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Apple Drops HomePod Price to $299, Down From $349
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yup - Most Echos sound awful - I have all the new generation.
Sonos One with Alexa - $£200 - But not as good sound / bass
Sonis Beam with Alexa - $£400 - Great Surround bar and music player - Better than Homepod sound overall + surround sound.
Google home Max - $£400 - similar sound to homepod - massive - about 20% louder.
I purchased a couple from Best Buy at $249 - they sound great but I rarely use any "smart speaker" features. I do prefer onboard processing over cloud processing, and generally, listen to music while working using them as a stereo pair.
My use case is primarily listening while working from home. My office is also my music room, and when buddies come over to jam, if we're taking on a new song it's convenient to say "Hey Siri, play <SONG>". So while I have a more expensive monitoring signal chain, I often use the Home Pods due to convenience.
Forgot to add, my daughter loves using them to set a timer for piano practice.
My use case is primarily listening while working from home. My office is also my music room, and when buddies come over to jam, if we're taking on a new song it's convenient to say "Hey Siri, play <SONG>". So while I have a more expensive monitoring signal chain, I often use the Home Pods due to convenience.
Forgot to add, my daughter loves using them to set a timer for piano practice.
This is 100% wrong. Apple's T&C are about what you can do. It's literally the terms and conditions under which you can use their products and services. The terms and conditions say nothing like you claimed and are governed by the privacy policy.
Respectfully, you need to read Apple's privacy policy to see what Apple actually does and says, instead of relying on what you think they do. https://www.apple.com/legal/privacy/en-ww/
I was going to post something similar. I think this is a pretty good indication this is a failing product.
Hey Google... are you listening to other stuff before I say hey google? Why of course I am... because the T&Cs don't specifically say I don't
This. If you have Alexa you can see a list of everything it recorded, even if it didn't issue a command. It’s amazing how often it’s recording... and I imagine it records even more than it’s telling.
Many here don’t understand exactly how good at pricing Apple is, but then again they’re mostly just here to crap on Apple and try for a little attention.
An initial price cut on a first gen product isn’t exactly unusual for Apple. It’s been out for more than a year. They recover some of their R&D/non-recurring costs with the early adopters who are willing to pay a little more. They’ve sold, who knows, maybe 5 million units... so that’s a cool quarter billion dollars.
Now that development costs are covered and they’ve likely brought some component costs down and are getting some economies of scale kicking in, they could be making even more profit at $299 than they did during the first six months when it was priced at $349.
My guess is that sales performance was about what they were expecting, otherwise we would have seen an initial price cut during the first three to six months. In contrast, today’s cut was probably scheduled before HomePod was even released lol. Just a typical early/adopted tax. Kind of like that $2,000 folding tablet Samsung announced, or the one Huawei wants $2,800 for. (Yeah good luck with that. I’ll guess we’ll under 100,000 units will sell.)
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It doesn't really deal with regional accents too well so you can speak 'perfectly normally' and still get odd results.
Come on. Don't be ridiculous. Is it designed to understand your voice? Yes! Smart speaker then.
Probably all true (I don’t have one so I don’t know).None of the Amazon devices are comparable - the sound is not great at all on them - they do have Sonos though. Which is a great choice. The google Max is comparable or even better - but it's 3x the size and well... GoogleSpying on you
For playing music and controlling my home the Homepod work great - the Mic Will pick me up whispering "Hey siri Lights on" when it's belting out at full volume. But do wish it had more Activation words like Echo...
The majority of people just don’t seem to care. If they are interested in smart speakers, the Echo is probably fine, especially at that cost.
Or, they could just keep the same price, add a jack & allow any audio to be bluetoothed to it, I don't think the price is the main issue.
Any audio can be AirPlayed to it. Which, if you're an apple person ( and if you're not, why are you even considering the HomePod?), is better than bluetooth.
I think it’s more likely it just doesn’t sell very well. If the price weren’t dropping here in the US, I’d tend to agree with you.
I think they sound fantastic. I would love one but I have other financial obligations at the moment unfortunately.
I sold some of my homepods a while back. I was able to outfit my house with a mix od echo speakers, subs, and plus speakers. The plus speakers with the stereo pair sound great. And of course the Alexa functionality is a major plus over Siri. Still don’t know if i will keep my other homepods. They work great also. But I don’t use them as much. I would probably get rid of them at the right price.
I don't know what a siri smart puck would get you that your phone, iPad and Apple TV can't already do....
I am not that much home anywayHey Google... are you listening to other stuff before I say hey google? Why of course I am... because the T&Cs don't specifically say I don't
Also do you believe everything T&C says (or don't say)?So they hear me talking to my cat, big whoop
This is really not accurate at all. Have you used one? I bought mine for great sound and HomeKit. Both work perfectly. In terms of commands, Siri is actually considered better than both Amazon and Google. This type of comment isn't really based in fact.
I call the HomePod a smart speaker, but the google home and Amazon Echo/dot products smart microphones. (Although HomePod has amazing mic technology.)