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HomePod Estimated to Have Just 4% Market Share Worldwide Despite 45% Sales Growth Last Quarter

Well, it’s obvious who’s arms are tired from constantly carrying water for Apple. You do realize most never take you seriously.

It’s ok to admit that the HomePod turned out to be a dud. And for many valid reasons. The world will continue to spin, the sun will still shine. It’ll be ok.
 
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Price really isn’t an issue for me. The biggest thing for me and my family is multi user support. I am not buying one hoping they will add this as a software update. Knowing my luck, I will buy one then have to replace it when the new and improved model comes out.
 
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Baymowe335 said:
Most people have not updated their "Siri sucks" firmware in too long. Siri has gotten A LOT better and has even outperformed competition in some tests.
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I agree. Now granted I probably under utilize siri compared to the full menu of commands, but I'd say I use it more than most. I'd say Siri is sufficient. How sad that we're bickering over virtual assistants.
 
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I have Home Pod and multiple Alexa devices including a Sonos set up. The Home Pod sounds great and for the price, on sound alone is worth it. As for Siri, works great for me just doesn't know as much general knowledge as Alexa. I defo be buying another Home Pod in the future.
 
sdwaltz said:
I own one, but I have *zero* interest in its smart speaker features. If I wanted a smart speaker I'd buy an Echo. But I don't. Smart speakers are stupid. I turned Siri off on mine.
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You only say that because you only used Siri and it's obvious that you turned it off it's really frustrating to use Siri, and I don't even use it on my iPhone. But calling it smart speakers are stupid is very short sighted especially if you only have Siri. Alexa and Google are pretty awesome and the ability to connect other smart devices is very useful. It's because HomePod is dumbed down with Siri it doesn't mean smart speakers like Echo are stupid.
 
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HomePod is brilliant! Forget about the smart assistant stuff: the sound is just incredible. Combined with Apple Music, I can move it from room-to-room and play just about anything!

Re price, I picked it up from Best Buy when they did a $100 discount, so I do agree that $349 is a bit spendy.
 
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I've been gifted so many Amazon speakers I lost count. Recruiters, family, Prime add-ins. They all either get re-gifted, or lately, thrown away. Trash hardware. A better stat would be on usage. Amazon, Apple, Google, they all use analytics to pool that info, I'd be real curious to see how that compared to this research firm.
 
jlseattle said:
I agree completely.

Here is a test I want every homepod user to do to test out the quality of homepod sound versus the iPhone sound. Play rain falling (usually used to fall asleep) on your phone speakers. Now send that sound to the Homepod. Which on actually sounds like rain falling? The homepod muddles the sound and you lose all the detail that the iPhone gives you.

Why? The bass is turned way too up. What I've determined is if you listen to music really loudly you get lots out of the homepod. Especially if you want the bass thumping. I'm not that type of guy. I like to hear the spectrum of sounds outside of the bass overpowering everything.
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Pass. Would play rain like never.
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Dominicanyor said:
I really don’t see the need to get a HomePod.
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Thanks for your insight and contribution.
 
I've never really understood the price complaints either. It's basically in the middle of the price range for a consumer level streaming speaker. I had previously paid $200 for a Soundlink Mini 2 that did not have a SoC inside, could not connect to the internet, did not have Assistant features, and did not have the same quality of sound or volume. The extra $150 for the HomePod never seemed unreasonable to me for the tech/quality differences.
 
I have 3 kids, girls, this product is my most used non-apple TV device for the household. Playing music ondemand with my voice is HUGE and its sounds ***** incredible compared to the competition. I do wish, like everyone, it was "smarter" but I guess in time it will be... I got both of mine for $250 - I pair them stereo.
 
tevion5 said:
Alexa is undeniably smarter than Siri.

It's a shame the best AI assistants are made by advertising/sales companies...
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It is a lot easier to be smarter about things when you don’t care about privacy. For example, it is a lot easier for Google to scan through all your incoming gmail on its servers and add reminders to your calender than it is for Apple to use on device indexing without sending any of this data back to its servers for processing to do it. It’s the same with smart assistants. The more they listen and data mining they do, the easier it is for them to become smarter. Some day Apple may catch up, but hopefully they can do well enough without you becoming their product. If you want the most personalized assistant today, go with a company eager to learn everything about you.
 
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Even if you wanted a spy in the room - this one is just too expensive for average audio ....... recognise a theme ?
 
Compared to my original Sonos 5 and bridge, HomePod is affordable. I still use both, but I prefer good sound and can’t compare to crappy little pods.
 
Can't believe how fast Google caught up to Amazon. Amazon had a 2 year lead.

We started with the Echo and replaced with Google homes. Guess the better tech ultimately wins.
 
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I think those that compare this to the Echo, Google Home, etc are really missing the mark. Apple isn’t trying to compete with those low end, commodity speakers that sound terrible and are just there to provide some convenience in your kitchen and gobble up your data for advertising/sales purposes.

Apple is competing in the high-end speaker space, against the likes of Sonos, B&O, Bose, etc. And in that regard, they are both price-competitive and doing some interesting things with sound that the others can’t.

I had been eyeing a good AirPlay speaker for years before HomePod was announced. I had been hooking up my AirPort Express to an old hi-fi system, and it was just a huge PITA. I also couldn’t afford to haul it out to California with me when I moved, so it stayed back in NC. This drastically increased my need for a product like HomePod. A high quality, room filling sound that wouldn’t take much space and worked via AirPlay.

I realize I’m probably part of a pretty small market, but I think that’s precisely who the HomePod is for, and Apple isn’t trying to make it an Amazon Echo. To me the whole purpose of a speaker is music, and if it sounds like trash that’s a non-starter. Amazon can keep their Echoes and I’ll keep my data and high quality audio.
 
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turbineseaplane said:
Very very smart man...

One should never buy tech for "future features/hopes/dreams".
Only buy tech for what it does for you at the time of purchase.
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Snarky much?

I bought the original iPad, Apple Watch and iPad Pro because I thought future updates would be negligible and wouldn’t effect my long term purchase as much. I waited to get the iPhone XS because I wasn’t sold on the first generation Face ID and new the S jump would work some of the bugs out. Sometimes it is a good idea to wait for a product to mature slightly before jumping on the latest thing, unless you like buying new itinerations of products every year.
 
Is 4% a surprise when competitors are on 3rd gen video+audio assistants while Apple is peddling 1st gen audio only that costs more with less versatility?

Skipped the audio only assistants but have considered Amazon Echo Show 2nd edition but even better if it supported Google Assistant.
 
Unity451 said:
I agree. Now granted I probably under utilize siri compared to the full menu of commands, but I'd say I use it more than most. I'd say Siri is sufficient. How sad that we're bickering over virtual assistants.
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Sometimes, people can be unreasonable in their assessment because they are stuck in a testing world. They test the assistants by asking questions they'd probably never ask again and if Google comes up with a decent reponse and Siri doesn't, Siri is bad.

Siri can basically do everything I ever ask. Commands, questions, directions, etc.

I really have no clue what people want out of their assistant that Siri is completely deficient at delivering.
 
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