Yes, but they always make at least 200 drawings to make sure it looks exactly like what Apple does.
Then they deny similarities, get sued and settle after 6 years, selling a lot of these, which is much cheaper than coming up with ideas!
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Samsung Confirms Work on Speaker to Compete With Apple HomePod and Amazon Echo
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Yes, but they always make at least 200 drawings to make sure it looks exactly like what Apple does.
Then they deny similarities, get sued and settle after 6 years, selling a lot of these, which is much cheaper than coming up with ideas!
That's a terrifying thought. Nothing like being submerged and have your battery explode. Or half of your controls be in an awkward, hard to reach place with the ones that are front and center, being arranged backwards.
I don't understand why everybody is so riled up about copying. Look around. You will see everybody copies everybody in every industry. What's the big deal? Automobile, tv, washing machine .. you name it. So stop being so anal about it.
Names must be like Rorschach tests... everyone projects something on them
To me, "Bixby" simply sounds like a butler's name.
--
But apparently "a Bixby" is also writer slang for a being that can make anything happen.
Named after the scifi writer Jerome Bixby who wrote the famous powerful-being story, "It's a Good Life" which was later featured in Twilight Zone. So the more erudite comparison would be to:
Bixby also wrote several ST:TOS episodes, including "Mirror Mirror" with evil Kirk and Spock, "Day of the Dove", "By Any Other Name", and "Requiem for Methuselah"... the latter three also powerful being (Bixby) type stories.
Last edited:
I'll give S. Korea the advantage in Ship building. IMO, Taiwan has the advantage in Silicon Fabs.
I'll give S. Korea the advantage in Ship building. IMO, Taiwan has the advantage in Silicon Fabs.
TSMC has a lot of smaller fabs. Intel is still huge in the US though and at least for now Intel is way ahead of ARM. Samsung is a big player is South Korea. And it's not just CPUs. Flash/RAM are huge segments as well
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_semiconductor_fabrication_plants
It looks like the top 3 are USA, China, and South Korea.
[doublepost=1503580457][/doublepost]
They created a $2000 macbook air as the answer to a $200 netbook. And they were right to do so, the netbook was cheap junk that died out while the MBA evolved into an amazing product line.
You're always talking about how Apple refines and perfects other people's product ideas. Why does it bother you that the perfected product may cost several times as much and yet still be worth it because Apple understands that's what it costs to do it right?
Last edited:
Those comments show Apple was reluctant to enter the market because they felt their devices already eclipsed it. Consumers thought otherwise. And now Apple is entering this new market.
You say Apple had things locked in place because “Hey Siri” predates Alexa and then you claim Echo is superior as a home tool... does this not imply Apple was forced to move into this market to compete with Amazon’s voice assistant in the home space?
Just because they chose to go at it from another angle and not 1-1 with Amazon’s maturing product catalogue from day 1 doesn’t mean it’s not a reaction. Apple introduces product families by focusing on features separating them from the pack - absolutely nothing new here.
You think HomePod will Apple’s only a step in their push for automation dominance beyond their current lineup?
Ha you had me rolling at this one. Samesung have no problems pushing their high host products because they have their competitor to compare to and a base that buys it. I'd also be surprised if the first smart speaker produced by Samsung as a flagship device doesn't focus heavily on audio quality (speaker first) modestly attempting to undercut Apple's value. Do you doubt it?
Last edited:
I'll give S. Korea the advantage in Ship building. IMO, Taiwan has the advantage in Silicon Fabs.
Then there's Samsung's construction arm, which built the Petronas Towers, Taipei 101, and the Burj Khalifa (world's tallest structure).
1. Nope, not contradicting myself. You are misreading or misinterpreting. My position on HomePod has been very consistent since it was first announced. This forum is full of comments by me on HomePod and Echo that back this up.
2. Regarding your last paragraph, yes, I doubt it. Samsung is not known for quality audio. Video, yes, but their audio is lacking even on it's best TVs. Regardless, and market data bears this out, Android users do not spend money on high end products the way Apple users do. Android users are much more value buyers. And quality audio cannot be done on the cheap. It's like a steak. You can have cheap or you can have quality, but you can't have both. Samsung will need to focus on practicality in the same way Amazon does: decent sound, maximum utility at an affordable price.
Regardless Samsung's speaker will not compete with Apple simply because they are two different eco-systems. It's similar in the way Samsung Gear doesn't compete with Apple Watch. They are parallel products designed to work with a specific system. It's pointless for Samsung to make a high end speaker. There is no market there in Android-world. I'm not convinced it even exists in Apple-world.
Does anyone else see the housing implications of these devices? If you live in anything larger than an apartment, will they hear you on the other side of the house or on another floor? Doubtful. Unless you can run several of them, and who would want to spend the money on that, the practicality of these things being a ubiquitous digital servant seems to be limited to urban dwellers the same way that so much of what comes out of Silicon Valley these days does. Hey, look, we've got this amazing mapping app designed to keep you from getting lost that requires broadband to work. Yeah, um, the place you'd need something like that is in BFE where you don't have a cellular data connection.
I would argue that the iPad was Apple's answer to the netbook, not the MBA.
Because I don't see them as competing at all. It's like arguing that $15 Xiaomi step counters compete with the Apple Watch. Completely different markets and target audiences.
To me, the Amazon echo and Homepod serve very different purposes. The echo is there to help Amazon learn the shopping habits of their users, while the homepod is augmented hearing in the home. I don't think a user interested in the home pod (for its superior sound quality) will be interested in what the echo has to offer, and vice versa.
So you don’t see HomePod as a competitor to Echo or anything that Samsung could possibly release because they’re bound to different ecosystems? And therefore one can’t be a reaction to the other? It may be a speaker, but the goal is to backdoor Siri into the 'life' of a home.
HomePod may not be attractive to Samsung users, but I have no doubt Samsung will produce a speaker with an attempt to appeals to iPhone users. I also feel as if it weren’t for Echo, we wouldn’t see the HomePod today.
Last edited:
Apple is late to the party. The Echo is miles ahead of anything Apple is doing. Nice try Mr. Cook.
Yes and we all know what happens when Samsung rush things to market..
[doublepost=1503585493][/doublepost]
The 'digital assistant in the home' market is still in it's infancy. Nice try Mr Ironic Username.
Interesting thought. I don't see how HomePod would act as a home theater audio system, other than for music. As far as we know the only way to get audio to it is wirelessly. The latency of wireless audio would be an issue for syncing to video...unless they do some trickery with the Apple TV. But even still if you had a game console or turntable how would you get that audio routed to the Homepod?