HomePod Should Launch 'Soon' as Inventec Begins Shipments to Apple

[Winni]

In all seriousness, does anyone actually think the Echo or Google Home are amazing products and APPLE has no chance of disrupting this market?

The Echo Dot is literally a piece of trash. Have you seen it in person?

You are completely missing the point of the Echo Dot.

The Echo Dot is an awesome piece of technology for 55 Euros. And since it has BlueTooth and a port for external speakers, it can be connected to sound systems that will easily kill the HomePod. If you just want a kitchen radio, the base model is all that you need. If you want a bit more, just connect an Anker SoundCore or something else to it. If you want even more, heck, hook the thing up to whatever high end sound system you have.

The point is that for just fifty bucks (or even less when they're on sale), Alexa and her huge ecosystem (Amazon Services, Home automation, ALL third party skills) become a part of your household. That's almost no entry barrier, almost everybody can afford it.

For Apple's 350 bucks model, all you get is a front-end to Apple Music with exactly one hardware configuration. So what's the smarter choice here?

(And yes, I actually own an Echo Dot. And even a Kindle Fire HD10 with Alexa hands-free.)

 

[lpolarityl]

I must say, when this was announced at WWDC, I was sort of meh about it. Thought it was overpriced compared to the Echo. But since then I've really gotten excited about it, since I've started listening to music a lot more. When they delayed it, I was actually disappointed, and now the hype is building.

So you started listening to music "more" when Apple's HomePod got closer to release to justify purchasing one?

Most "serious" music folks have a really nice pair of headphones or have started/continuing building up a hefty vinyl collection paired with a really nice stereo receiver and stand speakers. HomePod is cool and all, but I wouldn't mind seeing a review showing all it's features to justify the $350 price tag.

I don't know about other people's experience with Siri, but in my experience Siri isn't nearly as good as Google when it comes to voice command(s).

 

[ersan191]

I disagree that Siri is worse than Alexa. I use both regularly, each has their strengths and weaknesses.

I think the biggest problem with Siri is actually recognizing what you're saying which is at least partially the fault of the poor microphones in the devices that have Siri currently. You're comparing a tiny microphone on your phone to a far-field 7-microphone array engineered to pick up your voice from across the room. The HomePod will be at least as good as the Echo devices in this regard.

Google Assistant is obviously better than both of them at speech recognition and general knowledge questions, and likely always will be, because Google's expertise is in Search and software and they have significantly more data to work with than Amazon or Apple.

 

[walstib]

I drank the Kool-Aid long ago, naturally I’ll buy one or two.

In addition to music, the main thrust of my desire is for home automation. I am looking forward to having a stationary device — instead of just my Apple Watch or iPhone — to control HomeKit devices.

I tried Amazon’s devices to control my lights, but I found them lacking, plus it’s an entire different world than my existing HomeKit setup.

I have to laugh at the previous comment about plugging a speaker into an Echo device. Yeah, that’s a real elegant solution. Maybe acceptable in a trailer park, but I wouldn’t do it in my home.

 

[itguy06]

Quoted for future reference like Watch, AirPods, iPhone, etc.
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The difference in those comparisons is they all were better than their competitors.
Apple Watch is still the best experience for general purpose wearables.
AirPods, they were first and arguably the best even though I can't wear them.
iPhone was better than all its competitors.

Remember the iPod HiFi. Failure.

Google Home Max has the same sky high price tag with the same focus on sound quality with it's acoustic modeling, and has the best assistant built in. Even integrates with way more stuff than Siri.

I honestly don't think Siri is nearly as bad as people make it sound here.

Having an iPhone and Android make the comparison easy. Google is much better at knowing what you mean than Siri. I can tell Google Assistant "Call Best Buy in xxx city" and it will dial it. Siri will pull up a listing of either Best Buy or some unrelated business. Ask Siri to get directions and it's an affair - Google just does it. Heck, Google Home will automatically send them to my phone.

 

[zipster]

I must say, when this was announced at WWDC, I was sort of meh about it. Thought it was overpriced compared to the Echo. But since then I've really gotten excited about it, since I've started listening to music a lot more. When they delayed it, I was actually disappointed, and now the hype is building.

The impending release of a home speaker made you listen to music more??

 

[ersan191]

They don't have to. The Echo Dot can be connected to literally any other speaker on the market -- including models that will blow the HomePod out of the water. Or you buy the Sonos speaker with Alexa built in (or some other third party product with Alexa integration).

When you connect an Echo Dot to a bluetooth speaker you cannot use it for multi-room audio, which is kind of a big deal for a lot of people (including me).

 

[DTECHQUE]

Too late.

But little did you know..

 

[EdT]

To everyone saying that the HomePod will have superior sound quality.....

Above a minimal level, people don’t care.

Beta VCR had stereo before VHS, people didn’t care.

8 track tapes sounded better (still not great) than cassette tapes. People didn’t care.

High end turn tables sounded better than cheap ones. People didn’t care.

There are high end digital formats that exist now that claim better sound, and few are buying. Why?

In every single instance the better sounding device or format costs more than the ok sound. And most people really don’t listen to music, it’s pleasing background noise. The few who do care buy the better/improved/more expensive devices, and the other 95% of consumers buy good enough.

 

[ersan191]

The point is that for just fifty bucks (or even less when they're on sale), Alexa and her huge ecosystem (Amazon Services, Home automation, ALL third party skills) become a part of your household. That's almost no entry barrier, almost everybody can afford it.

For Apple's 350 bucks model, all you get is a front-end to Apple Music with exactly one hardware configuration. So what's the smarter choice here?

Alexa does not have a 'huge ecosystem', certainly not when compared to Apple... It has a fairly clunky home automation implementation and the ability to order things from Amazon (which I've given up on because it picks the wrong item pretty much every time).

The vast majority of the third party skills are useless - I think I only have 5 of them active, and 2 of them I wrote myself - the Skills API is extremely limited in what you can do and inflexible, and invocations are handled terribly ("Ask <skill> to do something"), they seem to be adding shortcuts to highly-used skills manually but it's slow going. Apple will add more third party capabilities as time goes on.

HomeKit is a far more robust home automation platform than what Amazon offers, especially when augmented with third party software like homebridge (of which there is no Echo equivalent).

The only thing I agree with you about is the price and barrier of entry, hopefully they will make a HomePod mini in the near future and drop the price of the HomePod. Home assistants are really meant to be in every room of your house and at $350 it makes that an unrealistic goal for most people.

 

[travelsheep]

How do they do this in real life? How do they move 1 million units? I guess 2 strong guys and a truck won't do.

 

[A MacBook lover]

Too late.

I feel like Apple missed the boat on this one.

Kinda like the iphone was too late to the smartphone market?

Or the Apple Watch?

AirPods too late to the wireless headphone market.

 

[Eduardo1971]

Have gone back and forth on this one so many times - i think i've finally landed on getting one. I'm integrated with Sonos and thought I'd just get a Play One, but i'm so engrained in Apple's Eco system that it doesn't make sense not to get one. So all in all, I think I'm excited for it?

I have two Sonos Play:1’s for their price they sound awfully good.

I’m interested in hearing how the HomePod will sound as I am deeply entrenched in the Apple ecosystem.

 

[Keirasplace]

I get your point but I still disagree. So Apple is trying to market a speaker - basically they are competing with a lot, a lot of really high quality brands out there that have been around for decades.
With the current price tag the HomePod only addresses two groups of people:
- Apple fans who would buy anything as long as its apple (probably impossible to upset these)
- Music lovers, who for some reason don't have an awesome audio system, have no CDs/Vinyls/..., no Spotify/Google Music/Deezer subscription,...

In reality, most audiophiles will want a nice stereo system but still want to be able to connect their vinyl player for example (not possible with the HomePod), continue listening to their own music (CD or downloads; not possible without another Apple device on the HomePod),... I love listening to Music but I would never buy such a limiting system but rather invest a bit more and be able to customise my sound system later still or be able to change to a different music streaming service, etc...

I get Apples gamble though, they really really hard try to get you to give up any other music service and change to AM. Well in my opinion its a risky gamble that might as well backfire...

And to all the people saying Apple now dominates fields that they didn't enter as the first: Imagine Apple would have only sold the Apple Watch if at the same time you would change all your contracts over to Verizon - I think the watch wouldn't have been nearly as successful then because lots of people wouldn't give up a good service/deal they had...

It's a speaker that adapts to its environment according to what it plays in real time (with the processing it has it could even adapt to where listeners are in real time). That's one hell of a difference just there huh. There is nothing at a non rich as sin level that gives people that right now.

Apple are not going after audiophiles, but trying to give a audiophile experience to the middle market; usually called : affordable luxury. It has been Apple's core market forever.

Those people cannot afford to set up a room with good acoustic around their stereo systems or the music they listen too and always wind up with sub par music that that's tied in one spot.

That's in part why traditional mid range system's sales have gone way way down and small decent quality speakers (even if they're mono) from the like of Sonos, Bose, etc have exploded in sales.

With those speakers and their processing they could even create soundscapes with sounds/music that reflect a virtual environment, or enables sounds to pool in areas and be less disruptive in others.

 

[Shanghaichica]

They probably should have another event so they can properly show case the device again before they launch it.

 

[The Game 161]

They probably should have another event so they can properly show case the device again before they launch it.

I’m guessing they will and announce release date for air power and the air pods battery case at same time..would make sense

 

[RickInHouston]

I am firmly in the Apple ecosystem and have no plans on leaving. I'll be ordering 2 for starters as soon as they are available.

Yeah!!!

For you and apple.

 

[nofunsir]

Waiting for this and for iTunes on my moto razr.

Any day now...

 

[Mad Mac Maniac]

What about Apple makes you doubt their ability to disrupt a market that has already been established somewhat, particularly when they are focusing on sound quality (not the focus of most other smart speaker offerings)?

Obviously Apple has proven the ability to disrupt established markets, but generally it does so with something revolutionary which is clearly superior to what's on the market. I don't see that being the case with the HomePod... yet. Sure Apple could make enormous strides to catch up (or surpass) over the next year or two. But IMO even when you take out marketshare/mindshare, Google and Amazon's assistant greatly surpass Siri. HomePods one big claim is that it has good sound.... and Google's home max seems to at least be in the same ballpark as HomePod. It's much easier to make a better/more expensive speaker than it is to improve the assistant that comes in it.

 

[ke-iron]

I think Apple really missed the boat here. Amazon and Google really grew their ecosystems this Christmas. Not just their own speakers but intergration in other devices.

Actually Apple still has a large opportunity with this. Amazon and google offering is still not that big over seas. Apple will sell these like hotcakes worldwide and within the first year caught up to amazon and google sales.

 

[chagla]

Is this a case of "too much too late"? $350 for an inferior assistant.

unapologetic-ally.

 

[Mike MA]

Great news. Please ship two of them to Germany prior to the original schedule. Thank you

 

[jonblatho]

The Echo Dot is literally a piece of trash. Have you seen it in person?

I got one for free as a “perk” for moving.

I sold it.

 

[kennyab]

In reality, most audiophiles will want a nice stereo system but still want to be able to connect their vinyl player for example (not possible with the HomePod), continue listening to their own music (CD or downloads; not possible without another Apple device on the HomePod),... I love listening to Music but I would never buy such a limiting system but rather invest a bit more and be able to customise my sound system later still or be able to change to a different music streaming service, etc...

But in reality, most audiophiles will only have one real hi-fi system set up, and that system takes up a pretty good amount of space. And for such a person, $350 probably isn't that much for a good-sounding hands-free speaker they can put on a shelf in the kitchen.

 

[Baymowe335]

Obviously Apple has proven the ability to disrupt established markets, but generally it does so with something revolutionary which is clearly superior to what's on the market. I don't see that being the case with the HomePod... yet. Sure Apple could make enormous strides to catch up (or surpass) over the next year or two. But IMO even when you take out marketshare/mindshare, Google and Amazon's assistant greatly surpass Siri. HomePods one big claim is that it has good sound.... and Google's home max seems to at least be in the same ballpark as HomePod. It's much easier to make a better/more expensive speaker than it is to improve the assistant that comes in it.

Why don't we just agree that people should slow their roll instead of claiming it DOA or too expensive before it's even out, not to mention it won't work well before it's even tested.
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You are completely missing the point of the Echo Dot.

The Echo Dot is an awesome piece of technology for 55 Euros. And since it has BlueTooth and a port for external speakers, it can be connected to sound systems that will easily kill the HomePod. If you just want a kitchen radio, the base model is all that you need. If you want a bit more, just connect an Anker SoundCore or something else to it. If you want even more, heck, hook the thing up to whatever high end sound system you have.

The point is that for just fifty bucks (or even less when they're on sale), Alexa and her huge ecosystem (Amazon Services, Home automation, ALL third party skills) become a part of your household. That's almost no entry barrier, almost everybody can afford it.

For Apple's 350 bucks model, all you get is a front-end to Apple Music with exactly one hardware configuration. So what's the smarter choice here?

(And yes, I actually own an Echo Dot. And even a Kindle Fire HD10 with Alexa hands-free.)

You don't have to get HomePod for Apple's home automation and the benefits from Siri...although everyone proclaims Siri "terrible" when compared to others. I disagree. Still, you only need your iPhone or iPad.

The HomePod is much more than a digital assistant. It's going to integrate AppleMusic, digital assistant, and a high quality speaker into one device. I'd be much more concerned if Apple's product were exactly like the Dot or Google Home. It's not the same product.