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Chinese Report Says $150-$200 HomePod and $799-$899 MacBook Air to Launch This Year

ipedro said:
You really think any smart device costs $25? Google isn’t selling hardware at a loss. You’re giving them your data with which they make money off of you and you’re paying $25 for the privilege. I’ll happily pay full price for an Apple device and keep my privacy any day.
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I, too, refuse to buy Google/Amazon home microphones, as I've read 1984, and the only thing that Orwell got wrong was people being forced to have those things in their homes. For these things, people are "lining up" to get them.

The only thing I worry about is that Apple will own the "hey Siri" requests, and we're at the mercy of Apple Management, and they may change their direction at any time.

Then, what do we do?
 
HobeSoundDarryl said:
HomePod Dot seems most likely to me at that price (vs Echo Dot at $49.99)...

5578864_sd.jpg;maxHeight=640;maxWidth=550

Because what we really want is just the Siri "brains" in it's own product, offering to "look that (everything) up on the web." ;)

Draft Names:
  • HomePod Exclamation Point?
  • HomePod Semicolon?
  • HomePod Question Mark?
  • HomePod Plus Sign?
  • HomePod Dollar Sign?
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If I could hook up Siri/Apple Music/Airplay to my set of Klipsch speakers that would be amazing actually.
 
navaira said:
Tim Cook abducted by aliens – confirmed.
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OR, perhaps there is just confusion here?

Those aren't lower retail prices. Instead, Apple has realized the effectiveness of the iPhone payment plans and those represent the new monthly payment amounts for those devices? :p

neoelectronaut said:
If I could hook up Siri/Apple Music/Airplay to my set of Klipsch speakers that would be amazing actually.
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:apple:TV already brings that functionality... plus a bunch of video playing options too.

But I do agree. Through a purely HomePod lens, I'd also rather have a dot-type product than one where a corporation has chosen the quality of the speakers.
 
:apple:TV is a great music/AM/Airplay music audio player, already with Siri voice controls and already at about this price point. I use mine for audio-only playback often.

Whatever you are using to amplify those Klipsch speakers probably has an HDMI input and HDMI output. Output to TV and now you have a Siri voice-controlled music player plus something that can do a bunch of video things too.

And this option can run music streaming apps other than only AM without having to lean on Airplay.
 
EugW said:
As for the MacBook Air, I wonder if it will stick with Broadwell, and thus will still get left out of the HEVC hardware revolution, introduced with macOS 10.13, and likely to get solidified with macOS 10.14.
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I sure hope the 2018 Mackbook Air doesn't keep Broadwell but it wouldn't shock me. I'm in the market to purchase an i7, 512 GB model. Even if there isn't a lot of difference in specs, I hope they at least switch the Broadwell i7-5650U for the Kaby Lake i7-7550U series. From a brief search, the price is similar.
 
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I really like the sound of the HP more than my Sonos speakers. Would defo consider a HP mini for the kids bedrooms to replace the Echos. Really do find Siri more than fine to control music and devices. Just wont beat Alexa in a trivial pursuit competition lol. Siri is less fussy for me compared to Alexa.
 
It's silly to think Apple won't have a whole line of HomePod devices in the same way we see the iPad, iPad mini, iPad Pro, etc.
 
HobeSoundDarryl said:
HomePod Dot seems most likely to me at that price (vs Echo Dot at $49.99)...

5578864_sd.jpg;maxHeight=640;maxWidth=550

Because what we really want is just the Siri "brains" in it's own product, offering to "look that (everything) up on the web." ;)

Draft Names:
  • HomePod Exclamation Point?
  • HomePod Semicolon?
  • HomePod Question Mark?
  • HomePod Plus Sign?
  • HomePod Dollar Sign?
Click to expand...
Nah..

  • HomePod Mini
 
HomePod Mini and a Retina MacBook Air would be awesome. Really don't think we'll get to see a Retina MacBook Air though
 
$799 was more realistic but $699 would have been the sweet spot for the new Air. Unrealistic for a variety of reasons, one of which is iPad pricing.
 
Techwriter said:
I sure hope the 2018 Mackbook Air doesn't keep Broadwell but it wouldn't shock me. I'm in the market to purchase an i7, 512 GB model. Even if there isn't a lot of difference in specs, I hope they at least switch the Broadwell i7-5650U for the Kaby Lake i7-7550U series. From a brief search, the price is similar.
Click to expand...
Nah, those prices online are original retail prices. I'm pretty sure that in volume i7-7550U would be more expensive than Broadwell. Remember, the point of this is to reduce pricing.

My guess is that they would go no higher than Skylake, which would allow them to dip their toes into HEVC, but wouldn't give them full support. But I actually expect it will be stuck with Broadwell again.

Also, somehow I don't think it will be $799 though. Probably $899+.
 
I'll stick to the high end, but I think this is a good strategy for Apple. They can sell very compelling products at those price points and get people hooked to their ecosystem very easily. I recently set up my smart home and I would actually love to have 3 HomePods in my house. HomeKit is the best implementation I have seen, but unfortunately for voice control, I have had to go to Amazon.
 
"HomePod Mini" ... seems too "me too". Now, "PortaPod" is a name I can get behind, and look forward to carrying my PortaPoddy.

Silly jokes aside, for the smaller HomePod to be a viable product, with its inability to claim it was a high quality audio device first, they would definitely need to enhance Siri. It would be a deliberate smart speaker, rather than a speaker with smarts.

That being said, I have no idea what I'd use it for. As there's no place for it in the locations that already have a HomePod. Hopefully they will enable more functionality. Like the ability to play music through a stereo using either bluetooth, or an Apple TV as a target device. In that case, then I could add it to the locations that already have home theatre / audio systems.

--- edit --

It will be really amusing if it's shaped exactly like a regular HomePod, just smaller. But doubtful, I'm imagining a flattened HomePod with curved edges and mesh. Though a touchscreen HomePod would be nice.
 
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Call me crazy but I’d love a 2018 MacBook Air without the butterfly keyboard. An upgraded screen would be nice too.
 
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If they go with a mini Homepod then they'll have to improve Siri dramatically. Only reason Echo Dot and Google Mini are somewhat desirable is because of the AI, definitely not for the sound.
 
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$2499 mMac Pro with quad core Xeon. Go ahead and offer an $22,499 version with dual 22 core chips if you must.
 
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The current MacBook being reduced to $799-899 makes sense to me.

A smaller HomePod does not make sense to me unless Siri is improved as a digital assistant in comparison to Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant because considering how compact the current model is, not sure you need something smaller to bring high(er)-quality audio into a space.

Somewhat surprised Apple can get the iPad down to $259 unless they use older tech in it. I could see an updated iPad Mini for $259, but with larger iPhones (Plus and upcoming X Plus) I wonder how well the Mini sells now.
 
Two things to keep in mind, wrt new iPhones:

1.) whichever smartphone manufacturer FIRST offers 10-bit extended color space Capture & Display will rule the day, & immediately render all existing smartphones obsolete ! ... in other words, even the current Flagship smartphones from Apple & Samsung will immediately lose their luster !

Apple's extended color space is called Display P3, and they use the marketing term Wide Color ... they should have called it something else, as selling anything "Wide" to a woman is difficult ... that's probably Phil Schiller's doing !

BGR10A2Unorm is the pixel format type to keep in mind ! ... Apple should have BEGAN supporting it starting in Sept 2016, when they introduced their iPhone 7 family ... so, it's now WAY OVERDUE !

2.) smartphones from Apple & other that don't include a Hardware Home Button, require an extra GB of DRAM to, to support high-performance apps ... this is because without the Hardware Home Button, manually manage the DRAM on a smartphone is difficult, to say the least ... in other words, without it, it's difficult to purge backgrounded apps that are consuming precious DRAM !

It is my very strong opinion that the iPhone 8+ is the best iPhone Apple currently offers ... trading-away Touch ID (+ the Hardware Home Button) for Face ID & Animoji was simply a Dumb Move by Apple !

In fact, the iPhone 8+ could live on as The Last Best iPhone from Apple ... time will tell.

If Apple was smart, they would offer a 5" 8s+ with a higher pixel density display, AND a 3x points-to-resolution structure with NO 20/23 downsampling, and offer it for $650 ... if it included BGR10A2Unorm capture & a 10-bit Display P3 display, then it would sell like popcorn ! ... and Tim would be able to keep his job; otherwise, he is probably out by Year's End.
 
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