The single largest app used across all smart speakers is Spotify, so it's not surprising that the lack of third-party streaming service support hampers HomePod.
Apple’s HomePod Isn’t a Hot Seller
31–40 of 91 posts
Re: Apple’s HomePod Isn’t a Hot Seller
#32As with all Apple products, I'm sure Apple will iterate on this and keep making a better product until it can rival Google Home and Amazon Echo. It seems quite often that Apple first generation of new products (huge exception for the original iPhone) can't really compete with competitors, but very quickly, in two or three generations, they end up with the best product on the market. Although what really surprised me…
> Although what really surprised me in this article is that Google Home only has 14% of the market share while Amazon Echo has 73% These are sales figures for the first two months where Homepod was available, not overall market share.
Looks like overall share is a little different. Amazon 69, Google 25 as of Jan.
https://www.voicebot.ai/2018/01/10/amazon-alexa-smart-speake...
Re: Apple’s HomePod Isn’t a Hot Seller
#33I'd prefer to see the HomePod compared to the speaker market. I would bet that it sells better than Sonos.
The article includes market share and revenue share for Sonos One, which HomePod is higher in both.
Re: Apple’s HomePod Isn’t a Hot Seller
#34I believe it. Siri is woeful. Plus they sell it as a high quality speaker yet it has no line-in for me to use with my entertainment system. For £350 that’s a hard pass from this Apple fanboy.
It is a high end speaker. Audio testing has confirmed that. But it isn't designed to be a replacement for a 5.2, 7.1.4 etc system. But a pair of them with an AppleTV could absolutely be your 2.1 system for watching Netflix and listening to Apple Music.
Is there a subwoofer that pairs with the HomePod? I can't find one. If not, that would make it a 2.0 system, which is a whole different thing. Also, it looks like stereo pairing is some ways off.
Re: Apple’s HomePod Isn’t a Hot Seller
#35> During the HomePod’s first 10 weeks of sales, it eked out 10 percent of the smart speaker market, compared with 73 percent for Amazon’s Echo devices and 14 percent for the Google Home, according to Slice Intelligence.
Time and again, Apple has shown that they just don't really care about market share metrics. Apple cares about making money, and it is very good at it. It's self-evident that an expensive device that works only with iPhones isn't going to command the market device of a $50 device that works across many different services. What is the ASP of those other devices? How much revenue is Amazon / Google making per user?
> Apple had an opportunity to put the HomePod at the center of a new ecosystem of smart home and other gadgets that aren’t glued to the iPhone. But the small, wireless speaker is not that product. Though the HomePod delivers market-leading audio quality, consumers have discovered it’s heavily dependent on the iPhone and is limited as a digital assistant.
Apple clearly hasn't chosen that strategy, otherwise, by definition, the device wouldn't be limited to iPhone and Apple Music. Amazon and Google's strategies make sense because Amazon is invested in getting you buying more stuff, and Google wants your data to train its model.
Apple doesn't actually have that much other stuff to hook you into - it has HomeKit-enabled devices, but it is the other manufacturers that make money from those, not Apple.
And how many people actually have a Nest anyway? If a HomePod becomes a thin client for expensive HomeKit gear, it becomes less, not more useful. It's a profitable smart speaker product for audiophiles, and it doesn't _try_ to be anything else.
Re: Apple’s HomePod Isn’t a Hot Seller
#36The single largest app used across all smart speakers is Spotify, so it's not surprising that the lack of third-party streaming service support hampers HomePod.
True. I went for a Spotify Connect enabled receiver with quality speakers. If see no need for Siri.
Re: Apple’s HomePod Isn’t a Hot Seller
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
Siri is available on Apple TV, Apple Watch, iOS and Macs. So Apple also will sell hundreds of millions of devices and allow them to improve their AI globally.
I can't wait. Siri "AI" is one of my biggest tech disappointments. I was expecting Apple to data mine the millions of voices and questions they got and teach Siri new things every week. Years later, Siri still can't understand that I want to call back my missed phone calls.
Thankfully Apple recently hired a person who helped built the Assistant in Google to work on Siri and other initiatives.
Re: Apple’s HomePod Isn’t a Hot Seller
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
It is a high end speaker. Audio testing has confirmed that. But it isn't designed to be a replacement for a 5.2, 7.1.4 etc system. But a pair of them with an AppleTV could absolutely be your 2.1 system for watching Netflix and listening to Apple Music.
Is there a subwoofer that pairs with the HomePod? I can't find one. If not, that would make it a 2.0 system, which is a whole different thing. Also, it looks like stereo pairing is some ways off.
Any set up of Homepods isn't a 2.0/2.1 system. That's a new paradigm of speaker arrays and software based signal processing in order to eliminate the sweet spot associated with any stereo setup.
Re: Apple’s HomePod Isn’t a Hot Seller
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
> huge exception for the original iPhone That was the case the original iPhone as well, I would say the iPhone really took-off on it's second version.
Yes. The original iPhone was: Firs, a big wow. Then a longer series of disappointments over the next few months. I remember I didn't buy the first iPhone because you could not write apps for it for the first 9 months or so (Just with JavaScript or a hacked version of XCode). And it was slow and could not do many things that other phones could do at that time. Bought an Android soon after and so far, I have stayed. Bu…
I bought the first iPhone a couple of months after release, which was in August or September 2007. The first jailbreak allowing your own software to be run on one was the reason I got one. I and everyone I showed it to were blown away by what was doable with it with custom software. The CLI-only hacked SDK was pretty hard to set up and use, but it was still better than what was available for other phones.
Used it jailbroken into 2011, when I finally replaced it with an iPhone 4, which in its turn ran jailbroken until 2014. That was when I got an iPhone 6, which I'm still on and I haven't jailbroken it, because Apple more or less caught up in stock iOS with the more important jailbreak hacks around that time. It seems like iPhone 6 will be phone I'll use for the longest time, because it's still fast enough and works fine.
Re: Apple’s HomePod Isn’t a Hot Seller
#40> During the HomePod’s first 10 weeks of sales, it eked out 10 percent of the smart speaker market, compared with 73 percent for Amazon’s Echo devices and 14 percent for the Google Home, according to Slice Intelligence. Time and again, Apple has shown that they just don't really care about market share metrics. Apple cares about making money, and it is very good at it. It's self-evident that an expensive device that…
> consumers have discovered it’s heavily dependent on the iPhone and is limited as a digital assistant
Wouldn't this be based on Apple's privacy policy and lack of ability to do AI well with the data only available on a single device?
https://www.barrons.com/articles/is-apple-falling-behind-in-...