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Ming-Chi Kuo Says Apple Considering Lower-Priced HomePod After Potentially Lackluster Sales
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I would consider trying it, even if I already am on Sonos.
Sonos plays my local music library and a whopping gazillion of radios around the world without hassle.
Make it do the same and we’re in the game...
Oh, and don’t restrict its availability only to a handful of carefully selected countries...
Sonos plays my local music library and a whopping gazillion of radios around the world without hassle.
Make it do the same and we’re in the game...
Oh, and don’t restrict its availability only to a handful of carefully selected countries...
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what will never happen? of course lowing the price will help. Hell actually bringing out air play 2 will help with that alone. Making siri smarter is clearly part of apple's focus as it should be.
Prior to launch, I really expected HomePod and Apple TV to be merged into the same product line. It makes a lot of sense. One with built-in speakers, one without, both with the option to connect to a TV if you want, but not required. It's just a poorly thought out product entirely.Actually, we already have HP "smarts" in the <half-the-priceTV. And it brings benefits of a dedicated app store, access to music services other than just AM and it doesn't discriminate against our own music ripped from CDs. Hook it to whatever quality speakers one desires and you also ALREADY get stereo too. Bonus: it also can play video!!!
I really love the sound of my HomePod but I got to say Siri SUCKS! Come on Apple get it together. You can't really call this a smart speaker.
"...Apple considering lower-priced HomePod after potentially lackluster sales"
Yeah, no kidding. The thing is $350 when an Echo has better voice features, more market saturation, better adoption, sounds just as good to most people, and you're probably already paying for Amazon Prime.
The HomePod is priced crazy into the stratosphere for what 99% of what people are going to do with it. Now, if they made it $150, it would dominate the market quickly.
Yeah, no kidding. The thing is $350 when an Echo has better voice features, more market saturation, better adoption, sounds just as good to most people, and you're probably already paying for Amazon Prime.
The HomePod is priced crazy into the stratosphere for what 99% of what people are going to do with it. Now, if they made it $150, it would dominate the market quickly.
I’m terms of Siri vs Alexa etc. Siri good for basics just not as clever for general knowledge. But all
Alexa does is access a data base with the questions you ask. None of these so called,” smart assistance” are smart they are just voice interfaces.
Alexa does is access a data base with the questions you ask. None of these so called,” smart assistance” are smart they are just voice interfaces.
Not to mention missing the holiday quarter (unless you were including that as "late" too)
You know what would have helped a lot? Delivering the HomePod fully functional. It's months later and the darn things still isn't fully functional. I'd be willing to bet that a significant portion of those who purchased a HomePod would have gotten 2 or more if the stereo pairing and multi-room AirPlay2 features were there when the HP went on sale.
There is an upside though. If the lackluster sales turns out to be true, some people will be able to get HP at discounted rates as stores try to move stagnant inventory. By that time Apple may have the HP fully functional.
This is true, although I think that Apple would sell more if they were cheaper. I would expand their focus to not only on Siri, but the user experience.
Apple traditionally always had a premium price with nice margins, but people would buy them because the product was premium quality, design, and had a better user experience than the competition that was often much cheaper.
Now, it seems like Apple is trying to sell sub-premium products at a premium price. The software is a mess lately, and it seems to be only getting worse.
Like many here have already stated. It’s missing a lot to be useful. Siri just isn’t up to par, HomeKit is a complete disaster, and lack of profiles on HomePod only make it useful if you live alone.
Apple really needs to up the ante with Siri and rewrite/rethink how HomeKit should work.
Apple really needs to up the ante with Siri and rewrite/rethink how HomeKit should work.
there will be HomePod Mini, HomePod Air, HomePod Pro & "the new HomePod" like their strategy on saving the iPad: diversify
Yeah, and just generally how long it took them after Amazon and Google.
But at least with this we see that Samsung always waits for Apple, as the other products weren’t enough for them to want to release something.
I don't have a HomePod so my answer stems from using iPhones, iPads, and Apple Watch. Yes, Siri is terrible. Mostly because it fundamentally can't understand what I'm saying unless I speak a slow monotone, and I have no accent aside from totally standard American. When multiple devices are in earshot, all logged into the same Apple account, they compete for processing the command instead of letting the closest handle it. So I've had to completely turn Siri off on my iPad and learned to whisper to my watch so the phone can't hear it. It also fails at handling anything interesting. Queries inevitably turn into a crappy web search, and I have to look at my phone for the answers; easier in those cases just to have googled it via typing and already be in my browser. The only thing Siri really does well is set reminders, but that's primarily because the UI for the reminder app is clunky when you want to set dates/times. A better UI would diminish Siri's value there too. You also cannot do useful things like speak to Siri on the watch to tell it to launch an app on the phone; I always want this when my phone is in my pocket in the car, and I want to start my music app so it plays to the car's bluetooth. But no, that requires getting my phone out and using it directly.
Poor market research on Apples part. Define what the needs are in a market, then how to best improve on those market needs. It would appear that Apple did a poor job in their market research. That build it and they will come Apple approach, struggling this time around. As per this article, Apple will make the necessary changes, a bit late in the game nonetheless. Do not wait too long Apple, others have seen your product and vision, they are sure to respond.
Which runs circles around Siri without even trying nowadays.
Umm how? The portable speaker market (no smarts) is a 10+ years old and growing. Bose and others have had GREAT sounding portable speakers for a while now.
The so called "digital assistant" speaker market is what two years old? Three at the most. All but the Google Max suck in comparison to the Home Pod, when it comes to sound quality.
As far as Digital Assistants....well I think the current wave of them, all of them, are lame. 95% of the time I can do whatever I ask them to do faster and better with my phone manually. All of them can be tripped up easily. All of them require a special way to talk to them, vs natural language. All of them need more powerful hardware and mountains of data and at least 5 years of tech innovation to even get close to being a true assistant.
Recent studies of how people use them are revealing....
Top 3 Amazon requests
Set a timer
Check the weather
Play a song
Top 3 for Google
Check the weather
Play a song
Set a timer
Sport score requests only 10%
Add an item to your todo list 5%
For me Siri can do all of that and do it pretty well. Does Siri need to get better, sure as long as it keeps privacy at the top of the list.
For someone that lives in the Apple ecosystem to include Apple Music, the Home Pod is a great portable speaker.
I'm #4 at the moment, I mean I *care* but it turns lights on an off fine (with excellent ability to "hear" me) and plays songs and playlists just fine and sounds great. I wasn't expecting Siri to be any better than it already is- that'd be nice, but I bought it for the aforemetnioned...
A lot of “could’s“ in this research note. Why do I get the feeling he quickly threw this together after seeing other rumors knowing rumor sites eat up anything he publishes. I don’t see any new information in this note but hey it keeps the HomePod doom and gloom alive and well over the weekend.
Yes - it really is that bad. Try it yourself and see - you may find the ability to set a timer sufficient.
Spot on. I own 4 echo devices. They all do what I want them to do every single time. They always hear me, they connect to play music throughout the home, and soon, hopefully we will get stereo integration. For what Homepod is, its not worth the price for me. I can outfit 4 rooms with echo and echo dots AND buy a few lights and plugs for the cost of one Homepod. Apple could have just dominated the field had they released their current Homepod at under $200. Now its a compelling product. I would have bought one for under $200. Comparing a Echo that you can get for around $80 when on sale, is a Homepod worth $270 additional dollars then an Echo???? No. If Im looking for sound that is that great I would buy 2 Sonos Play Ones for under $300. They would sound as good or better, ANY music service is compatible, play in sync around home or as stereo pair and add a dot and your same or cheaper in fact as Homepod.
No one wants a cheaper version of Homepod. They want the existing version to be cheaper and Apple could really have gained a lot of ground and got their devices in a lot of homes had they priced it properly.
@ $150 - I'd buy it as a fan boy gadget. Above that it is an "investment" and really needs a purpose or useful function.