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Amazon's Alexa App Climbed to #1 on the iOS App Store's Top Free Chart After Christmas
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Part of the race here is Siri..... and price , both Alexa has already won. I have three dots and an echo, there is no way I'd spend that on 4 homepods.... Alexa is great, cause it's not Siri... sad truth
Amazon got me on this, it all started on $29 echo dot. I ended getting 2 smartplugs and smartswitches. I’m expecting to get more accessories next year and turn my house into all Alexa controlled. I also ended up switching from Apple Music to Amazon Music.
Part of the race here is Siri..... and price , both Alexa has already won. I have three dots and an echo, there is no way I'd spend that on 4 homepods.... Alexa is great, cause it's not Siri... sad truth
Part of Apple’s charm is in its ecosystem, I get what your saying about Siri tho it isn’t as good at the moment, that could be why the Homepod is delayed until early next year. The price is high but it’s suppose to have much better audio quality than Amazon’s eco, so a high end speaker with a Siri assistant is the appeal here, but they do need to get Siri done correctly!!
It will be a much better speaker . That is a given . Siri will be key, and that worries me ....
Let’s hope they improve Siri, I wonder how it will work when setting an alarm? For example what if you need to see the time since there is no display, I wonder if it will be setup in the home app. I could be wrong.
The problem is that when HomePod finally comes out, Siri isn't going to have to be "on par" with Alexa/Home - it's going to have to blow them out of the water in every regard for people to consider buying one due in part to how entrenched Echos and Home products are. Otherwise with the obscene price point Homepod is offered at it's going to be just another Apple TV - a hobby and little more.
The cool part, can turn off the Always on and use the speakers with just the app, and save a significant amout for a decent whole house system for music and home automation. The voice a very nice feature and if you look at the implementation, more secure and less tracking then one using a web browser on the internet. Also not many had any use for the horseless carriage either, at first.
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I guess I must be one of them. I’ve given away tons of $29 Echo Dots this Christmas. Including my best friend Erin who didn’t know what the thing was until I showed her.
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Apple ramped up iPhone Xs specifically for Christmas. I figured they didn’t think that Homepods would be that popular to begin with.
I got an Echo Dot 2 for Christmas, it’s awesome, love it. I also like how Amazon really support their kit. And it was bought cheap in the Black Friday sales.
Just waiting for the U.K. to get the feature where I can get it to play stuff in my Fire TV.
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Well yes and no, because with the Echo you can plug it into any stereo you want or use Bluetooth. And of course Sonos have started to integrate it, if that takes of then imagine a home full of Sonis kit with built in Alexa, and that will challenge Apple on pricing and sound quality.
I think Amazon have won this one, google has been late to the party too.
Just waiting for the U.K. to get the feature where I can get it to play stuff in my Fire TV.
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Well yes and no, because with the Echo you can plug it into any stereo you want or use Bluetooth. And of course Sonos have started to integrate it, if that takes of then imagine a home full of Sonis kit with built in Alexa, and that will challenge Apple on pricing and sound quality.
I think Amazon have won this one, google has been late to the party too.
I think you are missing the point. The Apple ecosystem for something like this is not a benefit. Apple's is closed. In order for one of these to do the best job, it needs to be able to talk to anything. If one component doesn't work, then it creates great friction. Also, once people start deploying one of these in their house, they aren't likely to want to switch.... it would be a ton of work and a lot of relearning how to communicate with it.
Part of the race here is Siri..... and price , both Alexa has already won. I have three dots and an echo, there is no way I'd spend that on 4 homepods.... Alexa is great, cause it's not Siri... sad truth
Alexa and Google will dominate this space. Apple will make a big profit on a small share of the market from loyal Apple fans.
You think Gimped Alexa is good, you should try Google Home. At $29 it blows Amazon out of the water. And I'd rather have Google than Amazon any day of the week and twice on Sunday.
I don't do Amazon shopping except as an absolute LAST resort so Google's integrations are better for shopping, list management, and even day to day routines. Add to that Google Music is better than Amazon's offerings and I struggle to find out why Amazon is "better".
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I think Google may be late but they have the better offering and ecosystem. I can tell Google to play Netflix on my Chromecast enabled TV (Vizio) and the TV will change inputs and play. I've got rooms of Minis lined for a whole home audio experience. They have tons of manufacturers making Google Assistant products. They have the casting space and are integrating with tons of products.
Heck, I can shop from Google Home at stores that are NOT Amazon. That alone is Golden!
I can ask Google Home how long it will take to get to X or Y and she tells me and also says "I've sent directions to your phone". That's ***** Awesome!
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The one thing Apple will do a better job with is in the privacy aspect, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves just yet the HomePod has been delayed because it needs more work, it could be that Apple understand Siri isn’t up to par and is working on that. If this is a killer speaker then people will buy it, the main reason i won’t buy a Google home is because I’m in the Apple ecosystem, now give me a better Siri and a great sounding speaker and I’m in.
Its "better" because it has a several year head start on skills. Those are the things it can actually do, other than return random facts. I doubt I'd ever use it to shop, even though I buy a lot of stuff from Amazon. I also doubt I'll use Amazon Music even though I have Amazon Prime. I use Spotify, which works great with Echo. I can now control my lights, switches, home theatre, etc... and more. Google will probably catch up a bit, but they have a habit of doing some things kind of half a$$ and never getting out of beta. Amazon is much better at doing it right with things they choose to do. Echo is very important to them, and they will not squander their lead.
I’d like to know where you got your information that Google is secretly recording everyone? The Mini did have a bug that effected a few people to start with, but that’s been fixed by an update. I’ve checked my network and I see no data flow at all to my Google Home unless I’m using it. Unless they are in cahoots with my router builder in hiding the data flow. When I go into my Google Home app I can see everything I asked it. I don’t see any recordings made unless I said “ok google” or “hey google” and everything logged seems accurate to me. Google has stated that it does not send anything to the cloud until it hears those commands.
Now I’m not saying that there isn’t a risk of someone hacking these devices and listening in, but that is a risk you take when buying one. Even Apple isn’t immune from getting hacked.
I guess if you have some information about this device secretly recording people (outside of the Mini bug which still logged what people said so it wasn’t really a secret) I’d love to know.
Hacked .... Apple offers root access
as you said , does not mater who you are with , expect there will be mistakes . No company as you said it actively recording people , that is tin foil stuff
Apple argues that people buy these devices for the “sound quality” and Amazon and Google market them more as assistants. Does sound quality really sell this stuff? If so many are concerned with sound quality why do so many people wear those cheap little white ear buds around? Or buy little tiny Bluetooth speakers? Apple claims that HomePod will replace a dedicated high end home audio system. The audiophiles aren’t buying that statement, but I guess we’ll have to wait and see.
Interesting for me, Apple purchased Beats three years ago. Already had a good quality small speaker product line. All that was missing, Siri. Just release the Beats line with Siri, then release an upscale product like Homepod. Huge missed opportunity all around for Apple.
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Yes you would think Apple would have already had a device like this on the market with them owning Beats.
I think the weak link in the chain has been and will continue to be Siri.
Apple knows how to make a quality speaker.
What more could they do? Siri is the weak link here and despite promising improvements to it for years, it's still behind the curve. Also they have allowed Amazon to get too much market share. Sometimes it isn't what is "best" but the thing that is most used and abundant (and yes, sometimes cheaper) in the marketplace.
For instance, way back when, Beta video was technically better, but everyone went for the cheaper VHS so that is what won that format.
What will they be the best at here though?
- Sounds? Sonos really have that market already.
- System Integration? Apple walled garden, no chance. My Alexa however is very nicely integrated with EvoHome, Hue and Sonos, to name a few.
- Life Integration? Alexa tells me about the state of my commute and local weather each morning. I have multi-user (profile) support and can make calls on it to family and friends who also have Alexa.
- Assistant? Let us not be silly now...
So, this late to the party they will need to come up with an absolutely epic, gigantic differentiator to be even in with a whiff of a chance of hitting prime time status.
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