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Apple Cuts HomePod Orders After Sales Prove to Be Lackluster
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Ferrari has 24% of the "super luxury" market. You can't compare overall auto market share with the super luxury market share any more than you could compare the general stereo speaker market with the smart speaker market.
At least compensate for the lack of features by offering 12m free Apple Music subscription or something similar
Everyone has a flop every once in a while. I could learn to live with Siri and her incompetence if the HomePod had a cheaper price tag. At $350 it was cursed from the very beginning. Many people attach Alexa to their existing setup. I would seriously consider adding a Dot or an AppleTV before a HomePod. As a standalone speaker It could have a very successful future. Apple just has to get it out there. At the current price point, it's almost guaranteed to be a total flop.
I'm not saying you are wrong, but many of your examples are just not all that valid in 2018 in my honest opinion. For me, Apple's biggest problem has become software and quality assurance.
You don't really need to carry a dongle in most situations;
- iPhone - No headphone-jack
How big of a deal is this really? Transition over to some decent Bluetooth headphones or ear-buds and you will have a great experience. If you want to use cable you could simply attach the lightning to minijack adapter permanently to your headphone-cable. Sure you could argue for Apple giving you both Bluetooth and minijack, but then you wouldn't see the same adoption from manufactures manufacturing great Bluetooth headphones. Ever since Apple moved away from the minijack there has been tons of new wireless earbuds and headphones coming to market. The trend really started to shift with Apple's decision, without the drop of the minijack this would most likely have gone way slower.
- MacBook Pro - No USB
The lack of USB-A is not a huge problem. There is nothing the USB-A connection can do that a USB-C/Thunderbolt3 can't. This is once again Apple trying to kick-start the transition once again trying to force manufactures to give you options of having USB-C instead of USB-A on their products. Sadly this hasn't gone the same way as with wireless headphones. Apple doesn't have the same brute-force in the computer space as they have in the mobile space so the adoption rate of USB-C has been slow even after Apple moving to strictly using USB-C/Thunderbolt3 and consumers tends to not replace their computers as often as they replace their mobile phones so it takes longer for the majority of people to move over to these new machines.
The idea behind going all USB-C makes perfect sense. USB-C over Thunderbolt3 is capable of doing EVERYTHING a regular USB3.1 over USB-A could do, everything DVI-D, VGA, HDMI1.4, DisplayPort, Firewire, Optical audio, Ethernet etc was able to do. The major problem and drawback as of now is how the majority of accessories still don't give you a option giving you USB-C instead of USB-A. So you end up in a situation where you need to grab a adapter, or to make sure you have USB-C to USB-A/B cables.
- iPhone X - No Home Button or Touch ID
How is this a problem? Having no Home Button just goes to show how people gets stuck with old habits. How is swipe from the button any worse than having the home button? Its just two different ways to achieve the same goal?
The lack of Touch ID isn't all that bad either as Face ID works as great as it does. But there are situations where Touch ID is faster, easier and more ideal but those situations are a few and far between.
- HomePod - No Inputs
What inputs do you need? Sure it would be nice with Ethernet when put in places where you have cables ready already. Sure it would be nice to have optical input so you could hook it up to your TV but it doesn't seem like its meant, designed or optimised for TV-playback.
Sonos are crazy popular and I have a bunch of Sonos speakers myself and its only the Play Sub / Bar and the Sonos Play 5 that features any inputs. All the rest are inputless besides Ethernet and no one is complaining. What would I need or use the inputs for when I can just tell the speaker to play me something, or just use AirPlay from any of my devices? The major drawback with the HomePod is how locked-down it is so unless you Apple Music for direct playback, or a Apple device for using AirPlay you are pretty much out of luck if you don't want to use some kind of third-party hacks. But that doesn't have anything to do with lack of inputs.
My biggest gripe with Apple lately is all related to software. iOS 10 and 11 has been rough in terms of stability and quality. There are minor hiccups all over the place and its annoying. Apple is also really slow on improving their own first-party applications like Apple Podcasts etc.. Why don't we have any Smart Speed in the podcast-app for instance? How come Apple keep announcing new products and features that is never delivered on time? Just look at the HomePod, not AirPlay 2, no Stereo-pairing, no Multi-room etc available at launch and still no mention of when it will be available two months after release? No AirPlay 2 on iOS or tvOS, no iMessage in the Cloud etc.. All this while there are still small quirks and bugs in iOS. Apple Music on iOS still drains a ton of battery, 3D Touch is still wonky within the app and whatnot.
LOL, yeah because being overpriced has really hurt Apple in the past... The thing is priced exactly what it should be for also being a great speaker, 100 dollar cheaper would make it disruptive to the home audio market (and why would Apple want to be disruptive, that just means you priced it too low). And as far as sales I'm much more interested in how it sells compared to Alexa and Google Home.
And last this 'news' also broke about the iPhone X which in it's first quarter of sales was the best selling iPhone ever. So I'd take this 'news' with a grain of salt.
Siri isn't too advanced anymore and ... Apple needs to open up its systems, let spotify, pandora, SoundCloud and so forth use the speakers without being limited to airplay.
Most reviews I’ve read were very happy with the sound, comparing it favorably to more expensive systems. So, in terms of sound quality, HomePod may not be overpriced compared to its competition, but it looks like Apple seriously overestimated the number of people who want/need that kind of sound in a locked-down streaming speaker.
For Siri, on the other hand, they have no choice but to improve it. Google’s and Amazon‘s offerings are running circles around Siri, and Apple didn’t anticipate how much people would care about that.
So, my guess is they’ll first focus on improving Siri and then eventually release a cheaper speaker with lower-quality audio.
Honestly even if they kept the price where is was.
Making it usable by everyone, and not locking it down so much into the Apple ecosystem would help a lot.
Perhaps I have a PC and an Android phone and Tablet, but I'd like a Apple homepod for the Audio Quality, so I can listen to Spotify on it, and have it link to my phone.
It's never going to compete against Alexa, as 99.9" of people are not going to buy 6 homepods for around the home.
But it COULD offer "Quality Sound" to EVERYONE if Apple were to allow it.
I admit of course, Siri is still dumb, thanks to Apple.
Let's face it. They were the 1st with Siri and squandered what they had.
Making it usable by everyone, and not locking it down so much into the Apple ecosystem would help a lot.
Perhaps I have a PC and an Android phone and Tablet, but I'd like a Apple homepod for the Audio Quality, so I can listen to Spotify on it, and have it link to my phone.
It's never going to compete against Alexa, as 99.9" of people are not going to buy 6 homepods for around the home.
But it COULD offer "Quality Sound" to EVERYONE if Apple were to allow it.
I admit of course, Siri is still dumb, thanks to Apple.
Let's face it. They were the 1st with Siri and squandered what they had.
This is what happens when you follow and don't lead. Jobs had a run there where people were running in HIS wake, not the other way around. If the current Apple can't visualize products of tomorrow, they need to recruit someone who can and put them in charge.
You missed the Christmas season. I bet sales would be up if they had been able to preorder in October or November.
Tim Cook just called. He said he’s seen both of your comments and has contacted the supplier to increase production...
I'm happy with mine... nothing like it on the market. Doesn't look like a speaker and perfect for any room. Even better if you have some smart globes etc.
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It does need some improvements to alarms etc.
You must be joking. And if not, then everyone you know owns one because you bought them all.
The same thing was said about AppleWatch when it was first introduced but now the AppleWatch is the top-selling wearable. With patience, the HomePod could become a top-seller in the high-end smart speaker category. Apple just needs to add more speaker features and make Siri smarter. I think Apple is working to improve both. Only time will tell. I'm still willing to bet that it's not only Apple having to cut orders. Amazon's Echo is probably flooding the entire market with those cheaper smart speaker models like the Echo Dot. I have to admit that buying two HomePods for stereo use is a rather expensive investment compared to other smart speakers. Too steep a price for my pockets.
But not quite as much as the original Google Home. That thing could whisk an egg.
Sure the sound is good, but you're severely limited with what you can do with it, and Siri (as everyone with half a braincell knows) is utterly terrible.
I recently did buy two Sonos One, paired them to get Stereo and bought an old Sonos Connect that I can use them with Airplay 1 on my Apple TV until Sonos releases Airplay 2.
Apple TV -> Airplay 1 -> Raspberry PI -> (shairport-sync/analog line-out via USB sound card) -> Sonos Connect -> 2x Sonos One in Stereo
- You can set up an autoplay room for you Connect, so audio starts right when you play something on your Apple TV
- You can compensate the 70ms delay of your Connect with shairport-sync to be lip synced
Why using a Sonos Connect and not a software tool like AirConnect or airsonos? Because it wont be lip synced. You cannot control the way Sonos is buffering HTTP-streams. With a Sonos Connect you have a constant delay which you can compensate.
I was sceptical, bought one first week of launch and every single day since. It has 2 purposes, playing music from iTunes running off an iBook G4 and Apple TV 4k audio as my OLED sounds anaemic compared to what comes out of the Homepod.
Speakers like this aren't going to be big sellers, but they flesh out a product line and keep people within the ecosystem long term. Compatibility with older Apple machines for me takes priority over connectivity with someone's Android device. It gives confidence that when you pay a premium you get longer term support.
Speakers like this aren't going to be big sellers, but they flesh out a product line and keep people within the ecosystem long term. Compatibility with older Apple machines for me takes priority over connectivity with someone's Android device. It gives confidence that when you pay a premium you get longer term support.