Agree, pricing was too high plus when launched and you could only use their streaming music app and siri always on an annoying. Too closed environment with no audio in jack etc. It was way too limited.
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5 Products Discontinued by Apple in 2021
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They just had to wait a bit... They want us to be like sheep and jump on all the new things like super geeks, but guest what Apple? We can't buy 4 iPhones, 4 etc... every year for all the family members...
I didn't buy one because I was waiting to see what next... Home cinema, something really cool with multiroom?
And also because I bought a Magnat Home Cinema with a Technics amp for my graduate, and it's still working 25 years later with a little update by adding Bluetooth and the sound still beating all the new audio connected that I have.
Sonos already discontinue some app update for their products so they just easily tell you to buy new one every 4-5 years or so, that will never happen with mine.
HP is great, only Siri is appalling. After 4 years, Siri only improved a little bit, and we learned how to requests songs: you need to say: play "Song" by "Artist", or play "song" from album "album". Sometimes, it needs 3 or 4 tries - if the album or artist name is weird - you have to mimic Siri's way of pronouncing verbs, or it cannot understand you. I do manage my playlists in iTunes, and the best way is to ask: play playlist "playlist name". Annoying, that there is no shuffle with playlists, always the same song order. Shuffle all got a bit better recently, has been playing songs hidden for years in my library (12K songs). <I have music match>
What these 5 products all have in common is that the price wasn't right. Apple was greedy and these products failed because senior management are out of touch with consumers.
Homepod was a very frustrating product. Amazing audio engineering, poor product features and awful pricing.
Like why would they create an awesome audio experience only to kill with a horrible price and limited functionality? Which idiot executive approved the product without a jack? Is Tim so out of touch with his consumers that he thinks we would pay 5 times as much to be locked into their products (actually to many of us have! Glad many people went with alternatives though).
The market spoken! These products failed because of Tim. Time to walk his butt out the door!
Homepod was a very frustrating product. Amazing audio engineering, poor product features and awful pricing.
Like why would they create an awesome audio experience only to kill with a horrible price and limited functionality? Which idiot executive approved the product without a jack? Is Tim so out of touch with his consumers that he thinks we would pay 5 times as much to be locked into their products (actually to many of us have! Glad many people went with alternatives though).
The market spoken! These products failed because of Tim. Time to walk his butt out the door!
My HomePod died this year, and although Apple would replace it they wanted £230 to do so. It was a poor product tbh. Too unreliable, and the sound wasn’t particularly great either. Will proboy replace with Sonos.I have a pair of HomePods, which sound awesome. Unfortunately, I've had way more glitches with them this year, after automatic software updates - I assume this is what is happening. Maybe it's only a coincidence that it's this year when I have all the problems, after they were discontinued...
I don't mind mine, the NC is ok. I wanted headphones with the H1 chip and the Beats Solo Pro was the only one at the time.
So if the price was halved without “good” product features it would have done better? Or if Bluetooth was opened up at the same price it would have done better?
Thanks for the laugh!
If they had actually sold it in my country, I would gave bought it. Fascinating tech. A shame about Apples obsession with Siri and talking to inanimate objects, they seemed to be really good speakers that just wasn’t widely distributed due to spoken language. A pity. I simply wanted them as speakers, I’ve got walls to speak to if need be.
I much prefer the rounded cylinder shape of the HomePod to the cutoff sphere shape of the Mini. I wish the Mini had been a shrunken HomePod.
I LOVE the OG HomePods. The sound and size are fantastic but looking around I‘ve come to believe they’ve got a hardware defect that will in in time ”cook” them all. Check the forums - software updates with added functionality seems to have accelerated this but once they start “popping” they’re on the way out. A small component on the amp board is destined to fail and melt the woofer. Irony of ironies turning off Siri listening seems to slow this.
Homepod Repair
Because of the limited production run - (do any have serial from 2019 onwards?) Apple did not tweak the design for a Rev B. It was simply cheaper to pull the product, keep some stock for replacements, and bank that the small user base’s complaints would not be heard. #corporations.
It’s extremely disappointing. I had them all over the house at one point but once some friend’s got the pop I moved them on. I will be sad when my final pair die. I’ve almost had 4 years out of them but I would expect double that to honest for the money. Other speakers last decades, so I’ll be hesitant to fully commit to an all Apple audio solution again - especially one with no physical line in.
Of course if Apple had made them easily repairable then It might be different. It’s not impossible to make beautiful looking and sounding gear you can open. Other audio manufacturers like B&O have started to make products with a view to this. Perhaps Apple should take some notes.
I wish I’d bought more of them, the sound is incredible especially now with Dolby atmos support on most streaming services on appletv. At one point they were throw out bin priced at local stores and I couldn’t believe it, like 160usd each. Now an unopened one goes for a fortune on eBay. If they had just waited to release the damn thing it would have done so much better, it gained its best features 2 years after release and is a far more compelling product now than ever, but now if you want one you’re stuck with mediocre hardware on the mini
It's one of those "to be a fly on the wall" things. Did they really intend all along to introduce a product called "SE" but then not make it the lowest-priced option? And then to continue that for another year? Was there a last-minute problem (supply constraints?) that required them to make changes?
To a degree, you’re partially correct. I don’t suspect discontinuing the larger HomePod was a mistake, because Apple was extremely late into the ‘smart speaker’ segment, when this had been a trend for years and there wasn’t much traction for them that they were gaining with one larger unit. If anything, by discontinuing the larger variant of the HomePod, introducing a smaller, more affordable version was the correct move that put the HomePod in a more appropriate segment against the Sonos, beats, Amazon, ect.
Where are you are correct, was that the pricing of the HomePod was on the higher end, and consumers are likely thinking to themselves, ‘Why would I want to pay this price, when there’s so many cheaper options that probably meet simple expectations with voice commands, adequate sound….’ What people didn’t understand, was the HomePod was so much more than a smart speaker, it was an actual music player first that really boasted the dynamics of sound quality, unfortunately that wasn’t really captured appropriately by consumers who just couldn’t look past the price point.
You don’t have to speak to it. You can just use it as an Airplay speaker.
Well, yeah, if you offer them for $2 dollars each, and $3 dollars for a pair, they will sell EVEN better. What a mistake Apple made.
I love my home pods, I love my iMac Pro 18-core, and the AirPods Max are an absolute necessity for me by now. I think the Max will stay for good, they are pricey, but boy are they worth it.
Yeah, people who complain about the price don’t seem to understand what good to high end audio actually goes for.
The cost of manufacturing the HomePod meant that Apple couldn’t reduce the price any further.
They really should’ve entered the market with the mini version, then released the large HomePod later.
Saying that, I’m really happy with my stereo HomePods.
of course, the homepod mini has no bass, which seems like a grievous oversight when the most popular music in the world is hip-hop. i just bought and returned a pair of homepod minis because listening to hip-hop on them brought me no joy. gonna try a sonos one.
only device there i will remember fondly is the iPhone XR. great little phone. i'd love if Apple done another one like it. The 5C and XR were fun colorful budget phones. for example, if we got an iPhone 14C/14R that was 6.1" and came in a bunch of vibrant colors i'd probably get one. maybe for iPhone 15 since it doesn't seem to be happening in 2022 based on rumors.
I never got to hear the speaker myself, so from what I gather, it seems that there was a market for that speaker for the sound quality it offered, only that Apple thought to charge astronomically for it. If it was priced right, it did not need discontinuing, that's my point.