Apple HomePod (product discontinued March 2021)

Also talking about speakers…

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At first glance, I think this will be a fail. Aside from the price, Siri is not as good as Google Assistant. It seems they are selling this as a Sonos alternative rather than an intelligent assistant. Why follow a company which I believe i on a decline and with a CEO who recently resigned? The only thing holding me back is what you or should I say CNET mentioned, Apple’s history to be behind, polish, catch up, and crush competition. However they are not perfect, one instance where they failed catching up on are EVs. They tried to catch up on Electric Vehicles but abandoned plans and is now focusing on Full Self Driving AI.

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I think the grey at least looks like tech.

I have to say, I’m really disappointed, and I buy a lot of Apple products (for functionality, not for status). It looks like this is going to be aimed at audiophiles, which is fine, but it’s not something I need or want.

I assume if Siri is enhanced, that would show up on the Apple Watch as well, so I don’t need the homepod for that.

I’m just not seeing any reason from the home automation standpoint to get this device. But again, maybe it’s aimed at music lovers.

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Translation:

“Apple could market a paper sack full of dog crap and call it the ‘iDoodie’…and Apple fans would camp out in line at their local iStore so they could pay $200 for it the day it went on sale.”

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Is it a giant suppository for an elephant?

About 2 and a half weeks ago I made the following prediction about a potential Apple foray into this market:

The Echo is $179 at full price, and 150% of that would be $268.50. Since Apple’s actually slapped a price of $349 on the device it looks like I low-balled their hubris by a significant margin.

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And also, two weeks ago no one disagreed :smile:

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With perforations I might add…

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Lol ya I see that. But at first glance for me the visual was a little more graphic up above. Best part part of it is though, we all see it as being used in the same specific area :slight_smile:

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The funny thing is that Mashable has dubbed it Apple’s “Amazon Echo killer”…

http://mashable.com/2017/06/05/apple-siri-speaker/?utm_cid=mash-com-fb-main-link#XTHSECE.A5q1

But wait…for only $748 you can buy TWO of them and sync them. Shut up and take my money…and then give it back to me.

I assume we should expect to see a Bixby speaker from Samsung next - seeing as Samsung likes to copy apple’s designs. Who knows, maybe they will release a speaker with ST integrated to go along with their new Samsung connect wifi.

In other words, it doesn’t look more intelligent than the Echo. It’s nowhere near as intelligent as the Google Home, which is powered by the Assistant and taps into Google Search.

This is literally a smart speaker, not a voice assistant.

I bet that “Echo killer” headline was written by some layout person, not the Author of the article, who seems much more realistic.

There will be a 3rd party to come in and merge all 3 technologies and release the “GEchle Smart Pod” for a lower cost than everyone else with a wake word of “Clap On” “Clap Off”.

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I think the difference is more a matter of degree than of kind. Both the Echo and the HomePod are combinations of voice-recognition (plus smart assistant) and speaker system in one package. The speaker system in the HomePod appears to be a higher-end one than the one in the Echo, but that doesn’t really change what the authors themselves say in the very first line of the piece:

“We just got our first look at Apple’s long-awaited Amazon Echo rival.”

Maybe they meant that by decibel output, they could drown the sound coming from our Echos? :slight_smile:

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With AirPlay 2 It’s a Sonos killer, not an Echo killer.

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I just stopped laughing from this funny post!

Apple knows their strengths and weaknesses very well:

Weakness - Unable to lead out in new and innovated ideas although their marketing machine wants the apple fan base to believe they do.
Strength - Take what other’s innovate in and polish it and repackage it with great industrial design and convince the apple fan base it’s worth the high price.

… well looks like I have to take “great industrial design” off the strength column

Somebody has to pay for that new round campus or theirs. :slight_smile:

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It’s so funny that things were so quiet with respect to Google Home and Echo for quite a while and then the explosion of things being delivered from both in a two week stretch and now the release of The Talking Toilet Paper.

The one thing I will say is that this is friggen great for the industry and us, because they are going to just continue to go back and forth now outdoing each other and introducing something the other doesn’t in rapid succession. I’m also waiting for them to give us the choice of names as a wake command and gender / accent / personality trait selections.

This article looks specifically at the music player aspect:

Apple just announced HomePod, its worst-named product ever but also its most interesting for several years, if you’re into music.
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It is a voice-controlled, high-end, Wi-Fi speaker with seven ‘beam forming’ Tweeters and an upward-firing woofer. It kind of takes on Google Echo but mainly it’s going up against wireless, multi-room speakers from the likes of Sonos.
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This is a smart, voice-activated Sonos rival rather than a late, unwanted Echo rival. You can buy several and use them for multi-room, or even pair two of them in stereo. Just like a Sonos/Sonos rival.

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