gatorguy said: Listen to that song on a single HomePod and you’ll quickly understand that it’s not stereo.
HomePod isn't a stereo speaker, nor is it a mono speaker. You could call it a hybrid.
And that I would agree with.
It's a new type of speaker that's for sure, some of the traditional testing methods don't always apply.
What I'm concerned is the fact Samsung is clearly behind Apple's tail. They bought both Harman International and AKG, where the former pretty much dominates the acoustic industry. Given the fact that their product suddenly sounded a lot like Apple's, I don't think Apple will have the edge like what we have now.
I'm a recent long-term AAPL shareholder, who after 12 years of investing in AAPL cashed out with a multi-million capital gain from AAPL. The reason I got out of AAPL is that for about 4-5 years now I've been disappointed in the direction of Apple and lost my faith in Apple under Tim Cook.
For years now, as a consumer, I have been reducing my spending on the Apple products compared to how much I used to buy per year. Certain categories no longer interest me at all. They are:the iPad, HomePod, and certain services. I've lost interest in upgrading my iPhone and Apple Watch annually, and I keep my Macs for much longer than I used to. I'm still in the Apple's ecosystem as a consumer, but as a shareholder, I've lost faith in what Apple is doing and where it's going. I've always tried to keep my consumer side and my shareholder side separate.
It dawned on me a few weeks ago that, as an average consumer, I've been spending many times more money on Amazon products and services than I spend on Apple products and services per year. The ratio is about 10/1 in favor of Amazon. I buy most of my groceries at Whole Foods, and I use my Amazon Prime membership extensively when I do so to get a discount on groceries. On average, I reduce my grocery bill by about 15-20% every time I buy groceries by buying things that are on sale and exclusive deals for Amazon Prime members. I'm eating much more healthy now while keeping my grocery bill under control with the help of Amazon Prime membership, so my partnership with Amazon is good for both sides.
I buy more and more household items on Amazon and utilize my Prime membership for free shipping. I am not yet using the grocery delivery service that Amazon offers but I'm seeing many new Whole Foods employees now that are putting together grocery delivery bags for customers at the local Whole Foods. I see more and more Amazon trucks in the area. In fact, I considered myself owning an Amazon logistics business and having a few dozen trucks. Even with streaming content, I haven't bought or rented anything on iTunes for years now, but I utilize my Prime Membership subscription to stream content on Amazon Video daily. Mind you, I've been a cord cutter since 2010, when I bought my first Apple TV2 (as soon as it came out). I've been with Apple since the beginning of their Apple TV "hobby" and believed in their vision just to end up not using iTunes for years now because Apple completely botched up the entire concept and let both Netflix and Amazon Video overtake them. I stil use Apple TVs in my house, but not many Apple services.
As for the new Amazon speaker, I'm sure that Amazon will sell more of them than Apple is selling HomePods. Even if the HomePod is a superior speaker to this new Amazon speaker, HomePod is pretty limited in what it can do. It's locked down to the Apple ecosystem, which is limited and boring. Amazon, on the other hand, has an open ecosystem, which will make owning the new Amazon speaker much more useful and exciting for the user even if the sound quality would be not quite as good as the HomePod's. I don't own any Amazon Echo devices, as I'm cautious about devices with microphones in my house, but Alexa can't be worse than Siri, which is a complete disaster and utter failure.
From the growth perspective, Amazon under Jeff Bezos is doing an incredible job. Just think of it: Amazon started out as an Internet book store and look what Bezos is doing now in so many different fields, including building rockets and spaceships. Consumers are thrilled and excited with what Amazon is doing. The return for investors is also much higher than what Apple has done for their investors in the last 5-6 years.
All in all, IMHO, Apple has become a boring company. It's not going away, and it's not doomed, but it has become like Microsoft of the 2004-2014 decade, and it will take a new CEO to make Apple exciting again. Apple has stagnated and will remain stagnated for some time until the investors force Tim Cook to resign.
There's nothing magical about Apple, as a company, compared to other high-tech companies of the Silicon Valley. They are all competing for the same talent, and it's more about a vision of the company's leadership than anything else. Elon Musk has the vision, and so does Jeff Bezos. Tim Cook has none whatsoever. No wonder that both Musk and Bezos are "aiming for the stars" (literally) besides the core businesses that they are running (which are both also very exciting and innovative), and Tim Cook is busy accumulating cash reserves instead, which serves neither customers nor investors, and does nothing for accelerating the innovation at Apple. The recent PR failures like the abandonment of the charging mat and the endless delay of the new Mac Pro demonstrate that Apple can't even execute on such "down to earth" projects, leave alone building something as complex as a spaceship.
The original magic of Apple was in Steve Jobs; not in Steve Wozniak. It was about coming up with how to make an exciting device for the consumer based on the existing technologies; not necessarily about inventing new technologies but about using existing technologies in a new and exciting way. Steve Jobs could have found another engineering talent if Woz had refused Job's offer. However, there would have been no Apple without Jobs even with Woz in it. It's really all about the vision with the engineering talent and tech following the visionary. The current Apple tech talent has no visionary to follow.
With the exception of the iPhone and Apple Watch, most other products seem to get ignored at stretches at a time. That's why its been almost two years since the last iMac update. I went with Sonos for music because 1) it was just a little bit more open that the HomePod and 2) I figured that HP would be ignored for a few years while Sonos seems to be delivering new products every year in their eco system.
You've hit on the reason why Amazon is now America's most Trusted brand: value. That's something seldom associated with Apple which is viewed by many as just too expensive.
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What I'm concerned is the fact Samsung is clearly behind Apple's tail. They bought both Harman International and AKG, where the former pretty much dominates the acoustic industry. Given the fact that their product suddenly sounded a lot like Apple's, I don't think Apple will have the edge like what we have now.
You've hit on the reason why Amazon is now America's most Trusted brand: value. That's something seldom associated with Apple which is viewed by many as just too expensive.