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HomePod is Ninth Most Popular Smart Speaker in United States According to Recent Survey

Abazigal said:
It’s always about the money. You think google and amazon are offloading cheap speakers out of the kindness of their own hearts?
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No they want to benefit from making ecosystem integration easy. For example an Echo let's you buy things from Amazon, or a Max integrates with Google Play.

The main difference is Apple says the HomePod can ONLY be used with a very specific subset of other Apple products and services and nothing else.
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Shanghaichica said:
You don’t really get any books with the prime subscription you have to pay again for kindle unlimited and the prime subscription only gives you access to 2 million songs. But hey got £7.99 a month when I only buy it for the free next day shipping I can’t complain.

I still subscribe to Apple Music and Netflix though and purchase tv shows and movies from iTunes.
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I think they made it predominately for developed countries where WiFi is standard.
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You can use it without an internet connection but it needs to have been set up first by connecting it to a wireless network.
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I presume some of the devices in your shop are connected to a cellular network.

Why not use a phone as a WiFi hotspot and demo the HomePod that way.
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Developed countries don't have bluetooth? AirPods 2 to be WiFi only?
 
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Shanghaichica said:
You don’t really get any books with the prime subscription you have to pay again for kindle unlimited and the prime subscription only gives you access to 2 million songs. But hey got £7.99 a month when I only buy it for the free next day shipping I can’t complain.

I still subscribe to Apple Music and Netflix though and purchase tv shows and movies from iTunes.
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There may be a difference between US and UK subscribers. I have Prime Reading with free books.
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chinito77 said:
This requires a device with an Apple ID setup. Keep in mind that my store Demo units have no wifi and no Apple ID is associated with them. Again, nice speaker but worst connectivity options.
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So, you can’t tether the HomePod to your phone via WiFi to set it up? If that’s true, you’re right, that sucks.
 
jeremiah256 said:
There may be a difference between US and UK subscribers. I have Prime Reading with free books.
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So, you can’t tether the HomePod to your phone via WiFi to set it up? If that’s true, you’re right, that sucks.
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Oh that sucks. In the uk you have to pay £7.99 a month on top of your prime subscription for kindle unlimited.

Yes i don’t understand why they don’t just set up one of the phones in the shop as a WiFi hotspot and then use that to set the up the HomePod.
 
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I love my HomePods, and any subscriber to Apple Music would find them beyond appealing. I do wish they had a plug to connect to your TV and/or receiver for use as part of your main speaker setup. They have amazing sound and stereo pairing and multi-room have made them even better. I'm assuming version 2 will be smaller and cheaper. A "Dot" like device would also be a good move by Apple.
 
mi7chy said:
Looks worse if you combine products by company...

Amazon 61%
Google 17%
Apple 4%

Amazon is killing it on the hardware front but Google is still king in AI, software and services. I've found myself drifting away from Apple to Google and now to Amazon devices (Fire HD 10 2017 tablet and Fire TV Stick 2nd gen and soon to be Fire TV Stick 4K).
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Amazon puts more money into promotion than Google, or even Apple regarding the HomePod.
 
Until they fix Siri and open up HomeKit to make it easy for more products to work with it, HomePod will continue to sell poorly
 
hobocamp456 said:
Until they fix Siri and open up HomeKit to make it easy for more products to work with it, HomePod will continue to sell poorly
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How do you know it’s selling poorly? Maybe it’s selling well within apple’s internal targets. Maybe Apple has positioned the HomePod as such and has no plans to make it a general purpose speaker.
 
Abazigal said:
It’s always about the money. You think google and amazon are offloading cheap speakers out of the kindness of their own hearts?
Click to expand...

You completely missed my point as expected because you seldom see the bigger picture

Companies value profit in different ways. Google/Amazon considers their users more valuable than selling hardware.
 
Divined by Ive in his vacuum chamber and peddled by Phil, “Mr. Affordable”, Schiller, why is anyone surprised by the result?
 
Shanghaichica said:
Oh that sucks. In the uk you have to pay £7.99 a month on top of your prime subscription for kindle unlimited.

Yes i don’t understand why they don’t just set up one of the phones in the shop as a WiFi hotspot and then use that to set the up the HomePod.
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Whose phone should be used for this? Whose Apple account needs to be associated with it? Should the shop need to set up an Apple account of its own for this purpose just to be able to send music to a speaker?

And how does that conversation go when a buyer says "oh can I just connect and see how my song sounds on it?".

Not well is how.
 
ipponrg said:
You completely missed my point as expected because you seldom see the bigger picture

Companies value profit in different ways. Google/Amazon considers their users more valuable than selling hardware.
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No, companies like amazon and google consider their users data more important , especially google. Remember with google you are the product. Apple sells you a product.
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Khedron said:
No they want to benefit from making ecosystem integration easy. For example an Echo let's you buy things from Amazon, or a Max integrates with Google Play.

The main difference is Apple says the HomePod can ONLY be used with a very specific subset of other Apple products and services and nothing else.
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Developed countries don't have bluetooth? AirPods 2 to be WiFi only?
Click to expand...
So without an Amazon account the echo is useless, even more useless than it already is? (imo, I have an echo dot, don’t know what to do with it.)
 
It is really no surprise to anyone. The HomePod is late to the game with an expensive price tag and limited capabilities when it was first launched.
If it reduce price and bring up the functionality, more people might adopt
 
alexmarchuk said:
Amazon puts more money into promotion than Google, or even Apple regarding the HomePod.
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Other than the few commercials I saw when the HomePod was initially released, I definitely did not see the usual amount of promotion that Apple usually puts behind a new product (ie. iPhone, Apple Watch).
 
I7guy said:
No, companies like amazon and google consider their users data more important , especially google. Remember with google you are the product. Apple sells you a product.
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So without an Amazon account the echo is useless, even more useless than it already is? (imo, I have an echo dot, don’t know what to do with it.)
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An Echo can still feature as a bluetooth speaker you can connect any device to. The Dot is a mistake though, unless you already have some high quality speaker you want to make wireless.

A HomePod without an iOS device and Apple account is a very expensive paperweight.
 
Khedron said:
Don't worry your iOS apps are already constantly broadcasting your location to data farms and your Apple Watch is alerting your insurance company of when to raise your premium.
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Very few Apps have access to GPS on my phone. And almost none when they are in the background. It's a huge drain on the battery - the reason I bought a (used, cheap) Garmin Forerunner 235.
 
Another insane decision with the HomePod - non-removable power cable. If it gets damaged or just falls apart like most Apple cables do, that's a $350 replacement.
 
Khedron said:
Another insane decision with the HomePod - non-removable power cable. If it gets damaged or just falls apart like most Apple cables do, that's a $350 replacement.
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There’s no reason why it will fall apart. Big difference from current cables when they are moved to one place of another. HomePod should never move normally
 
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Khedron said:
An Echo can still feature as a bluetooth speaker you can connect any device to. The Dot is a mistake though, unless you already have some high quality speaker you want to make wireless.

A HomePod without an iOS device and Apple account is a very expensive paperweight.
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Why would anyone buy a HomePod if they don’t have an iOS device?

I would think that people would do some research before putting down £320. It’s not an impulse buy like the echo for or the google home mini.
 
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Khedron said:
Another insane decision with the HomePod - non-removable power cable. If it gets damaged or just falls apart like most Apple cables do, that's a $350 replacement.
Click to expand...

While I'm not so sure that the cable will fall apart or get damaged that easily/often I do wish they would have made it removable. They could have easily used a simple IEC-320-C7 cord, just like they use on the Apple TV and Mac Mini. That way it would have been easily replacable if it was damaged, or if you wanted a different length like in my case. My Homepod sits on the kitchen counter about a foot away from the power outlet, so I have to have five feet of cord wrapped up sitting on the counter behind the speaker looking silly. Would have been real nice if I could have replaced it with a shorter cord so I didn't have to deal with all that extra. I'm sure there are others that wished they had a longer cord in order to reach their outlet and instead they are forced to use an extension cord, when again it would be nice to just buy a cable the length you want.
 
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Shanghaichica said:
Why would anyone buy a HomePod if they don’t have an iOS device?

I would think that people would do some research before putting down £320. It’s not an impulse buy like the echo for or the google home mini.
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So you've seen Apple's new marketing campaign too...

It Doesn't Just Work. Do Your Research, Pleb.
 
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