For sound quality, the Echo is junk and HomePod is a speaker before a smart assistant.
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Apple Drops HomePod Price to $299, Down From $349
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The regular echo doesn’t sound bad at all. Even the third generation dot has improved a lot.
For those disappointed with the sound of the £64 Echo can get the Sonos Alexa for £199 if they so wish which is still considerably cheaper and has decent reviews. As you’ve said though the HomePod is not really aimed at the mainstream and is more for the niche Apple buyer concerned with sound quality above anything else. I can agree with that.
You're still too caught up on price. I don't want Alexa, period. It's spyware. I don't trust Amazon.
I also have an Echo with my iPhone. The sound is basically the same coming from my iPhone and the Siri is there to accomplish tasks.
BTW, I also don't think Alexa is any smarter than Siri in general, and certainly not for life's daily tasks asked for an Assistant.
More recent testing proves this, but many haven't updated their "Siri sucks" firmware recently. Siri does literally everything I want, so Google offering better answers to random questions I'd never ask a voice assistant doesn't really appeal to me.
I still haven't had a single person specifically note what Alexa and Google do better than Siri. They just speak in generalities or flat out lie.
It’s groupthink. Siri sucks caught on. I don’t really use any of these ai besides for basic things. Siri does fine.
As for cheap speakers Apple can’t make any money there. IMO they won’t do any more speakers but their only route is to compete with and kill sonos.
How such a sonos like system would integrate with Apple TV and Apple ecosystem is of course the main draw. Siri is part of that. Maybe it’s down the road once atv plus gets going.
I can assure you I’m not lying as I have an Echo, iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch to compare the reliability of their voice commands. I’ve found asking Alexa to be considerably more reliable when asking questions, setting timers and reminder etc. The worst device I own for voice commands is the Apple Watch as I find the slight amount of background noise just confuses it. This is just my experience as an Apple customer.
Anyway I’m not saying your purchase was wrong as it’s clearly what you want and that’s great. As you say the HomePod isn’t meant to appeal to the wider market or Apple would be going for that segment more aggressively. It’s a good quality speaker primarily and a smart assistant second and in terms of what it offers I think that’s fair.
That’s the issue though, the ‘Apple ecosystem’. If you have a household like many where there’s a mix of iPhone and Android handsets, the HomePod is limited. You mention Sonos who have collaborated with Amazon and sell speakers individually and these are more multi platform friendly. If Apple aren’t directly trying to compete with amazon and Google like keeps getting mentioned here, it shouldn’t matter as they are targeting a smaller market in any case.
IMO, Apple should do what is best for integration with their ecosystem. THAT is their selling point, not cross compatibility. It's the only reason why I'd opt to buy an apple speaker. I don't care about google or amazon in the living room.
You are their target market then which backs up what is being said here about Apple only going for certain customers rather than their mainstream. If you couldn’t get smart assistants under £100 then I wouldn’t bother buying one as they are something cool to try but not detrimental to daily life IMO. Apple aren’t really aiming the HomePod at people like me.
The problem is, most people don't even know or care anymore what a good sound is, they're so used to the tin sound from the zillions of smaller speakers , and the way people listen to music has changed (either direct through their phone speaker on the move, or headphones, almost no one seems to have a decent hifi anymore and sits down and properly listen , and those that do, don't do so on the HomePod, but a decent HiFi, so the market is small for that device....
I was going to wait until the HomePod was down to $150. With the release of the HomePod mini, my wait was over. $99 is a much better price for me.
I own the Echo Dot (3rd Gen), Echo (3rd Gen) & Homepod. From my experience, I would agree with your assessment that the Echo devices are generally more reliable when asking different types of questions. I don't notice any differences between the devices for timers/reminders. The Homepod has significantly better sound and can pick up my voice command much better from a distance than the Echo devices.
Also: if the addressable market because of the languages supported is small, Apple is selling a “not mainstream” product to a smaller subset of its possible markets.
I bought one, but unless there’s no support of my language I am the only one in the family who can use it more than just as a speaker. And even so, having HomePod in English and the rest of the devices in Italian only allows me to use it for a limited set of things. This makes it unjustifiable for me to buy a second one, and or a Mini. Too bad because I would love to set two up for my living room and one mini in the kitchen.
I’d rather spend for a “dumb” soundbar than another HomePod.
This is so true. Back in the 90’s I spent about £1k on a Pioneer Hifi system which had a really decent quality sound. I’ve always been heavily into music. Then I went away to university and MP3’s were shared around and Napster was a big thing along with Winamp. These days I only seem to listen to music through my iPhone or through my Amazon Echo speakers when cooking or doing housework. It’s amazing how preferences can change as you get older.