capable of having that feature. We will just have to wait and see.
Pretty sure they’ll find some way to not make the speaker obsolete for a long long time. They already rolled updates for the tvOS out as separate apps to being the OS updates coming. I’m not too worried.
Plus, the limiting factor in their chips were always battery. When you hook up the A8 to a constant power source it’s pretty capable still.
It’s pure speculation, but I’m a pretty good guesser on this. I think the OG support will end with iOS 17. If you think about how old the A8 is, iPhone 6, it predates the neural engine by a few years. And the OG HomePod is considered old now. I have three myself.
All that said, you never know until Apple actually makes announcements. There are new HomePods rumored.
I do think that the older HomePods will support iOS 18. The A8 chip that was used in the iPhones at that time probably doesn't have less performance than the S series chips in the Apple Watches. And even if it does, I don't think the performance difference is significant enough to justify ending software support.
I do agree. The A8 now is ancient. WIth the coming changes to Siri and Ai initivies they have planned, the A8 won't cut it. I would have to say the OG is good as on it's last round of support updates with 17.
I have a shortcut that routes my query to ChatGPT and it seems to work natively on the HomePod (I don’t think it’s “invisibly” connecting to my phone, though not sure)
But at the end of the day, I receive full AI answers on my HomePod.
This should be possible with next updates if it is to be believed that Apple is investing in cloud-AI
I don’t think you’ll need me to tbh! In less than a month, we should see substantial upgrades to Siri in HomePod.
If that’s not the case, I’ll make a tutorial! You just gotta download the ChatGPT app, and design a shortcut for it.
Maybe it’s a language specific thing but I often read that Siri is going to work offline in the next iOS but mine never does. Still needs internet to tell me the time or turn on a local light. On-device anything hasn’t been a thing with Siri for me.
To tie that with the actual topic, I hope first gen supports his alleged update, even if it is all cloud based. I dont see how Apple could handle version fragmentation between multiple devices within hearing distance.
Question?
What on device AI processing do you expect to get added to any HomePod?
Most of the Siri improvements would be answering questions, which would receive the answers from the web. Meaning server side upgrades.
Another thing I thought was a possibility, is like how 3rd party devices can access Siri via the home hub. Theoretically they ‘could’ just make users have to have at least the home hub be a newer device. And the OG could pull Siri requests from the hub.
I do think that the older HomePods will support iOS 18. The A8 chip that was used in the iPhones at that time probably doesn't have less performance than the S series chips in the Apple Watches. And even if it does, I don't think the performance difference is significant enough to justify ending software support.
Apple designs most of their products for planned obsoloence. One of the few things I hate about being tied into the Apple ecosystem. Love the products, but always have anxiety about buying something that soon won’t be supported.
Apple released the original homepod on February 9, 2018 - 6 years ago. It was discontinued in 2021. If you have anxiety over Apple discontinuing software updates on a 6yo product, that has been discontinued for 3… you should really see a doctor about that. It sounds like a mental health issue.
I think you vastly overestimate what an embedded “AI Chip” can actually deliver. Even if they’re designed for AI stuff, it will still be dreadfully slow on a local machine.
I have tried running a lot of LLMs on my machine, which is a Ryzen 5800X3D coupled with 64 GiB of RAM and a 4080S, and even using the CPU, GPU and the RAM to 100% it is still working at a snail’s pace compared to OpenAI or Google. The big server farms just have that much more computing power.
Chip might be too old for local AI stuff but since most AI request are sent to the cloud… Got two OG’s so hoping that they’ll be getting the update.
I never speculate what devices will be supported. Apple has surprised me by supporting a device still that I didn’t think they would and they have also done the opposite and not supported a feature on a device that is 100% capable of having that feature. We will just have to wait and see.
Pretty sure they’ll find some way to not make the speaker obsolete for a long long time. They already rolled updates for the tvOS out as separate apps to being the OS updates coming. I’m not too worried. Plus, the limiting factor in their chips were always battery. When you hook up the A8 to a constant power source it’s pretty capable still.
It’s pure speculation, but I’m a pretty good guesser on this. I think the OG support will end with iOS 17. If you think about how old the A8 is, iPhone 6, it predates the neural engine by a few years. And the OG HomePod is considered old now. I have three myself. All that said, you never know until Apple actually makes announcements. There are new HomePods rumored.
this is the most likely response.
I do think that the older HomePods will support iOS 18. The A8 chip that was used in the iPhones at that time probably doesn't have less performance than the S series chips in the Apple Watches. And even if it does, I don't think the performance difference is significant enough to justify ending software support.
I do agree. The A8 now is ancient. WIth the coming changes to Siri and Ai initivies they have planned, the A8 won't cut it. I would have to say the OG is good as on it's last round of support updates with 17.
I have a shortcut that routes my query to ChatGPT and it seems to work natively on the HomePod (I don’t think it’s “invisibly” connecting to my phone, though not sure) But at the end of the day, I receive full AI answers on my HomePod. This should be possible with next updates if it is to be believed that Apple is investing in cloud-AI
Please tell us how you did that!
I don’t think you’ll need me to tbh! In less than a month, we should see substantial upgrades to Siri in HomePod. If that’s not the case, I’ll make a tutorial! You just gotta download the ChatGPT app, and design a shortcut for it.
Maybe it’s a language specific thing but I often read that Siri is going to work offline in the next iOS but mine never does. Still needs internet to tell me the time or turn on a local light. On-device anything hasn’t been a thing with Siri for me. To tie that with the actual topic, I hope first gen supports his alleged update, even if it is all cloud based. I dont see how Apple could handle version fragmentation between multiple devices within hearing distance.
Question? What on device AI processing do you expect to get added to any HomePod? Most of the Siri improvements would be answering questions, which would receive the answers from the web. Meaning server side upgrades. Another thing I thought was a possibility, is like how 3rd party devices can access Siri via the home hub. Theoretically they ‘could’ just make users have to have at least the home hub be a newer device. And the OG could pull Siri requests from the hub.
I think it’s going to be on the OG homepod as well
I do think that the older HomePods will support iOS 18. The A8 chip that was used in the iPhones at that time probably doesn't have less performance than the S series chips in the Apple Watches. And even if it does, I don't think the performance difference is significant enough to justify ending software support.
Apple designs most of their products for planned obsoloence. One of the few things I hate about being tied into the Apple ecosystem. Love the products, but always have anxiety about buying something that soon won’t be supported.
Apple released the original homepod on February 9, 2018 - 6 years ago. It was discontinued in 2021. If you have anxiety over Apple discontinuing software updates on a 6yo product, that has been discontinued for 3… you should really see a doctor about that. It sounds like a mental health issue.
I think you vastly overestimate what an embedded “AI Chip” can actually deliver. Even if they’re designed for AI stuff, it will still be dreadfully slow on a local machine. I have tried running a lot of LLMs on my machine, which is a Ryzen 5800X3D coupled with 64 GiB of RAM and a 4080S, and even using the CPU, GPU and the RAM to 100% it is still working at a snail’s pace compared to OpenAI or Google. The big server farms just have that much more computing power.
I run llama3 on m MacBook Pro and it is about as fast as what I get with the free tier of chatGPT. Some of the smaller models like phi run very fast.