If that's so, where the hell is HomePod? Oops. Not out yet. Why didn't they talk about it in Keynote?
Talk about dropping the ball again. That should've been out by now prior to the Amazon release or around it.
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Amazon Launches New $99 Echo Speaker With Better Sound and $149 Echo Plus Smart Home Hub
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If that's so, where the hell is HomePod? Oops. Not out yet. Why didn't they talk about it in Keynote?
Talk about dropping the ball again. That should've been out by now prior to the Amazon release or around it.
"With Better Sound" Yeah, so where is the in-depth review video of this device. Oh, you haven't heard it yet? That's what I thought. Looks like it should sound better than a potato.
HomePod is dead in the water....
People don’t care about quality sound, mp3 proved all that years ago.. What else sells it to joe public for that price?
If you can buy three of these for 2/3 the price of the HomePod, with a device that is in a mature stage of generation then it’s as dead as the Apple TV (and I’ve got one of those!).
Unless the drop the price before launch by half!
People don’t care about quality sound, mp3 proved all that years ago.. What else sells it to joe public for that price?
If you can buy three of these for 2/3 the price of the HomePod, with a device that is in a mature stage of generation then it’s as dead as the Apple TV (and I’ve got one of those!).
Unless the drop the price before launch by half!
HobeSoundDarryl
macrumors G5
Are you talking about Apple's marketing claim about better sound or this one? Because BOTH have had that said about them by the respective entity trying to sell them. Or is only Amazon's marketing claim of "better sound" questionable?
And Google makes a similar announcement about improved speakers in a new model of their version: https://9to5google.com/2017/09/27/e...higher-end-google-home-max-w-stereo-speakers/
As I mentioned earlier in this thread, adjusting speaker quality is almost child's play. If neither Amazon's or Google's turns out to be objectively superior to Apple's, it's not hard for them to roll out yet another version with even better speakers. Think about buying a car with factory speakers and then swapping them out for better ones. It's just not a huge ordeal to slug in a better speaker(s).
The magic is probably not in the speaker quality but in the proprietary software IMO. That means Siri needs to step it up and soundly roar ahead of Alexa and Google. If it really ends up as just (speaker) hardware vs. hardware, I don't think Apple can win unless one is mostly sold on which brand mark is tacked onto each device. I have to believe Apple held something back (about Siri and/or the software) in the preview reveal.
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Amazon's biggest weapon is not hardware. It is the catalog of providers of hardware, goods, and services they have lined up, and the huge amount of customer preference data they have. They know people buying habits better than that person's spouse, or perhaps even the person themselves. And the Alexa system is a AI based portal into this data. It knows your favorite pizza, the detergent you buy, the books you read, the model computer or phone you own, etc. And with voice ordering "Alexa, order my favorite pizza (or soap or new usb cable for your phone or ...)" they are going to make billions.
I didn't say that. But do you honestly believe a $99 voice assistant is really going to outperform a $349 home music device? This isn't about price tag, it's about the purpose and design of the product.
The Echo wasn't designed specifically to play music. It doesn't have a powerful processor with optimized audio playback software. It has a single small tweeter and a small sub. The HomePod has an A8X processor, beam-forming tech for high quality music playback, 7 tweeters and a 4" high-precision sub, all designed to work together and created specifically to play music.
Do you honestly believe that this new Echo Plus will produce better quality audio than the HomePod?
Another thing they announced today was the Echo Spot. A small clock device that has a camera for video calls and Alexa commanding as the Dot does. Also like the Dot and Echo 2 it supports external bluetooth speakers.
For $130 I suspect this will be in my house very soon.
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In addition to their own speakers, the Amazon Echo 2 and Echo dot already support any bluetooth speakers you have. And you can say "Alexa play <insert song/artist/playlist> everywhere" and it plays the song through all of the speakers and Echo devices, or you can just play it on the speakers connected to a single echo.
For $130 I suspect this will be in my house very soon.
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In addition to their own speakers, the Amazon Echo 2 and Echo dot already support any bluetooth speakers you have. And you can say "Alexa play <insert song/artist/playlist> everywhere" and it plays the song through all of the speakers and Echo devices, or you can just play it on the speakers connected to a single echo.
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Apple, wtf are you doing... Echo Plus, Echo Spot, Echo Show... and that's from a company who became a hardware company just 10 years ago and the Echo itself is just 3 years old. Amazon bakes Echo devices like hot cakes.
And here comes Apple with the bulky pathetic HomePod whose only advantages are presumably better sound and definitely higher price. No, there's no HomePod Video, HomePod Spot, HomePod Dot. Maybe in 5 years, or 10. Who knows.
By the time Amazon releases a holographic Echo 3D, we'll probably get a HomePod Gold Edition with some luxury fabric shells at $99 each.
And here comes Apple with the bulky pathetic HomePod whose only advantages are presumably better sound and definitely higher price. No, there's no HomePod Video, HomePod Spot, HomePod Dot. Maybe in 5 years, or 10. Who knows.
By the time Amazon releases a holographic Echo 3D, we'll probably get a HomePod Gold Edition with some luxury fabric shells at $99 each.
This is exactly correct and sadly my perception of the recent Apple under Tim Cook: Apple moving in the direction of being more of a Hardware pure-play company.
People forget (and IMO clearly so does Tim Cook) that Apple is actually a *SOFTWARE* company that *monetizes* from hardware. But Tim Cook is a physical operations/supply chain guy .... he simply doesn't understand software (hence why software has essentially been gutted/taken a backseat as each year passes by)
There should be no doubt that without *STRONG* software play, Apple hardware simply can't compete and fails (Apple TV)... and so will HomePod
The problem with HomePod is that it's a commodity speaker that ANYONE can produce... locked to the *worst* software/service Siri that's simply an embarrassment to most people's eyes (except fanboys living in delusion).
This is not good. In fact, more telling is that Apple's software/service is so bad now that it's actually a liability that hurts their price premium pricing power. How much more would the value rise for HomePod or AirPods if it wasn't locked to Siri and you could use Alexa, Cortana, or Google Assistant?
Because services ate software, (nearly all software is backed by cloud services & becoming intelligent with data) Apple is really going to struggle. China really is an indicator of Apple's future struggles. Apple hardware locked to Apple's *VERY" poor services is a *HINDRANCE* not a positive.
Moreover, it's pretty clear that the current Apple with current management simply do not have the appropriate resources (talent) desire, and most critically *data* to ever make Siri competitive for a sustainable period of time. You can thank Apple's ridiculous privacy policy ideology for that (they're basically blind.... but on purpose)
Hence why you get stupid justifications by poor leaders like Greg saying "Siri wasn't engineered for trivial pursuit" as rational to double-down on making Siri even dumber... but with a nicer voice
(Apple fans, enjoy hearing "I'm sorry I didn't get that" or completely wrong answers from Siri... but in a nicer voice!)
You're saying because it's $349 it will be better than the $99 one. You are exactly saying more expensive automatically means better.
Well the $185 Prada paper clip doesn't do anything better than the 1 cent paperclip from staples. It just has a name stamped on it.
And all we know for sure about the HomePod is it's going to have a much fatter margin than any other voice assistant speaker on the market.
This is possibly the biggest (and lamest) delusional excuse by Apple fanboys.... wishing for this being the reason Siri is so pathetically awful.
No. Just no.
Siri being stupid isn't because of hardware. Hardware isn't its problem.
Siri is so abysmally bad because awful AI services.... THIS is a data service problem.
Apple doesn't have data (because they blinded themselves to data with their asinine privacy ideology that went WAY overboard)
Nor does Apple have an even decent cloud backend infrastructure
Option 2 is to get a Echo Dot for $49 to 29$, depending on sale, and get a nice Bluetooth speaker to pair it with.
Sonos mesh doesn't use your wifi, so you are not hogging the wifi bandwidth with streaming music
[doublepost=1506552831][/doublepost]Check out the HomePod page specs on Apple before claiming that it only has ONE tweeter... https://www.apple.com/homepod/
It would be a smart idea to refresh the Airport products to bridge this gap...
...and I have NO need for a Homepod with my Airport Express plugged into my very nice Bang and Olufsen speakers... in stereo.
...and I have NO need for a Homepod with my Airport Express plugged into my very nice Bang and Olufsen speakers... in stereo.
AirPort Express' ability to drive speakers is vastly underrated.
A lot of people seem to be missing the point when they do these direct comparisons of speaker quality between the Echo and the HomePod. The Echo's speaker doesn't matter as much as one might think because it integrates with a lot of existing speakers out there already. A friend of mine uses his Echo Dot to launch Spotify on a connected set of speakers - and even on his computer.
Disclaimer: I don't want any of these "always on" devices in my home. I've seem them in use, and I've used the Echo and Google offerings a little - I don't think they're really there yet (in terms of the AI). Additionally, I don't see what problem they're trying to solve. But if I was going to get one, it would probably be Apple simply due to privacy considerations.
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In which case it's more like AirPlay 2 than Sonos. My point is that speaker agnostic solutions are better than ones that lock you into one manufacturer, i.e. Sonos et al.
Then you're talking about the wrong company
Open commodity standards... isn't what Apple does. They're a proprietary software company that builds platforms that locks you in.
Which is why Tim Cook pushing Apple to become more of a hardware pure-play [that rapidly becomes commoditized without software platform] is so baffling and bad for the company overall.
It's also why HomePod will not be a sustainable long term success... but repeat of Apple TV (but much worse)
He really needs to go. His expertise and knowledge is not what Apple needs going forward.
Sounds like you're talking about a different issue than what I'm talking about.
Keep in mind you can't use bluetooth speakers with multi-room audio, which is an important feature for a lot of people.
Alexa dot + surround sound beats anything that comes out of HomePod.
Do people actually want a single speaker style design(I know it’s multiple).
I’d rather use that money to build a surround sound for my tv entertainment center and have an assistant for home controls.
Do people actually want a single speaker style design(I know it’s multiple).
I’d rather use that money to build a surround sound for my tv entertainment center and have an assistant for home controls.
Thank you VERY MUCH. My mom is 77 and living alone. Until I can move closer. From what I understand, could my mom say, Hey Alexa, call the 911, if she falls or needs some other help? She could also SS, Hey Alexa, cal Peter? Please let me know if I understanding this correctly. Thx
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How about Alexa dot with 2 or more Sonos speakers?