The Return Of The Full-Sized HomePod Reminds Handoff On HomePods Is A Whimsical, Accessible Stroke Of Genius - Forbes

A time aft announcing M2-powered MacBook Pros and Mac minis, Apple connected Wednesday lit up its Newsroom website yet again by announcing a resurrected HomePod. The 2nd procreation astute speaker, which costs $299 and starts shipping February 3, is the company’s archetypal full-sized HomePod since discontinuing the archetypal exemplary successful March 2021 aft 3 years connected the market.

A notable diagnostic successful presumption of accessibility to the caller HomePod is Intercom Transcription. The feature, which really debuted with the advent of the HomePod mini, transcribes audio messages sent via the Intercom feature—letting you archer the family, for instance, meal is acceptable and beam the announcement to HomePods passim your house—and contiguous them connected one’s iPhone (or Apple Watch) successful a Messages-style interface. The thought is obvious: it’s meant to accommodate radical successful a mixed household wherever immoderate radical whitethorn beryllium hearing, but others are deaf oregon hard-of-hearing. This makes portion of the HomePod’s worth proposition much inclusive wherever it understandably wouldn’t beryllium otherwise.

I person 3 HomePods successful my home: 1 OG mentation and 2 minis. While the caller full-size exemplary seems nice, it doesn’t compel truthful overmuch that it’s indispensable to upgrade oregon adhd it to my existing setup. One of my favourite features of each said speakers is thing Apple calls Handoff. As the leader representation supra this communicative suggests, Handoff enables users to “handoff” audio—music, podcasts, and more—by holding your iPhone adjacent the HomePod and transportation playback from telephone to speaker. (It works the different mode astir arsenic well, utile if you request to permission but wanna instrumentality your contented with you.) The enactment is triggered by a haptic buzz connected the iPhone, alongside ocular confirmation connected the Dynamic Island connected an iPhone 14 Pro.

Handoff genuinely feels similar magic—it works successful a mode that’s quintessential Apple.

What’s truthful delightfully endearing astir Handoff is not specified whimsy, but the accessibility gains. Rather than pat the AirPlay sheet successful Control Center and manually power to the desired HomePod, it’s overmuch much accessible—and situation to say, fun—to locomotion implicit to the talker and handoff the audio and it automatically changes. Admittedly, I oftentimes usage the manual method too, erstwhile I’m not closest to a HomePod—but I vastly similar utilizing Handoff erstwhile available. Handoff conscionable makes it easier; it reduces the friction associated with uncovering the AirPlay paper and the HomePod, which involves a comparatively sizeable magnitude of cognitive load, ocular fatigue, and tapping. For idiosyncratic with aggregate disabilities, that Handoff drastically cuts down connected these factors is not a trivial matter. Whether it’s possible for me—or anyone else—to power audio root the agelong mode is not the point; adjacent if it is doable, the salient constituent is utilizing Handoff is acold easier to do.

And acold much amusive too.

Looking done a broader lens, Handoff—which besides exists connected the Mac to instrumentality implicit iMessages and emails from an iPhone oregon iPad, among different tasks—is yet different ostensibly “mainstream” portion of bundle that genuinely shines arsenic a de-facto accessibility feature. Like Daring Fireball’s John Gruber quipped astir Apple Pay, Handoff is an exemplar of bully design, insofar that it doesn’t necessitate peculiar modes oregon settings to beryllium accessible. That, without question, is Apple astatine its zenith.

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