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

SMGreenfield said:
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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Couldn’t agree more. I bought for the sound quality and they are worth the price just for how good they sound. I have 2 of them and love them. ( Also in Canada we pay $450 for each one and they are still worth it to me)
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mi7chy said:
It should be more like $149 compared to the competition like Amazon Echo Show 2nd Edition.
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For me it’s all about the sound quality. Once you hear it it will be worth the price. I have two of them and I am very happy.
 
blasto2236 said:
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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LOL so you're saying the HomePod is a completely middling device that belongs in neither camp, then? Because people who are after and can afford high-end speakers will also go after actual high end speakers with more connectivity options and serious audio fidelity.

The HomePod "sounds great" as far as smart speakers go. That's the baseline for comparison. Not B&O and Bose.
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citysnaps said:
Could be true. Especially if you're not fussy about sound and a $50 speaker makes you happy.
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Yup, same here. There's no way I'd ever have a google open microphone in my home.
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I'm fussy about sound and I'd happily pay double to have a serious speaker that does apply a blanket of bass over everything. It's about value, not price tags.
 
UnionVGF said:
The difference between them is massive.
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I find Siri much more reliable compared to Alexa in my Sonos Beam. Siri works 9 out of 10 times. With Alexa, I have to speak loud and often repeat the trigger phrase for it to even listen. And then, often it will misunderstand what’s being said. Siri is also able to understand more formulations and phrases, where it feels like Alexa needs the specific spoken command or it will not understand.

It’s just a shame Siri doesn’t have as many integrations as Alexa, because IMO it’s a more reliable product
 
DiamonDecoden said:
Can the homepod control TV or the Apple TV? I read that it cannot. I would get a homepod if it at least controls tv. Google home controls TV, even the door bell. You can tell Google to play certain shows on living room tv or turn the tv on and off with voice.
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The homepod and Apple TV should be much more connected and I’m sure it wouldn’t be hard to do with software updates.
I really though it would have happened by now.
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otternonsense said:
LOL so you're saying the HomePod is a completely middling device that belongs in neither camp, then? Because people who are after and can afford high-end speakers will also go after actual high end speakers with more connectivity options and serious audio fidelity.

The HomePod "sounds great" as far as smart speakers go. That's the baseline for comparison. Not B&O and Bose.
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I'm fussy about sound and I'd happily pay double to have a serious speaker that does apply a blanket of bass over everything. It's about value, not price tags.
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I’m sorry but Homepod does sound better than similar Bose offerings. I own some, Bose is ok but it’s hardly the benchmark it once claimed to be.
 
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69Mustang said:
Not sure how much credence I'd put into what Gruber said since it was almost immediately refuted by Gurman. They're obviously not talking to the same people.:)
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Gurman’s credibility seems to have taken a dip since he joined bloomberg. It’s almost like his new KPI is how many hit pieces he can come up with on Apple.

Gruber may be an apple supporter, but that doesn’t automatically make Gurman the more reliable of the two.
 
It’s pretty disappointing, I must admit. As an apple fanboy and audiophile I was so excited when they were announced. I bought two for stereo sound.

I opened the first one it had nothing but problems getting set up, so I went to the second one. Easy breezy setup (the first was actually defective). Once I heard the underwhelming sound from the one, I decided to return rather than exchange the other.

IF apple were going to enter the market with a plug-in speaker as opposed to a battery powered one, why not go all out on sound quality rather than trying to do things to keep the footprint small? I don’t move the thing around since it’s plugged in, thus if it were twice as big it wouldn’t matter at all, but would likely sound a lot better.
 
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Abazigal said:
Gurman’s credibility seems to have taken a dip since he joined bloomberg. It’s almost like his new KPI is how many hit pieces he can come up with on Apple.

Gruber may be an apple supporter, but that doesn’t automatically make Gurman the more reliable of the two.
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No one claimed Gurman was the more reliable. They both have conflicting info which means one of them is incorrect. Which one, I have no idea. But Gruber's claim bears scrutiny since it was so quickly refuted by an equally reputable person. Neither one of them has proof.
 
felixen said:
I find Siri much more reliable compared to Alexa in my Sonos Beam. Siri works 9 out of 10 times. With Alexa, I have to speak loud and often repeat the trigger phrase for it to even listen. And then, often it will misunderstand what’s being said. Siri is also able to understand more formulations and phrases, where it feels like Alexa needs the specific spoken command or it will not understand.

It’s just a shame Siri doesn’t have as many integrations as Alexa, because IMO it’s a more reliable product
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That’s a hardware issue, not an “ai” issue.
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az431 said:
None of those things are true so there’s that.
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Except they are.
 
tangfish said:
Once I heard the underwhelming sound from the one, I decided to return rather than exchange the other.

IF apple were going to enter the market with a plug-in speaker as opposed to a battery powered one, why not go all out on sound quality rather than trying to do things to keep the footprint small? I don’t move the thing around since it’s plugged in, thus if it were twice as big it wouldn’t matter at all, but would likely sound a lot better.
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I wasn't very impressed with the sound quality either, sounded like they had boosted the bass to try to make a small speaker sound like a big speaker.
 
danny842003 said:
I’m sorry but Homepod does sound better than similar Bose offerings. I own some, Bose is ok but it’s hardly the benchmark it once claimed to be.
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To be fair I don't like the Bose sound signature either. It became too bass heavy to be more commercially pleasing.

I'm super happy with my B&O Zeppelin wireless though.
 
I don’t know what’s up with Alexa but these past few days when I’ve been requesting songs it keeps saying I couldn’t find that In your music library. I have a Spotify premium account linked and it’s set as my primary music source. Even when I specify from Spotify it’s still saying it can’t find the song on Spotify. I’ve never had this problem with the HomePod.
 
danny842003 said:
I’m sorry but Homepod does sound better than similar Bose offerings. I own some, Bose is ok but it’s hardly the benchmark it once claimed to be.
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Bose was never really a serious benchmark in the audio world.

If you have the time and money, try other brands especially boutique ones. The HomePod has similar characteristics to Bose which is not a great thing. I’m intersted in seeing how Apple will tweak the fidelity of its rumored headphones.
 
Apple is acting as if Siri is a selling point, when in reality it is a negative, not a positive. I speak 3 languages Siri supposedly operates in, but while people have no problem communicating with me in any of them (and I am a customer-facing employee), Siri keeps mishearing/misunderstanding me in all of them. Not to mention most things you'd expect to just work almost always result in it wanting to "look it up for me on the web". I can do that myself, thank you very much.

Make Siri not a total joke, and I will consider the HomePod.
 
In 2018 we purchased 2 MacBooks, 1 iMac, 2 Apple Watch 4's, 1 AirPod, 1 HomePod, and 3 iPhones. A big Apple year for us.

The HomePod is my favorite of all of them, by far.
 
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ipponrg said:
Bose was never really a serious benchmark in the audio world.

If you have the time and money, try other brands especially boutique ones. The HomePod has similar characteristics to Bose which is not a great thing. I’m intersted in seeing how Apple will tweak the fidelity of its rumored headphones.
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With my current situation in life as the homepod is good enough for what I use it for. All I listen to now is Apple Music and podcasts whilst I understand it should have been fitted with more connection methods the lack of them doesn’t effect my use.
 
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Shanghaichica said:
It’s about having a great sounding speaker which can also do things like send messages, take and receive calls and set reminders and make entries in my calendar, hook up to my Apple TV and has the added bonus of being able to find my other apple devices if I cant remember where I’ve put them at home.
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How is your friend sending messages with the HomePod? And how do you set the EQ?
 
danny842003 said:
With my current situation in life as the homepod is good enough for what I use it for. All I listen to now is Apple Music and podcasts whilst I understand it should have been fitted with more connection methods the lack of them doesn’t effect my use.
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Fidelity is not referring to connection options
 
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