“…that it does work with tracks that are not Apple Music or purchased from the iTunes Store if you have iCloud Music Library enabled”
I may get one in that case…
NYT says nei
Remember when Apple prided themselves on the things they said “no” to as much as the things they pursued? This really feels like something someone should’ve made the (internally) unpopular choice to kill before it saw the light of day.
Apple seems to have no interest in the “lady in a tube” product line (Amazon’s Echo, and whatever the Google version is called).
Customers do seem interested in that. Lots of people seem to really enjoy their Echos, whether they’re also in Apple’s ecosystem for phones and computers or not, and would be eager to purchase a similar product from Apple.
This looks like an audio product someone at Apple’s been working on since before the ladies in tubes were popular, and the fact that it’s voice-controlled has nothing to do with fulfilling the home assistant role and everything to do with Apple’s sometimes odd ideas about future-thinking products. That it does any Siri stuff other than music control is an accident, and Apple—at least parts of Apple—don’t seem to realize how bad this looks.
It also highlights Apple’s ongoing blind spot for the idea of multi-user devices. We should have multi-user iPads that unlock to your personal home screen based on your TouchID (or FaceID) by now for families, and this speaker should understand who’s talking and who’s musical preferences it should be learning.
And of course, getting back to the HomePod’s primary role as just a really great speaker, it’s a complete mistake to offer no physical inputs.
Even purely as a speaker, the HomePod misses more use cases than it addresses. It exists, it’s too late to can the whole idea, so I hope they keep quietly developing this into something good, but there’s literally no one I’d recommend this to.
On one hand, all the reviews talk about the speaker sounding much better than you’d expect from its size, and gush over the cool technology Apple used to do it. But of course Apple took them on tours of their tech labs and sold them on that stuff.
On the other hand, all the reviews say it sounds better than a Sonos One ($200, $350 for two), but not a lot better. And the Sonos One works with Alexa and soon Google Home too.
So it seems like Apple can make a pretty great speaker. Remember, Sonos has a ton of experience at this sort of thing. And of course Google and Amazon can’t make great speakers-- reviews of the Home Max say it sounds mediocre, and the Echo 2nd gen isn’t even in the same class.
Apple just needs to be more flexible with their software and price it competitively. Imagine if Siri was better and it cost $200?
Apple has shown repeatedly that they can release something for earlier adopters and improve upon it vastly by the second and third versions. If they invest in it, I have no doubt it will be a good product in a year or two. My question is will they put the time and thought into it, or is it another TV which is ok, but could be so much better.
I admit, voice control is the first time i’m starting to feel like i’m looking behind me rather than ahead of me, culturally speaking. I don’t “get” voice control. I don’t know why i would possibly want it. It’s solving a problem i don’t have. If i want to play music in the house I… select the music i want to play. If i want to know how to cook leeks i … look up and compare different recipes. I was even given an Echo Dot for Christmas from somebody and i’ve never even unboxed it. Why?
In that sense the HomePod is more in line with me… old and busted, i guess. I don’t care about Siri control personally. The market otoh definitely cares. But not having line-in for a speaker? iTunes already pisses me off the way it erases your music and loses everything i’ve ever owned. I’m not giving up the ghost and living on Apple Music exclusively, though clearly iTunes as an Apple Music player exclusively is the end point. I wouldn’t even be surprised at some point if they shut down the “local file” version of iTunes and make it online and virtual only.
I think the HomePod will do just fine. If you’re interested in good audio quality and you’re in the Apple ecosystem, it’s the obvious choice. But I agree Apple needs to show some serious Siri love this year. Mainly, open up Siri to 3rd party music and podcast apps and services. Don’t be afraid to compete with Spotify, give customers a choice.
Meanwhile, Amazon and Google will flood the market even further.
DId you see Amazon’s financials last week? Surprised everyone by blowing away all expectations. Alexa is fueling that.
And Amazon has a recurring sale on regular Echos. Buy two, get the third one for $49.99. With that deal, you could buy four full-sized Echos for the price of a single Homepod.
I dunno, this seems more like a continuation of Apple’s failure to do anything useful with Siri. For once, they were first to market with this stuff, and they did absolutely nothing with it. The pace of improvement in Siri, compared to every other voice service, is shocking. I wouldn’t be surprised if Bixby is better than Siri in two years.
I’m pretty sure Apple is really just Apple Holdings, Inc., and all these other products and services are inconveniently difficult problems they’d rather not bother dealing with but enjoy the recurring revenue from until the river dries up; at least until everyone responsible retires and cashes out.
I am eagerly awaiting a review where they compare the sound of a single HomePod to the output of two Sonos One speakers that are stereo paired. After all, they’re the same price!
I don’t think Apple cares. Again, much like the TV, they seem to be happy with their small share of the market and in that they know their core audience will buy it. Which on one hand is fine, I am not a huge fan of the Echo (poor sound quality and the voice stuff is very limited) so I think Apple has easy competition here, but I would love to see them really push it. Just not sure they will.
I heard Amazon did well, but are they making any money on the Echo? The tablets they sell for almost nothing because they are just there so you buy the content from Amazon. I know the Echo isn’t quite the same, but did the Echo have anything to do with their great quarter?
I expect to see a lot more effort from Apple on Siri; they must know they can’t sit by and let others own that space.
My understanding from the earnings call except I heard was that the Echo contributed significantly to Amazon’s quarter. But they weren’t explicit about the impact to the bottom line. Here’s a related quote:
““Our 2017 projections for Alexa were very optimistic, and we far exceeded them,” added Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s founder and chief executive, in a statement. “We don’t see positive surprises of this magnitude very often — expect us to double down.””
I don’t see how much more Apple can do with Siri due the walled garden and lack of the data pipes that Google and Amazon possess.
There’s no reason Siri couldn’t be as capable as Alexa. Apple just needs to open the gates, like Amazon did years ago with skills, allowing third-parties to easily integrate with their product.
Oh boy I hope we can discuss what “walled garden” means again.
I agree, but that would a tremendous shift in Apple’s strategy thus far.
They’ve reversed wrong decisions before. Remember pushing back on an iPhone app store with “web apps”? This is the same thing.
Siri’s restrictions make her much less useful if you don’t use Apple products and services. I primarily use Siri for reminders these days. I can’t switch to a third-party to-do app, even though several are really gorgeously executed apps, because none of them work right with Siri. And my use case is just “Remind me the cleaning lady comes tomorrow on March 5th”. Nothing crazy or complex.
Apple cracked open the gates slightly with iOS 10 and allowed certain apps (ie, ride-sharing apps like Uber) to use SIri via SiriKit. Unfortunately there wasn’t much added to 11 and certainly not music/podcast app support, which is what everyone wants. So, yeah, Apple could open the gates wider, the company either chose not to or are working out technical hurdles.
Apple has essentially unlimited resources. This was a business decision. Those to-do apps I spoke of? They have cross-compatible Android versions too. If I switch from Apple Reminders to Todoist or whatever, it makes it easier to switch away from Apple.