HomePod Firmware Reveals Further Details on Apple's Smart Speaker

[cgsnipinva]

What exactly isn't clear about a hifi wifi connected speaker?

Particularly one that can integrate HomeKit and AppleTV thereby linking it to the Apple home ecosystem. Don't forget this is Apple's beginning step into this. Looking at the power of the Chip they are putting in this speaker, the full iOS stack -- I would expect more integration with iOS and Mac Software enabling an AR/AI home hub.

Everybody looks at Siri's warts in how it pull stuff from the web and ignores what they are using Siri for in the backend of Software. In my iOS 11 beta - my maps and notifications have become more intelligent. During the work week it tells me how far and time it takes to get to and from work. But on the weekend gives me the same information to the gym I got to weekly and knows when I am headed to the grocery store. This makes me think Siri is working the back-end of the OS and Apps as much as its responding to voice commands.

If the speaker is good -- really good then it give apple a foray into offering more services through it.

 

[Bacillus]

What exactly isn't clear about a hifi wifi connected speaker?

What the unique proposition is.
It is supposed to have some unique features, it is supposed to have excellent sound quality, it is supposed to have unique sound feedback technology.
Every of those features already exist.
But how are unique is the total package, does Apple stand out, and isn't Siri spoiling everything ?
And it seems to take forever to get to market - why ?
Apple seemed to be unable to bridge the gap between expectations and actual product for the last few years, is this the real Big Next Thing ?

 

[twinlight]

Siri it will be one assistant for all your products since fall with ios11 and high sierra. So i think this is one of the reasons homepod is released after september/october

I have yet to see any evidence of Siri being better.

Some reasonable commands would be

'play this on my HomePod'
'Turn off my Apple TV'
And so on, but this doesn't work.

 

[Bacillus]

Two products that look and work so much alike... that's not a coincidence.
Image Apple had come out with the iPod and it looked exactly like some other music player from a year earlier and had the same concept.
Remember when Apple was really angry, when Samsung had a phone that looked vaguely like an iPhone.

Agree about the coincidence.
But they'll never concede that (while a blind weasel would recognize it)
They'd rather proclaim the design idea originated from a steamy night with far too many beers when Phil took off his khaki shorts ...
(which could be hard to be contradicted, looking at the specific design)

 

[MrX8503]

What the unique proposition is.
It is supposed to have some unique features, it is supposed to have excellent sound quality, it is supposed to have unique sound feedback technology.
Every of those features already exist.
But how are unique is the total package, does Apple stand out, and isn't Siri spoiling everything ?
And it seems to take forever to get to market - why ?
Apple seemed to be unable to bridge the gap between expectations and actual product for the last few years, is this the real Big Next Thing ?

No it doesn't exist.

HomePod has superior audio quality, auto room detection, and built in Siri. There isn't a product like this available. Sonos is toast.

I don't understand why people can't see this. The writing is on the wall.

 

[Rogifan]

Apple doesn't have clear strategies with products anymore.

Everything that Cook releases is vague, just like Apple Watch where they completely changed the interface, the marketing and targeting multiple times and they will do the same with HomePod. They're not thought out products.

It's more like, let's realease it and see what happens.

----

PLUS it feels like they are already behind, right from the start. Everybody is going to screens to display additional information. Just a music speaker that only works with Apple Music and with no real display for 349 plus taxes, I don't see it being a big hit.

We'll see.

Everybody is going to screens? Who has done this besides Amazon? And that product hasn’t received great reviews. If I need a screen for my kitchen I’ll buy the cheapest iPad with a case.

 

[Bacillus]

No it doesn't exist.

HomePod has superior audio quality, auto room detection, and built in Siri. There isn't a product like this available. Sonos is toast.

I don't understand why people can't see this. The writing is on the wall.

Ahh, just like Joni declared the Swiss Watch industry to be toast, just before launching AppleWatch...
There's no lack of aspirations, so we'll see.

 

[Rogifan]

Ahh, just like Joni declared the Swiss Watch industry to be toast, just before launching AppleWatch...
There's no lack of aspirations, so we'll see.

Except there is no quote of him actually saying that. #fakenews

 

[gnasher729]

Why would Apple Music not be exclusive to HomePod?

Let's clarify this. It could be meant two ways:

1. HomePod only plays music from Apple Music. In that case, the huge majority will _not_ buy a HomePod. I have a massive music library and absolutely no need for Apple Music, and the same is true for many people. HomePod must play _any_ music (or audiobooks) coming from any iPhone or iPad.

2. Apple Music only plays on HomePod and on no other external device. Well, that would make many, many people very unhappy and kill Apple Music.

Conclusion: Not going to happen. No exclusivity. You will be able to play any music, podcasts, audiobooks at least from any Apple device, and likely from anything supporting AirPlay. And Apple Music will remain unchanged, playing on any AirPlay compatible device.
[doublepost=1501364607][/doublepost]

Because they don't break numbers out it is a failure? When they said they were never going to? What Beats a failure, too? And AirPods a failure because they're grouped into the same category? C'mon.

Apple even said on the last earnings call that Apple Watch was the primary growth factor that prevented that category from dipping from a drop in Apple TV sales... So if you're going to peg a product, at least peg the right one.

The reason why Apple doesn't break out numbers is to avoid giving numbers to the competition. Competitors can't say "Apple is selling lots of watches, let's copy that", or "Apple isn't selling lots of watches, don't bother making a watch".
[doublepost=1501364906][/doublepost]

Can someone explain why Apple is pushing out updates for a product that won't exist for months? Have they ever done something like this before.

There are _some_ HomePods running in real usage, probably used by Apple engineers. And they have to make sure that pushing out updates _works_. If it fails, then they collect 200 HomePods from their engineers and give them new ones. If it fails after 10 million are sold, that's a problem.

 

[44267547]

Let's clarify this. It could be meant two ways:

1. HomePod only plays music from Apple Music. In that case, the huge majority will _not_ buy a HomePod. I have a massive music library and absolutely no need for Apple Music, and the same is true for many people. HomePod must play _any_ music (or audiobooks) coming from any iPhone or iPad.

2. Apple Music only plays on HomePod and on no other external device. Well, that would make many, many people very unhappy and kill Apple Music.

Conclusion: Not going to happen. No exclusivity. You will be able to play any music, podcasts, audiobooks at least from any Apple device, and likely from anything supporting AirPlay. And Apple Music will remain unchanged, playing on any AirPlay compatible.

This has been reiterated three times in here. That member I quoted edited the post AFTER the fact. Therefore it's confusing to other members what my post Indicated. Please read back further.

 

[Wiesenlooser]

In theory.

In practice, google can't even keep a low-demand product like the pixel in stock. And any high-end speaker they make that hopes to match the quality of the homepods will likely not be any cheaper. Given two equivalent speakers, one Apple-branded and the other not, which do you think consumers will favour?

I think what people are forgetting is that Apple pretty much owns the best customers via the iPhone. These are the people who will in turn go on to purchase Apple watches and AirPods because they have more spending power. And once you get one home pod, there will be incentive to get more home pods for the various rooms in your house. There will be utility to gained from staying in the Apple ecosystem than fragmenting it with third party smart speakers.

This will be like the AirPods scenario all over again. People ragging on the AirPods for being overpriced, until you look around and realise that the competition isn't able to offer anything comparable for the same price.

Amazon will be forced to compete in the low end because they have no ecosystem to speak of their own, leaving Apple to dominate the high end and rake in all the profits in the market.

Mark my words. This will not be pretty.

You are talking about commercial success and not product quality. Arguably, google could produce a better phone and would still sell less than Apple, simply because of Apple's brand reputation and sales channels.

 

[Ds6778]

Unfortunately, anything wth built in Siri isn’t a selling point for me.

Oh, and if you think Tim isn’t riding Jobs success, you’re delusional.

Half of the people that blindly buy Apple products do so due to the legacy and brand recognition Jobs created. If anything, Tim is a bean counter and knows people will buy anything with the right marketing.

 

[ZEEN0j]

I was looking for multi room speakers when the homepod was revealed. I went with sonos and went back to Spotify since it works better with sonos than apple music does (spotify connect). My thinking was that sonos simply has more product and most importantly. I bought a sonos connect amp so I can get my minipods to work with the rest of the sonos speakers. Didn't feel that I wanted my speaker system locked into the apple ecosystem and rather have it open so any device can play music to it.

I'm sure the homepod will be a great product and from the people who have heard it say it sounds better than a play 3. And Siri would be fun to use as well. I have an Apple Watch though so I already have Siri on me all the time.

 

[zorinlynx]

I'm confused. I see a lot of people here saying that HomePod will only work with Apple Music.

However, Apple's own specifications state that the HomePod supports AirPlay.

This means that you can play any music over the HomePod just by picking it as the audio device on your phone. I play all sorts of things on my AirPlay enabled JBL speaker, including Spotify, Google Play Music, and even audio from an Apple TV when I use it on the projector which has a crappy speaker in it.

Unless Apple artificially restricts you from doing that, which would be absolutely insane for a $349 speaker. Please correct me if I'm wrong?

 

[Aston441]

Graphic EQ from Apple lol never. Apple singlehandedly destroyed the market for decent medium priced good sounding Audio.

Everyone knew what Graphic EQ was until the iPod.

Now mention it and mostly you get blank stares.

 

[jclardy]

That's rewriting history a little bit. That wasn't the case with the Mac, it wasn't the case with the iPod, and it wasn't the case with the iPhone either. wWhen they came to market, they had technology and usability unmatched by anything from the competition.

HomePod is not a better speaker that other products, and not a btter home assistant thatn other products. It's not better at anything, not when it comes to technolgy and not when it comes to usabailty.

Was it though? iPod was limited to connecting to FireWire capable devices, meaning only recent Macs at the time. Other devices could play mp3's from any source. It's advantage was larger storage space.

The iPhone came out with no third party apps, no video recording, no MMS. It's advantage was the capacitive screen and an OS that prioritized user experience over everything else.

HomePod has barely had an announcement yet, reporters already said that it sounded better than Sonos. I think it is a bit too early to be judging it so harshly.

 

[imicca]

Interesting...
I am surprised Devs are getting away or it is legal to share with such information about HomePod.

 

[MrX8503]

Ahh, just like Joni declared the Swiss Watch industry to be toast, just before launching AppleWatch...
There's no lack of aspirations, so we'll see.

Swiss watch sales did decline.....

Doesn't change that there isn't a HomePod competitor.

 

[dan110]

I'm still confused by the HomePod. I'm sure it's a lovely piece of hardware. But they support Sonos in their stores, open up Apple Music to Sonos - and then stop the integration and leave it in the air..... and then launch their own single speaker. Is it a personal assistant, or a single hit music speaker? The whole Sonos / Apple / HomePod area is still unclear to me. I think, these days, people have a mix of sources, Spotify, Amazon, radio feeds, Mixcloud, Soundcloud, Apple Music etc... but I don't see the HomePod having that diverse community of audio sources.

Or have I missed something?

Great points all around. I spent several hours in my local physical store this week. While perusing their proprietary and 3rd party products I came to the same conclusions. Apple has completely lost its tight focus and coherent ecosystem.

They had old iPods (recently discontinued), old Mac Mini, new MacBook Pros, old Mac Pros, Beats branded headphones along side other 3rd Party headphones, 3rd party bluetooth speakers, etc. Then with all of that, they had a table or two filled with Apple watches and bands. It was a complete chaotic mess that made absolutely no sense.

Several years ago, I would walk into an Apple Store and felt the urge to buy anything I didn't already own because it would complete my computing/internet/media/technology experience. Now, it's like, "Meh. I can live without that.".

Then, like a dead weight, it dawned on me. It all seems so clear. Apple is trying to slowly get out of the consumer technology business as we knew it altogether. Under Tim Cook and the Stooges, they want to be a media and services company such as tv, music, cloud, etc with maybe some dabbling in miscellaneous pursuits like autonomous vehicles.

Unfortunately, they won't make it to that point because that's simply not who they are.

 

[MrX8503]

Remember when people were confused about the AirPods? yeah.....

 

[mdatwood]

That's rewriting history a little bit. That wasn't the case with the Mac, it wasn't the case with the iPod, and it wasn't the case with the iPhone either. wWhen they came to market, they had technology and usability unmatched by anything from the competition.

This is not entirely true. The original iPhone (I have mine in a drawer somewhere) was a slow, 2.5g device without apps, and only on ATT. It was also ripped on endlessly for the lack of a physical keyboard. The 3g iPhone is when it really took off followed by a huge bump when it went retina. The original iPod was firewire only, so basically tied to a mac. The early G4/G5 macs while IMO great, did not really become a mainstream possibility until they moved to Intel.

Personally, I tend to avoid gen 1 apple devices. The watch is a great example. Gen 1 was slow while gen 2 is a great device. I see them everywhere, and get a lot of use out of mine. If it's a failure, then I want some $1B+ revenue (analyst estimates) failures on my resume.

 

[zorinlynx]

The 3g iPhone is when it really took off followed by a huge bump when it went retina.

Retina is what pushed me to switch to an iPhone. Before that the iPhone wasn't really better than any other phone, especially to techies like myself who don't need a "user friendly" phone that much.

Then the retina iPhone 4 came out, and I saw one in person and there was just absolutely no way any other phone came close anymore. I even broke my existing Sprint contract to buy it.

Apple needs amazing groundbreaking features like that again. Things that make you go "whoa." The last one they had was TouchID, and that was years ago now. They need another "Whoa". Facial recognition unlock, edge to edge screen, OLED, or TouchID on the back certainly don't qualify.

 

[jdillings]

If it doesn't work with my iTunes library and is Apple Music only, it's dead to me.

 

[dontspeakeasy]

What has he done, really? He's approaching 10 years as CEO.

What has Tim Cook done in his soon to be 10 years. 1 failing product. Oh and milking every dollar out of existing products. Not a great record. Those are the facts.

Firstly, he's been CEO for almost 6 years. But let's discuss facts, ok?

- Retail: They're in the process of entering new markets (Taiwan, Singapore, Austria, Mexico, etc.), while also renovating/relocating existing stores (i.e. the shopping space at Fifth Avenue is going from around 32,000 to 77,000 square feet). Meanwhile, their competitors have little to no retail presence.

- New Hardware, Software, and Services: Apple Music, Apple Pay, Apple Watch, AirPods, and HomePod

- Apple Music: This service will have 30 million paid subscribers by this September. Other than Spotify, what other streaming music service has numbers like that?

- Apple Watch: Horace Dediu estimated last quarter Apple has sold 30 million units of the 2.5 year old Apple Watch to date. The number is probably closer to 35 million now. Jawbone, Motorola, Intel, et al. are exiting the market, while FitBit struggles to compete. (How's Android Wear doing?) Combined with their other wearables (Beats and AirPods), Apple earned $7 billion in revenues for a 3 year old product category. To put that into perspective, those numbers are similar to all of Tesla's 2016 revenues.

- China: Tim Cook's Apple has expanded into China, which has become their second largest market in just a few years.

Values: Apple has doubled down on the environment, accessibility, diversity and inclusion, supplier responsibility, and privacy. For more information about their progress on these efforts, visit their website.

Services: This segment is expected to become a $50 billion business by 2020––doubling its current revenues. Services had revenues similar to all of Facebook last year.

"Cash" on hand: Last quarter, Apple extended it's share buyback program to $300bn. Under Tim Cook, they have retired more than a billion shares and have increased dividends each year. Their "cash" on hand, including debt, is close to $160 billion dollars (or $60 billion more than Alphabet). Excluding debt, they have more cash than Amazon, Microsoft and Google combined. Also, their share price is up almost 180% since Tim Cook became CEO.

Those are facts. If Tim Cook is such a failure, then Steve Jobs' legacy needs to include his failure of selecting an incompetent individual to lead Apple.

 

[Sunny1990]

This has been reiterated three times in here. That member I quoted edited the post AFTER the fact. Therefore it's confusing to other members what my post Indicated. Please read back further.

how can say that? I just added [support] rest of the post is same. And i don't think it confuse people. I want to say apple should add support for more music streaming services. And my post clearly says that. And if you see it was edited long before all these posts are made. So it doesn't confuse people. And by the way you also edited your post.

The part you quoted in my post is still the same.