Apple considers cheaper HomePod in face of lackluster sales

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  • Reply 81 of 95
    hentaiboy said:
    As someone earlier commented, the Watch was also a "failure" when it launched and now earns more than all Swiss watchmakers combined.
    No it doesn’t. Swiss watch annual revenues are about USD 23 Billion. And Apple Watch? Oh that’s right you don’t know...
    I think the data said Apple shipped more watches than the rest of the swiss watch industry, rather than earning more revenue than the entire watch industry. That's still a pretty impressive feat. 


  • Reply 82 of 95
    gatorguygatorguy Posts: 24,176member
    hentaiboy said:
    As someone earlier commented, the Watch was also a "failure" when it launched and now earns more than all Swiss watchmakers combined.
    No it doesn’t. Swiss watch annual revenues are about USD 23 Billion. And Apple Watch? Oh that’s right you don’t know...
    I think the data said Apple shipped more watches than the rest of the swiss watch industry, rather than earning more revenue than the entire watch industry. That's still a pretty impressive feat. 


    Whether anyone trusts what IDC says depends a bit on who your favorites are and where IDC ranked 'em. Sometimes we believe them and sometimes not. 
  • Reply 83 of 95
    SoliSoli Posts: 10,035member
    gatorguy said:
    hentaiboy said:
    As someone earlier commented, the Watch was also a "failure" when it launched and now earns more than all Swiss watchmakers combined.
    No it doesn’t. Swiss watch annual revenues are about USD 23 Billion. And Apple Watch? Oh that’s right you don’t know...
    I think the data said Apple shipped more watches than the rest of the swiss watch industry, rather than earning more revenue than the entire watch industry. That's still a pretty impressive feat. 


    Whether anyone trusts what IDC says depends a bit on who your favorites are and where IDC ranked 'em. Sometimes we believe them and sometimes not. 
    While I'm not surprised to hear that Apple sells more Watches than the entire Swiss-based industry combined or that they take in the most revenue (and profits) in the world, it seems hard to believe Apple sells more watches than any other single maker in the world. The first sentence says "shipped more" which refers to unit sales, and then second sentence which says "biggest […] in the world" which should refer to revenue, but I can't be certain with how the tweet is written. One might infer that Apple ships more units than any other vendor in the world, which I doubt is the case. If you look at Alibaba, for example, there countless watches in quantities of 10k+ for under $1. I know it's a tweet so details have to be limited, but it's hard to trust it without a link to website with all the specifics. I wish there was a link to a website explaining how they came to these results and with a lot more specifics.
    edited April 2018
  • Reply 84 of 95
    k2kwk2kw Posts: 2,075member
    Analysts and critics seem to enjoy calling Apple products failures for reasons I fail to understand. Isn't it only up to Apple to decide something like that? If no one knows what Apple's internal goals are in terms of sales, then it would be very difficult to say whether the device is actually a failure or not. Surely, no one thinks Apple can sell as many $350 HomePods as Amazon can sell $50 Echo Dots. Amazon must have at least five different Echo devices at varying price points lower than the HomePod. Amazon definitely has a longer lead in selling smart speakers and smart voice assistants. It will probably take a lot of time for the HomePod to catch traction with Siri being as behind as it is. The HomePod doesn't even have a complete set of features as of yet.

    The HomePod has barely been around for six months and yet the critics are quickly calling it a failure based on whatever their personal expectations are. None of their expectations really matter. They should just report sales of a product and leave it at that. They can voice their own opinions as to whether they like a product or not but stop short of calling a product a success or failure. I believe every product should at least have a full year of sales to give it a fair chance. Six months is far too short of a time period. Didn't the HomePod miss the entire Christmas season for sales? The critics and analysts never seem to want to give Apple products a fair chance. If an Apple product doesn't have very high sales from the start, it's always labeled as a failure and that's simply foolish to make that call.
    HomePod has only been out 3 months.   If it has 10% of the Smart Speaker market that's good considering that its an incomplete product without the Stereo and AirPlay Support.   Unfortunately Apple is so big that everything is measured in $Billions so this this quarter HomePod may only account for 1-2 $Billion.   But I'm sure Apple will get a bump when Stereo and Airplay 2 arrives and will of course have a good Christmas.   Hopefully in the Holiday season they do a 2 for $600 deal or 4 for $1,100 sale.
  • Reply 85 of 95
    analogjackanalogjack Posts: 1,073member
    Making a cheaper (read lower audio quality) speaker doesn't make any sense. Pretty sure Apple will be in this for the long haul.
    tenthousandthings
  • Reply 86 of 95
    Making a cheaper (read lower audio quality) speaker doesn't make any sense. Pretty sure Apple will be in this for the long haul.
    Second this. Would be really surprising if they did this. While I'm sure they have "considered" doing it, I'm also confident they rejected the idea of competing directly with the Echo at $100. It makes no sense.

    I will say this, though -- unlike Kuo, maybe we should be thinking a bit outside the box (apologies for the cliche). Like, how could Apple improve on the Echo Dot? I can think of one way -- make it an Airport Express replacement, at least with respect to AirPlay 2. I mean, I have good-quality speakers built into the soffit in my kitchen. They are wired to a Griffin Twenty with an Airport Express attached. This has served us well for a while -- five years, I think. I don't need the Express to extend my home network -- its only purpose is music via AirPlay. I'd be open to some kind of replacement setup that would give me the HomePod UI but also use my existing kitchen speakers. I think there are other situations where this is desirable, like people who have an expensive audio system they don't want to replace.

    If the HomePod is first and foremost about Apple Music subscriptions, then it's not really so crazy to think Apple could be developing a HomePod product to fit into this niche. So Kuo could be right, but completely wrong about the reasons why Apple is working on it.
  • Reply 87 of 95
    SoliSoli Posts: 10,035member
    Making a cheaper (read lower audio quality) speaker doesn't make any sense. Pretty sure Apple will be in this for the long haul.
    Being in it “for the long haul “doesn’t mean you can’t offer less expensive devices. Apple has a very long history of doing exactly that.
  • Reply 88 of 95
    nhtnht Posts: 4,522member
    Making a cheaper (read lower audio quality) speaker doesn't make any sense. Pretty sure Apple will be in this for the long haul.
    It makes a lot of sense if you want one of these things in each room for room control.  I don't always have my phone with me in the house.  I can do that with a $50 Google Home Mini or the Echo Dot.  Not so much with just one expensive HomePod model.

    Plus they can act as intercoms so I can either broadcast to the entire house or call a particular room (with the dot anyway).  Something like the Echo Spot would be awesome (at the $130 price point...not $300+).
    Soli
  • Reply 89 of 95
    jdgazjdgaz Posts: 403member
    I honestly believe that there is no reason for either a cheaper or a more robust HomePod until Apple finds a way to blow the lid off of the music subscription business. Right now the total available market is some 40 million AppleMusic subscribers. If you want to sell > 50 million of these things you are going to have to find a way to much more  than 40 million customers. 

    That said, My wife and I are very happy with ours. Excellent sounding music and a current weather report while we get ready in the morning in the master bath is all we ask it to do. It does that very well.
  • Reply 90 of 95
    I’m happy with mine, it sounds amazing for it’s size and I was already an Apple Music subscriber so it only made sense to add this to further utilize it.  I would love to see what a larger version HomePod would sound like.  I bet they have an 18” prototype sitting around somewhere in a lab. It’s a really ingenious design.  
  • Reply 91 of 95
    I don't really need another speaker in the house but would LOVE to have a few little "Siri Dots" around the house so I could get Siri to perform tasks without taking my phone out of my pocket or holding down the button on my watch. I was thinking of that while washing dishes the other day and wanting to start some music but I had wet hands. If they could stick to walls/fridges/countertops that would be super helpful and would definitely encourage me to purchase more HomeKit accessories like more light switches. The "drop in" feature that the Echo Dot has would be so handy in our house to announce dinner time, time for school, etc.

    When I first heard about the HomePod I definitely wanted one (or a few), but found Sonos was a way better fit so that I could have some on tables, but also connect to ceiling speakers that I have in a few rooms and have a soundbar (and the Sonos playbar is amazing).
  • Reply 92 of 95
    dunksdunks Posts: 1,254member
    I don't mind paying this much for a quality speaker. The problems are Siri, the lack of 3rd party streaming services, and that it's permanently pugged into the wall.

    What's the point of all this automatic calibration unless you plan to move it regularly? The base should be a charging dock for an internal battery so you can pick up the speaker and move it to a different room of your house. My Bose Soundlink mini already solves most of these things, for less, so it has to do much better than that.

  • Reply 93 of 95
    bc2009bc2009 Posts: 43member
    I would own TWO HomePods if not THREE already if the thing was just more useful.  It's not the price that is stopping me from buying -- it just needs better Siri functionality.

    - Identify more than one user and use multiple iCloud accounts (something AppleTV also needs for Game Center)

    - Have Siri do more for me than it does -- like "Read the next step of the recipe instructions" or "Read the the third step" -- Siri needs to remember contexts so HomePod can help you when you need to be hands free.

    - Siri needs to be consistent across devices (Mac, iPhone, Apple Watch, HomePod) and know how to switch between devices seamlessly.  For example:
       - Me Speaking to HomePod: Hey Siri, did a new episode of The Flash air last night?
       - Siri: Yes
       - Me: Play The Flash on the Family Room Apple TV
       - Siri: OK, playing The Flash using TheCW app on your Family Room Apple TV
       ...
       - Me: Hey Siri, turn up the volume up to 75%
       - Siri: I cannot change your TV's volume, but I can adjust the volume on HomePod.  Would you like to AirPlay the audio through HomePod?
       - Me: Yes
       ...
       [ iPhone rings ]
       - Me: Hey Siri, answer the phone
       - Siri: Pausing playback and answering iPhone using HomePod....
       [ phone call ends ]
       - Me: He Siri, tell my wife your parents are going to be 30 minutes late for dinner tonight.
       - Siri: Ok, I will tell [ ... ] "Your parents are going to be 30 minutes late for dinner tonight" -- ready to send it?
       - Me: Yes.
       - Siri: Ok, message sent.
       - Me: Hey Siri, resume playback
       - Siri: Resuming The Flash on TheCW....

    HomePod needs to integrate with my AppleTV and iPhone seamlessly and handoff between them as needed.  

    tenthousandthingsstevemebs
  • Reply 94 of 95
    They should not work on a cheaper smaller HomePod, but on a larger more expensive Woofer Homepod.  Two homepods plus a woofer, I would definitely go for that.  Heck, I would go for stereo!  Some things don't need stereo, like maybe "Hey Siri, play some Claire Chase", but some things require it, like "hey Siri play the album Esperanza".  it's probably not that easy to debug the stereo aspect & I have been pretty happy with the single Homepod experience so far, I will say it has totally changed my reading experience.  You know, when you read a story about the 25 most influential new musicians, you can just sit there and listen to them thru Apple Music.  It is greatly expanding what I listen to and dance to, "hey Siri play Billy Jean by Michael Jackson"
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