I do too.
From the Sonos sub, to several 3s as rear speakers to the Connect in the basement and the 1s in my bedroom.
I had read that Sonos was building an API for the "smart" speakers - Google, Amazon and eventually Apple to connect to an existing Sonos network of speakers. Clearly Apple's play to have fewer speakers and no dedicated soundbar or sub. Will Apple take a scorched Earth approach or do you think they enable their speaker to integrate into Sonos with Siri voice commands?
Interesting you should ask that as I was just pondering this. I think the logical conclusion that I've come to with these types of hardware is that, to a degree, they need to be cross-compatible with other brands, service offerings, and other similar hardware. First, you have the cost to switch that falls on the consumer. If you're the first-mover or an early entrant into the market, no problem with "switching" costs to your customers. But if you're late to the game, you're trying to get people like me that already have a setup to buy into your product as well. That's going to be a tough sell if it doesn't work with my existing setup. For example, most of us who spent thousands on our sonos stuff won't be picking up one of these anytime soon.
Then they have to consider the service offerings. This was an interesting point of contention with the Apple TV, I believe. For a while, Apple and Amazon weren't friends and there was no Amazon Prime streaming app for the Apple TV. I may be incorrect in my recollection of that all played out, but if I recall... it was really just a necessary business move between the two and the result was that I kept my prime account but didn't buy an Apple TV (my kid watches stuff on Prime a lot).
It'll be interesting to see if and to what extent most of these newer devices and offerings integrate.
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I just said it. People who went to the demo have been able to compare it with a Play 1 and have said it sounds slightly better than a Play 1, but the fact is you can get TWO Play 1s for the price of one Homepod OR a Play 3 which has far superior sound quality the Homepod can't compete with. So at the demo, it was misleading of Apple to compare it with a Play 1, they should've compared it with a Play 3 or a stereo pair of Play 1s.
Truth. How is cost not a factor in this comparison? Play:1's were recently $150ea. How are you going to compare a $350 speaker to a $150 speaker?
Gee, wonder how it compares to the new Anker Bluetooth speaker that is water resistant and selling for $34? If we are comparing to something 1/2 the price, why not something ~1/10 of the price?
...I haven't even heard the thing yet but I'd say a more fair comparison would be a Play:3 or, like I said my favorite, a pair of Play:1's. How does the new Apple speaker compare to a Stereo pair of Play:1's and a steak dinner? Cause that's what I could get for the same money.
