Apple Sold an Estimated 600,000 HomePod Speakers During the First Quarter of 2018

[44267547]

They might have sold 600,000 but how many were returned..

Lots of inconsistencies in your post:

First-

Why it would it matter how many units were returned? It’s the _sales_ that are factored m. They’re not factoring returns. Manufacturers do not determine how many XYZ did we sell and how many XYZ were returned. It’s the initial sale of the product to begin with.

I bought two and returned both of them due to only having very average sound quality, definitely not worth the money.

That’s your prerogative, but the HomePod compared to other smart speakers in the market is absolutely amazing with the sound. I’m not even just saying that because I like Apple, I’m saying that being I have plenty of experience with speaker quality. And the HomePod delivers the sound, even if it doesn’t have all the features some ‘smart speakers’ have.

Also Siri is crap, but we all know that anyway.

But let’s dissect this down. Siri needs improvement, yes. But when you factor in the commands that you’re using Siri for, including the sensitivity the microphone, the HomePod and Siri mesh very well together. So I don’t think you’re being necessarily fair in the sense of how someone is _using_ Siri and for what commands, which seemingly most have had positive things to say about that.

HomePod is definitely a beta product.

I Always correct others who say something like this. That’s _not_ what Beta means. Beta it would mean something that’s not necessarily ready for mass public adoption. The HomePod was more than prepared in the sense of what it wanted to execute first, that was a music player. So you’re taking or beta out of context and it’s not used appropriately.

 

[dabocx]

This. Look at the keynote and look at the product page. It's 90% about music. Apple hasn't positioned it as a smart assistant. It's a music device, which is why that's almost all they talked about in the keynote and almost all they talk about on the product page. They've made a point to show that's the focus, and yet many still think it's in direct competition with these $20 devices from Amazon and Google. It's like comparing a Honda Civic and Toyota Camry to a Porsche 911. Yes, they're both cars, but they're built with entirely different intentions.

They talk about music only because they know they cant compete.

If Siri was at the same level as the other assistants the keynote would not have been 90% music. They didn't choose it to be solely to be music-focused, they were forced to because they are behind.

 

[TheMacDaddy1]

wait.. not having a feature is the best feature?

I'm not sure how to rpocess such obsurdity. More features, whether you use them or not generally is a better idea because it offers ranges of choice. Without Bluetooth, you are either subscribing to Apple's dedicated services, or using AirPlay. This means that the AirPod iscompletely irrelevant to anyone with mixed devices. Adding bluetooth, even if it's not quite as good as airplay, would have gone a long way to opening up the device to others.

Having Air Play is the best feature. If they add BT then great, but I would never use it unless it was the only option. I would prefer a Aux port over BT. Changing source devices (iPhone's in our case) is made 1000x easier with Air Play.

 

[bandalay]

I've seen Echo Dots discounted in the $25 range…i have a feeling there are a lot of people "sampling" it at those prices - it's almost disposable - like the Chromecast.

 

[LordVic]

Having Air Play is the best feature. If they add BT then great, but I would never use it unless it was the only option. I would prefer a Aux port over BT. Changing source devices (iPhone's in our case) is made 1000x easier with Air Play.

No complaints about airplay except it's proprietary nature. But you're right. it doesn't HAVE to be bluetooth. But some open source input that allows non-Apple devices to work with it would have opened up the market a lot to those who are interested in a quality audio experience, but not 100% Apple locked in.

It would have been a great business move. keep it slightly open. Just enough to be a slight inconvenience to use the open tech. That way users buy in, realize that they'd have a greater experience with Apple music and then change music providers.

Instead, they immediately locked the doors, which turns buyers off. if people aren't buying, than you're not convincing people to migrate to Apple Music.

this is one of the things between Apple's desire to be a "service company" and others. The other companies don't tie their services to any particular hardware. Apple does (in some cases). This creates a barrier of entry to Apple's services.
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I've seen Echo Dots discounted in the $25 range…i have a feeling there are a lot of people "sampling" it at those prices - it's almost disposable - like the Chromecast.

yes. But once you buy in, even at $25, you're more likely to go out and buy the bigger alexa/google home. Not go "I like this!" and then run out and buy a homepod.

 

[bbednarz]

I asked Siri "will you be improved with future updates?"
Reply "Sorry I can't help you with that."
BUT, it translated "will you" into "William" so...

Me: "Will Siri be improved with future updates?"
Siri: "I'm sorry I can't do that here"

Me: "Will Siri get any smarter?"
Siri: "That may be beyond my abilities at the moment"

I wish I was making these up but those are literal exchanges with Siri just now.

Me: "Is Alexa smarter than you?"
Siri: "Who me?"
Me: "Yes"
Siri: "That's what I thought"

Me: "How smart are you?"
Siri: "I guess you'll have to be the judge of that"

So you try to make your point by asking it completely nonsensical questions? Her response is as stupid as the questions being asked lol

 

[spazzcat]

Drop the damn price.

$249 and a hell of lot more people would buy this gimped product.

It cost more to make them...

 

[itsmilo]

Literally forgot this existed

 

[macfacts]

Funny how the title and first paragraph says Apple "sold" and the other companies "shipped" but the link and the chart used say "shipped" for all.

 

[uwdude]

The HomePod is really a speaker in the premium, but not high end category, like most of their products. And as such it's going to have a somewhat limited market as an add-on accessory. It will be high margin but not huge number of units, unless they decide to change strategy to more mass market, which could be a lower priced one later on after they have added features and established the current one as the flagship. But they're not expecting this to be huge though as an accessory. And they are not going after Amazon, this is more of an Apple Sonos.

 

[HiRez]

600,000 is actually a surprisingly high number to me. But I'm not one of them, since the HomePod isn't really usable for home theater, I bought a Sonos Playbase instead (2X the price of the HomePod but better for this purpose, and it will support Airplay 2).

 

[Applebot1]

Personally; I am happy with my HomePod-I knew full well of its limitations but a really love its audio quality at its price point (I also have two Sonos Play:1).

Same here..have two Sonos play ones but the HomePod sounds so much better. Really is a great speaker.

 

[Endorphine88]

I have no issues with mine. Buying a third one as soon as I'm able to set up two to play stereo on either side of my bedroom TV.

 

[roar08]

HomePod sound quality is great and 100% worth the price. If you can't afford $349, buy something else. If you want a voice assistant, buy an Alexa device or a Google Home unit. If you want a great-sounding, great-looking speaker with a minimal footprint, you'll probably love the HomePod. If you want a voice assistant with great sound, maybe get the high end Google Home unit - I haven't heard it so I can't vouch.

But if someone isn't making the combination you want, you should definitely complain on MacRumors so the decision makers at Amazon, Apple, and Google who hang out here can adjust their product planning accordingly.

I'll buy 1-2 more HomePods once multi-room and multi-device playback are supported.

 

[dogslobber]

Good grief. That means the Apple Watch shifted more units.

 

[and 1989 others]

That's seems rather a lot for an overpriced mediocre product.

 

[itguy06]

Glad to see Google closing in on Amazon. The sooner Amazon goes away the better off we all will be.

 

[Ghost31]

I really like mine. A version more in line with the Sonos one price of $199 would be nice. Even still I plan on getting another one at some point.

The current homepods build cost alone was somethig like $216. How much lower can they really go and what features could they even remove to reduce cost? It's basically just a nice speaker as it is

 

[FelixDerKater]

$199 would boost volume.

 

[kaneda]

I’m happy with mine, it sounds great and no doubt Siri will be improved with future updates alongside Airplay 2 being added. Also I think considering they have only just entered into the smart speaker category that is a decent start.

If they improve Siri 2.0, you have to buy Homepod 2 to actually use Siri 2.0.

 

[TechRemarker]

That sounds like a lot considering the price versus echo's entry level pricing. In the long term Apple definetly will need to lower price, but right now price is not the issue, there is a large enough base who will pay that without a problem but only if it does what they want and not if it does less than what cheaper competitors do.

We have a few in the house. They look nice and sound nice, but relatively pointless other than controlling HomeKit in the house, but since we have phones usually out and our apple watches we don't really need homepods for that.

What we do need is major improvements to Siri. She misunderstands almost everything. I say play a lullaby and plays some rock song with the name lullaby or something in it. Unlike the Echo it doesn't factor in real common use scenarios and so it ends up failing. And where Echo has a non verbose mode, when asking Siri to do something you have to wait seemingly forever for who to tell you what shes about to do (Which is usually wrong) rather than just doing it and succedding or failing quickly so you can ask something else.

And no automation support in the home app makes it feel so handicapped for what it could do.

No unique voice control means it's meant for lonely single people, not families. While I normally would have high hope that Apple will continue to improve until it's great... where they are so far behind the competition (google in speech recognition, and alexa understanding real use scenarios), I'm afraid so few people will buy it that rather than fix the issues so more people will buy it though will consider it a loss and not improve enough.

And for Apple customer's kind of screwed since we can't use Google or Alexa very well either since Apple won't allow them to connect to Homekit or integrate with Apple solutions.

 

[legacyb4]

I'd be all over the HomePod if it could control as many devices as my echo can. I would love to get a device that has the connectivity of the echo but the fidelity of the HomePod

Try Homebridge to enable more devices.

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

So you try to make your point by asking it completely nonsensical questions? Her response is as stupid as the questions being asked lol

What point was I trying to make? Jump to conclusions much?

Someone posted “no doubt” expectations of Siri improvements. I’ve seen that a hundred times before in the many, many years since Siri was born. So much good seems as little as “just one software update away.”

So I asked Siri some questions related to that, found the answers funny and posted them. I was going for laughs. Apparently, I was too “stupid” to think trying to make others laugh is OK.

If it’s more “sensical:” I’m hoping right with the original poster that Siri will get significant upgrades in “smarts.”

Perhaps it would be better to post, “...but who makes the most profitable smart speaker” and similar so Apple can win?

 

[legacyb4]

Bring on 11.4 & Airplay2, "official" release north of the border, and I'm in for a second unit in a heartbeat!

 

[actcyclist]

I wonder how much total revenue each company got? I see a lot of Google Mini and Echo Dots costing very little in amongst those sale numbers.

I didn't see the Homepod as too expensive, not when you compare it to anything else at Apple. I wouldn't buy something cheap that sits in my living room anyway, and the echoes all look cheap.