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HomePod Homepod 2
- Thread starter Casey05
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If you can get a Homepod on sale I would recommend purchasing one asap. I agree with what you said, there is not indication of an updated Homepod and if there is one it will be a Homepod Lite (ie a cheaper version with less speakers to compete with Google/Amazon smart wiretap speaker products).
If you want one for listening to music at high quality, then I would highly recommend a Homepod! If you want a smart "whatever they are called", then someone else will have to chime in, since I only use mine as wireless speakers (which they are amazing at btw imho).
If you want one for listening to music at high quality, then I would highly recommend a Homepod! If you want a smart "whatever they are called", then someone else will have to chime in, since I only use mine as wireless speakers (which they are amazing at btw imho).
I picked up four more on top of the two I already had during the Black Friday sales. Great speaker and I would go ahead and get one now if I were you. Didn’t see any rumors on an improved version 2. Can’t see how they can improve much on it either. If you have HomeKit, it’s even better. Great for controlling smart home accessories, making/taking calls, reading texts, getting the ETA to work, weather, etc... I’m actually hoping for a smaller version for my bathrooms. This one would be overkill for that purpose. A larger one would be nice too for great rooms.
How long have you been waiting?
How long have you been waiting?
Yes, just buy what's there.
HomePod is already the highest sound quality audiophile smart speaker on the market, Apple really doesn't need to improve it. So I don't think they will. It's perfect, one of the best products Apple has ever created.
If you can, wait for a $200 sale. If you don't mind paying $250, you can get them for $259 on Apple's Refurb site. I've had great luck with refurbs from Apple. Also, the Space Gray is commonly on there, just not at the moment, so check back if you are interested. I got one of mine for $250 and the other two for $200.
Oh, my bad, now I reread my comment I can see how I lead you astray. My apologies! I haven't actually bought a refurb Homepod (although I have been tempted), but I have bought multiple Apple products from their refurb site in the past and everything has been great. I was simply pointing out you can get a Homepod at a cheaper price right now from the refurb site. I routinely check the refurb site for Homepods every couple of weeks (I've done this for the last six to eight months) and at times there are none available or only space gray or only white or both, so people are buying them. Again, my apologies.
I wonder what, if any, hit Apple takes on the HomePod if sold at $200. I bought four at this price from Best Buy during the Black Friday sales but I didn’t buy them all on the same day. Every time I went back into Best Buy, the shelf stack got significantly smaller. If they made a permanent price drop to $200, they’d probably sell out. This is also about 30 mins out of NYC so that might have something to do with it. Just think $200 is the sweet spot on these things to move a lot of units.
Agreed! I do not need anymore Homepods, but it would be hard for me not to buy more if they were permanently priced at $200.
I fell in love with my first one and it became addicting after that... but not at $300. My whole house is run on HomeKit which made the HomePod even more useful than being just an audio speaker.
Yeah, that’s why I was wondering what the hit they take on it would be. If it was for less than profit though, Why even sell them at all for $200?
Best Buy might have taken the hit in order to get people into its' stores as a loss leader. Or Apple could have taken the hit. Or maybe they split it. Who knows.
Do you happen to know what is Apple's cost for the Homepod?
Its not a problem. HomePod is the best Apple Music accessory, delivering audiophile-caliber sound quality to millions of satisfied users.
Apple Music is $120 a year. 5 years, that’s $600. Tons of profitability from HomePod. No different than discounted mobile phones whose dataplans pay the bills.
Apple Music is far from audiophile quality. HomePod is excellent considering its' price.
I've never heard of Apple selling a hardware product as a loss leader. Certainly not the case for soft products, like Apple TV+.
HomePod is the best sounding bookshelf speaker on the market, period. If you’re an audiophile who has converted to streaming it’s the only choice. I’m quite pleased.
Well, now you have.
And I guess you don’t remember the first 5 years of iPhone when fiercely competitive carriers were giving them away in a race to capture subscribers. Work a little short in the early years, make it all up in the long term. The streaming industry is going through that same thing right now.
boltjames: I am sorry, but I don't think you are that aware of the audiophile market if you think HomePod is the only and best option for streaming available for an audiophile. There are countless of active speakers which you can connect directly to a streamer, which are way, WAY above what a puny HomePod can accomplish (Genelec, Dynaudio, etc.).
There are now also more and more active speakers with the streaming module built in, like the Dutch & Dutch 8C speaker. HomePod doesn't even come close: https://dutchdutch.com/8c-3/
I agree with HDFan, the HomePod is far from audiophile quality. For a small active speaker at a low price, it is not bad though and I enjoy mine.
There are now also more and more active speakers with the streaming module built in, like the Dutch & Dutch 8C speaker. HomePod doesn't even come close: https://dutchdutch.com/8c-3/
I agree with HDFan, the HomePod is far from audiophile quality. For a small active speaker at a low price, it is not bad though and I enjoy mine.
To outfit a room with two Homepods at the current retail of $300 ea, plus AppleCare and sales tax costs upwards of $720 in the US. That's insane.
No wonder they're not selling particularly well. They're good speakers - but for most people I suspect they're not that good.
At $200 on the other hand.... well, let's just say that I own eight now. I didn't own any prior to Black Friday 2019.
I'd like to see Apple revisit the design, reduce the number of tweeters, and drop the price to the low $200s. Maybe a Siri version for $250, and a non-siri version for $200 (as the second speaker in a stereo pair, for example) so they compete a little better with the Sonos product.
No wonder they're not selling particularly well. They're good speakers - but for most people I suspect they're not that good.
At $200 on the other hand.... well, let's just say that I own eight now. I didn't own any prior to Black Friday 2019.
I'd like to see Apple revisit the design, reduce the number of tweeters, and drop the price to the low $200s. Maybe a Siri version for $250, and a non-siri version for $200 (as the second speaker in a stereo pair, for example) so they compete a little better with the Sonos product.
Again, I said HomePod is the best bookshelf speaker on the market for audiophiles who have converted to streaming. No one has giant listening rooms anymore with space for these massive speakers not to mention components. It’s not 1980.
You, and others, have got to stop saying that.
With sales in the neighborhood of 4 million units per year, the HomePod generates $1.2 billion dollars in annual revenue. On a single product. Do you know how many billion dollar products there are in the world? Not many.
To put it in perspective, last year BMW sold 44,000 3 Series cars. That's $1.5 billion in revenue. All those cars, all those colors, all those configurations, all those leases, all those TV commercials, the entire 3 Series industry worldwide is only a hair larger than measly little HomePod which isn't available in all countries and quietly sits on a shelf with no advertising.
Well, I'm basing my *opinion* on a couple of observations. First, that all the Homepods I bought in the past couple of months came with iOS 11 on them. Second, that pesky 5% market share thing...
Apple's HomePod Estimated to Have Just 5% of Smart Speaker Market Share in U.S.
Apple's HomePod accounted for just 5 percent of the estimated 76 million smart speaker installed base in the United States in the second quarter...
www.macrumors.com
To be clear, I'm not trashing them. I think they're very good. Not "$300 good", but good.
Yeah, I've got a HomePod and calling it audiophile quality is a joke. It looks nice and has decent sound (though my Sonos Move blows it away). But it's buggy as hell, not very versatile, and is still $50 too expensive even after apple lopped off their profit margin. Best-sounding-single-smart-speaker-below-$399? Sure - I don't know if that's really true but at least when you say it people won't assume that you've only listened to one speaker in your life.