Befuddled observers demanded to know why was Apple introducing a product into the Wi-Fi microphone market dominated by $30 Amazon Alexa Dots.
It might be a superb speaker, but as a core function it is a WiFi Microphone. A listening device in my home. While I trust Apple a hell of a lot more than Amazon or Google, I won’t have a listening device like that in my home. My privacy is important to me so even if Apple dropped the price to $30, I won’t have a HomePod.
According to the latest numbers, the HomePod has a 7% marketshare here in the US. That percentage has been shrinking, from a high that itself was pretty low. It’s well behind the market leaders.
i have two of them, so I’m not against it. It’s pretty good, for what it does. But realistically, it’s going nowhere. Apple needed to have a much cheaper model as well, when they first introduced this.
How many Apple product launches had a high-end item paired with a much cheaper model? That isn't really how they do it. They start at the top and work their way down.
The HomePod isn't high end. It is a lower priced, good sounding mid-tier speaker. $300-$350 is on the lower spectrum of pricing for mid-tier speakers. The issue for the HomePod is/was twofold imo. 1. It's being compared to even lower priced budget speakers from Amazon and Google so it looks expensive by comparison. 2. It's less feature rich and less versatile than most other speakers in it's range. It's intentionally tied to the Apple ecosystem.,. to it's detriment, imo.
You moved the goalposts. Within the segment of so-called smart speakers, the HP is indeed high end. We are not discussing speakers in general, which reach into the tens of thousands of dollars. Yeah no.
Within the smart speaker segment, it’s priced to the high end. Mel’s suggestion was it “needed” to launch with a cheaper option. Again I ask: when has Apple done that? They start at the top and work their way down.
(the rest of your post is off my topic, but I disagree there - HP is feature rich, with more languages supported and the more secure HomeKit support. Alarms, texts, reminders, homekit, music, and trvia — about all these devices are good for. And of course it’s designed for the Apple ecosystem, that’s the market it serves.)
Too bad the HomePod is of no use to anyone outside the Apple ecosystem. Sonos provides a much better value and allows many more music services to be used. And it costs less and works with both Alexa and Google.
Why would Apple produce a speaker device that supports the Alexa and Google home-automation platforms? That's just silly. HomePod is specifically designed to reinforce use within the Apple ecosystem. Not that Apple would give Amazon access, but no one seems to expect Alexa to be able to play from your Apple Music account. Do you expect Netflix to play Amazon Prime content? No?
On the other hand, This fall's iOS updates will add functionality to HomePod, including recognizing multiple user profiles, simple handoff of calls and active content to and from your iPhone, and the ability to dial up local radio stations. These are all features that will add significant usability for the average household, and will make HomePod a more practical and routinely used device.
Apple Music is available on Android. Why not make their "high-end speaker" capable of streaming it?
Befuddled observers demanded to know why was Apple introducing a product into the Wi-Fi microphone market dominated by $30 Amazon Alexa Dots.
It might be a superb speaker, but as a core function it is a WiFi Microphone. A listening device in my home. While I trust Apple a hell of a lot more than Amazon or Google, I won’t have a listening device like that in my home. My privacy is important to me so even if Apple dropped the price to $30, I won’t have a HomePod.
That isn’t the core feature of HP at all. The audio quality is. Voice is one interface, but there is absolutely nothing stopping you from using it as an AirPlay endpoint speaker only. In years past I even spent hundreds of dollars on such speakers from other brands.
As someone who has owned dozens of Apple products since his first Apple II (the one with the crappy gold power supply, even, and that needed the shift-key mod), and expects to buy many more, I still have to say: The HomePod, for me, is a piece of $hit. It adds so much negative value to my life that mine is unplugged and back in its box.
As a speaker, it's quite good. But I have a good stereo already and I didn't want or need to replace it. The HomePod went into my office to be a speaker for my Mac, for music, etc. And there, it's an incredible fiasco.
The worst part of it is that Siri is incredible: She hears everything and does nothing. For example, if I say "Siri, call my brother", my phone hears it... and then passes it to the damn HomePod, which tells me it can't make the call. That's just the worst stupidity ever. Someone actually decided to break things on purpose, to make that happen. Now originally, making calls was a "coming soon" feature. I didn't even want it, I was happy with my iPhone. But no, they screwed it all up. And then... they implemented the feature, but it's so buggy it can't figure out that my phone is on the same AppleID, and it *still* doesn't work... but it still steals the request from the iPhone.
And then, as I'm going out I like to say "hey siri, show me the weather". That language should make it obvious I want it on the screen, but no, the HomePod insists on fielding that one too. Again, exactly what I *don't* want. And of course if I add "on my phone" siri parses that... but ignores it (same for calls). Worst of all, if I do this in the living room, so far from my office I can't even hear the HomePod... sometimes it'll *still* take the request.
The Siri implementation, particularly its interaction with other Siris, is a massive failure. If I ran that project I'd fire the engineers responsible for that aspect of the product. And it completely overshadows all the good aspects of the product.
I'm sure that there are many people out there happy with their HomePod. Either because some bugs aren't affecting them, or their use cases are different enough from mine that they have a different experience. That's fine, and I'm glad they're happy. But the HomePod is very far from being another iPhone (or even another Apple Watch). It's massively flawed, and so far there's no indication that Apple even understands this.
Befuddled observers demanded to know why was Apple introducing a product into the Wi-Fi microphone market dominated by $30 Amazon Alexa Dots.
It might be a superb speaker, but as a core function it is a WiFi Microphone. A listening device in my home. While I trust Apple a hell of a lot more than Amazon or Google, I won’t have a listening device like that in my home. My privacy is important to me so even if Apple dropped the price to $30, I won’t have a HomePod.
That isn’t the core feature of HP at all. The audio quality is. Voice is one interface, but there is absolutely nothing stopping you from using it as an AirPlay endpoint speaker only. In years past I even spent hundreds of dollars on such speakers from other brands.
So now what’s stopping you?
The voice interface. Siri is listening for “Siri, play The Overture to The Marriage of Figaro”. Or some other command. I don’t want that. I have my phone and pad set to require me to hit the home button to activate Siri before I use it, just because I don’t want it listening all the time.
According to the latest numbers, the HomePod has a 7% marketshare here in the US. That percentage has been shrinking, from a high that itself was pretty low. It’s well behind the market leaders.
i have two of them, so I’m not against it. It’s pretty good, for what it does. But realistically, it’s going nowhere. Apple needed to have a much cheaper model as well, when they first introduced this.
Notice too that Apple execs rarely talk about HomePod. I can’t remember the last time Cook mentioned it on an earnings call. If it was successful we’d be hearing about it like we do with Apple Watch and AirPods.
According to the latest numbers, the HomePod has a 7% marketshare here in the US. That percentage has been shrinking, from a high that itself was pretty low. It’s well behind the market leaders.
i have two of them, so I’m not against it. It’s pretty good, for what it does. But realistically, it’s going nowhere. Apple needed to have a much cheaper model as well, when they first introduced this.
How many Apple product launches had a high-end item paired with a much cheaper model? That isn't really how they do it. They start at the top and work their way down.
The HomePod isn't high end. It is a lower priced, good sounding mid-tier speaker. $300-$350 is on the lower spectrum of pricing for mid-tier speakers. The issue for the HomePod is/was twofold imo. 1. It's being compared to even lower priced budget speakers from Amazon and Google so it looks expensive by comparison. 2. It's less feature rich and less versatile than most other speakers in it's range. It's intentionally tied to the Apple ecosystem.,. to it's detriment, imo.
You moved the goalposts. Within the segment of so-called smart speakers, the HP is indeed high end. We are not discussing speakers in general, which reach into the tens of thousands of dollars. Yeah no.
Within the smart speaker segment, it’s priced to the high end. Mel’s suggestion was it “needed” to launch with a cheaper option. Again I ask: when has Apple done that? They start at the top and work their way down.
(the rest of your post is off my topic, but I disagree there - HP is feature rich, with more languages supported and the more secure HomeKit support. Alarms, texts, reminders, homekit, music, and trvia — about all these devices are good for. And of course it’s designed for the Apple ecosystem, that’s the market it serves.)
Moving the goalpost... that phrase doesn't mean what you seem to think it does. It definitely doesn't apply here. Fair enough with the distinction of smart speaker. The HP is priced on the high end of the segment. We'll just disagree about the HP being feature rich and it's ecosystem dependency being a detriment.
According to the latest numbers, the HomePod has a 7% marketshare here in the US. That percentage has been shrinking, from a high that itself was pretty low. It’s well behind the market leaders.
i have two of them, so I’m not against it. It’s pretty good, for what it does. But realistically, it’s going nowhere. Apple needed to have a much cheaper model as well, when they first introduced this.
Apple does not chase marketshare. Why do people have so much difficulty understanding this? Marketshare in the tech world is achieved by selling low-end devices of marginal quality and razor-thin profit margins. That's not what Apple does, ever. HomePods sound great, and are a part of a (albeit slow-growing) more secure HomeKit home automation environment.
People trot this out whenever an Apple product has low market share. Then we get the profit share argument. But if HomePod was as successful as Apple Watch no one would be talking about market share vs profit share.
The problem with HomePod is audiophiles will have something better and people that want a really good smart speaker and don’t care as much about sound can find as good or better ones for cheaper. HomePod is targeting a very niche market, like Sonos. Difference is Sonos isn’t tied just to Apple ecosystem.
The mention of Amazon Skills piqued my interest because it highlights one of the key differences between Apple and Amazon. One thing that Apple usually gets right, whether you're talking HomePod, AirPods, iMessage, AirPort Time Capsule, iCloud, Apple Music, Apple TV, Apple Watch, etc., is that their "stuff" usually plays together very well regardless of its lineage. Some people may complain that HomePod isn't delivering a first-class user experience for Spotify or Pandora customers, but it is absolutely delivering a first-class experience for Apple Music customers. If you're truly a "customer focused" company you'd better be treating your current customers like kings before you go off trolling for new customers. I like the fact that adding a new Apple branded product to my personal island in the larger Apple ecosystem sea always accentuates the value I get from my current Apple investment. Once Apple acquires you as a customer they try to keep you in the fold by keeping the customer experience and maintaining the derived value of your current Apple investment at high levels.
Amazon, on the other hand, is mostly an opportunist constantly seeking to attract new customers. Loss leading products, like Echo, and constant waves of big sales events like Prime Days are all about acquiring new customers. Amazon's strategy is pretty damn simple, low prices, low prices, and occasionally, but very predictably, even lower prices. Amazon isn't losing any sleep worrying about customer experience or whether you're still still deriving value from that POS Fire tablet you picked up last year for $50 bucks, but they'll gladly sell you a new one this year on Prime Day for $39.99 so you can stuff your old on in the trash bin. Which brings me to Amazon Skills...
A perfect example of Amazon's indifference with customer experience is seen with Amazon Skills. Most of the skills are lame, but one in particular, the Ring Skill shows how little Amazon values you as a customer. Take a look at the abysmal customer ratings on the Ring Skill. As everyone knows, Amazon owns Ring, and smart home automation is one of the hottest areas of technology today, yet the integration between Amazon's Echo devices and Ring's smart home and home security devices is anything but first-class. Amazon has total control over all of the moving parts needed to deliver a premier customer experience in a vital market segment but they are phoning it in with a pathetic level of implementation that does almost nothing to accentuate the value that Amazon customers get from using these Amazon products together. The fact that Amazon allows one of their own homegrown Alexa Skills to fester at such poor levels of quality in their storefront without taking corrective action says a lot about their customer focus. They know they're doing a shitty job based on customer feedback, but they don't really care as long as you keep opening your wallet on Prime Day.
At least with Apple HomePod you are getting a premier experience if you are an Apple Music customer. But with Amazon, you don't know what you're getting even if you purchase products that are all under the Amazon umbrella, because quite frankly, the only meaningful relationship you have with Amazon is your continued subscription to Prime and the spending spree they can count on the next time they roll out a big sales event.
Too bad the HomePod is of no use to anyone outside the Apple ecosystem. Sonos provides a much better value and allows many more music services to be used. And it costs less and works with both Alexa and Google.
Why would Apple produce a speaker device that supports the Alexa and Google home-automation platforms? That's just silly. HomePod is specifically designed to reinforce use within the Apple ecosystem. Not that Apple would give Amazon access, but no one seems to expect Alexa to be able to play from your Apple Music account. Do you expect Netflix to play Amazon Prime content? No?
On the other hand, This fall's iOS updates will add functionality to HomePod, including recognizing multiple user profiles, simple handoff of calls and active content to and from your iPhone, and the ability to dial up local radio stations. These are all features that will add significant usability for the average household, and will make HomePod a more practical and routinely used device.
Except you can use Alexa to play Apple Music content on Amazon smart speakers and Sonos devices. The HomePod restrictions are silly and I suspect they’ll be gone soon. Especially if Apple determines they’re part of the reason HomePod sales are sluggish.
Too bad the HomePod is of no use to anyone outside the Apple ecosystem. Sonos provides a much better value and allows many more music services to be used. And it costs less and works with both Alexa and Google.
Why would Apple produce a speaker device that supports the Alexa and Google home-automation platforms? That's just silly. HomePod is specifically designed to reinforce use within the Apple ecosystem. Not that Apple would give Amazon access, but no one seems to expect Alexa to be able to play from your Apple Music account. Do you expect Netflix to play Amazon Prime content? No?
On the other hand, This fall's iOS updates will add functionality to HomePod, including recognizing multiple user profiles, simple handoff of calls and active content to and from your iPhone, and the ability to dial up local radio stations. These are all features that will add significant usability for the average household, and will make HomePod a more practical and routinely used device.
Who said anything about putting Alexa or Google on the HP? I was simply pointing out features and advantages of Sonos over HP. Sonos is available on both Apple and Android. HP is not.
According to the latest numbers, the HomePod has a 7% marketshare here in the US. That percentage has been shrinking, from a high that itself was pretty low. It’s well behind the market leaders.
i have two of them, so I’m not against it. It’s pretty good, for what it does. But realistically, it’s going nowhere. Apple needed to have a much cheaper model as well, when they first introduced this.
I would love for Apple to go higher-end with the HomePod lineup and compete in the home theater market. How about a HomePod soundbar? The living room is a great place to showcase high-end audio. A lower-tier / lower-priced HomePod would be perfect in the bedroom.
Apple once had a great “music system” in a box with a slot for an iphone. It was $350. I bought one of those too. It sounded great, again, for what it was. But it failed in the marketplace. That was sad, but I expected it.
apple seems to want to do what others aren’t really doing. Yes, they all have something like this. But they started out cheap, and expanded into more expensive models. For something like this, that method makes a lot more sense.
would Apple ever do something like a 5.1 system? Probably not, just as they’ve never come out with the oft mentioned Tv. Would it sell, if they did? Depending on price, maybe. Will we ever find out? Probably not.
According to the latest numbers, the HomePod has a 7% marketshare here in the US. That percentage has been shrinking, from a high that itself was pretty low. It’s well behind the market leaders.
i have two of them, so I’m not against it. It’s pretty good, for what it does. But realistically, it’s going nowhere. Apple needed to have a much cheaper model as well, when they first introduced this.
How many Apple product launches had a high-end item paired with a much cheaper model? That isn't really how they do it. They start at the top and work their way down.
And in the consumer world, these days, that’s exactly the opposite of what they should be doing. People want cheap. They don’t see an advantage to something that’s more expensive. So you do what Amazon has done, and Google, and flood the market with something that affordable to most people. Then, once it’s established, you can go up market.
yeah, yeah, I know some people here will hate that idea. But I’ll bet they never had to make a real business decision of that type. I did.
According to the latest numbers, the HomePod has a 7% marketshare here in the US. That percentage has been shrinking, from a high that itself was pretty low. It’s well behind the market leaders.
i have two of them, so I’m not against it. It’s pretty good, for what it does. But realistically, it’s going nowhere. Apple needed to have a much cheaper model as well, when they first introduced this.
You missed the entire point of the article, go back and re read. It's like saying the iPhone is only 15% of the market compared to Android phones, and that Apple needs a much cheaper smart phone. LOL- NO. That's the mistake of assuming Apple equates success with market share when that's never what they set out to do. The HomePod wasn't made to compete with $29 throwaway Echos. The HomePod is seen as a higher end audio experience that could also offer the smart speaker tasks that most people want to do, and Apple knew that the Amazon 4000 "skills" was a gimmick that would be irrelevant, and it is. Apple wisely is playing the long game of a superior experience, and that's why they haven't rolled it out for sales everywhere at once. Apple has been enhancing the Siri experience on the HomePod in each of the world's major languages/dialects as you can see by their rollout, with Japanese being most recently enhanced.
Beyond that, all you have with the "latest numbers" are wild ass guesses anyways. Apple doesn't report sales of HomePods so the numbers are all made up by "analysts" who have to "publish or perish" as they are charging for these reports.
You guys know nothing when you say that. Apple sure does chase marketshare. From the days of Jobs to today, Apple would always tout sates numbers and marketshare. It’s only when they’re in trouble that they don’t. For years, as an example, they would proclaim the number of iPhones and iPads sold in the first day. The first weekend, the first week, etc. They stopped when that sales growth petered out. Now, with the problems they’ve been having, they stopped altogether.
it’s not that difficult to get a good estimate for numbers. Apple is required to publish, quarterly, financial numbers for various segments of the company. Knowing what’s sold in a segment, we can get a good idea of how those sales are sectioned up. And Apple does give up overall growth numbers. And they have occasionally given actual numbers. So extrapolation is certainly doable.
but people have to acknowledge that Apple isn’t perfect. They make mistakes, sometimes, major ones.
remember the Apple Hi-Fi iPod speaker? I have one. It was $350. Pretty good too. Also expensive for the category. When it came out, I said that while it was good, it was too expensive. Yep, I got the same comments about Apple and high end, lack of interest in marketshare, blah, blah. What happened? It failed, and Apple dropped out until the HomePod. What’s happening to the HomePod? Lack of marketshare, and sales. I hope it doesn’t suffer the same fate, because Apple knows very well that this is somewhat important for their quest to get more people to use Siri.
now we read that Apple may be coming out with a less expensive model—to chase marketshare. I hope it’s not too late.
According to the latest numbers, the HomePod has a 7% marketshare here in the US. That percentage has been shrinking, from a high that itself was pretty low. It’s well behind the market leaders.
i have two of them, so I’m not against it. It’s pretty good, for what it does. But realistically, it’s going nowhere. Apple needed to have a much cheaper model as well, when they first introduced this.
How many Apple product launches had a high-end item paired with a much cheaper model? That isn't really how they do it. They start at the top and work their way down.
And in the consumer world, these days, that’s exactly the opposite of what they should be doing. People want cheap. They don’t see an advantage to something that’s more expensive. So you do what Amazon has done, and Google, and flood the market with something that affordable to most people. Then, once it’s established, you can go up market.
yeah, yeah, I know some people here will hate that idea. But I’ll bet they never had to make a real business decision of that type. I did.
So you're saying you know better what Apple "needs" to do and "should be" doing, despite the fact that is the most successful publicly traded company in human history. I find that difficult to come to terms with. I would argue that actually, no, that Apple does exactly what it needs to do -- goes after profit share, not market share, and then gradually works its way lower. See Macs, iPods, iPads, and iPhones. Their strategy works.
And yep, I too had to make similar business decisions in my own business, where I also produced a physical good which I sold in national retailers. Tho that doesn't make me qualified to out-manage Apple, which clearly has been killing it.
Befuddled observers demanded to know why was Apple introducing a product into the Wi-Fi microphone market dominated by $30 Amazon Alexa Dots.
It might be a superb speaker, but as a core function it is a WiFi Microphone. A listening device in my home. While I trust Apple a hell of a lot more than Amazon or Google, I won’t have a listening device like that in my home. My privacy is important to me so even if Apple dropped the price to $30, I won’t have a HomePod.
That isn’t the core feature of HP at all. The audio quality is. Voice is one interface, but there is absolutely nothing stopping you from using it as an AirPlay endpoint speaker only. In years past I even spent hundreds of dollars on such speakers from other brands.
So now what’s stopping you?
The voice interface. Siri is listening for “Siri, play The Overture to The Marriage of Figaro”. Or some other command. I don’t want that. I have my phone and pad set to require me to hit the home button to activate Siri before I use it, just because I don’t want it listening all the time.
Right, so if you don't want to use the voice interface to the HomePod, don't. You don't have to. It's a perfectly capable AirPlay-endpoint speaker (meaning one you have to beam the audio stream to). Like the speakers of yesteryear.
According to the latest numbers, the HomePod has a 7% marketshare here in the US. That percentage has been shrinking, from a high that itself was pretty low. It’s well behind the market leaders.
i have two of them, so I’m not against it. It’s pretty good, for what it does. But realistically, it’s going nowhere. Apple needed to have a much cheaper model as well, when they first introduced this.
How many Apple product launches had a high-end item paired with a much cheaper model? That isn't really how they do it. They start at the top and work their way down.
The HomePod isn't high end. It is a lower priced, good sounding mid-tier speaker. $300-$350 is on the lower spectrum of pricing for mid-tier speakers. The issue for the HomePod is/was twofold imo. 1. It's being compared to even lower priced budget speakers from Amazon and Google so it looks expensive by comparison. 2. It's less feature rich and less versatile than most other speakers in it's range. It's intentionally tied to the Apple ecosystem.,. to it's detriment, imo.
You moved the goalposts. Within the segment of so-called smart speakers, the HP is indeed high end. We are not discussing speakers in general, which reach into the tens of thousands of dollars. Yeah no.
Within the smart speaker segment, it’s priced to the high end. Mel’s suggestion was it “needed” to launch with a cheaper option. Again I ask: when has Apple done that? They start at the top and work their way down.
(the rest of your post is off my topic, but I disagree there - HP is feature rich, with more languages supported and the more secure HomeKit support. Alarms, texts, reminders, homekit, music, and trvia — about all these devices are good for. And of course it’s designed for the Apple ecosystem, that’s the market it serves.)
Moving the goalpost... that phrase doesn't mean what you seem to think it does. It definitely doesn't apply here. Fair enough with the distinction of smart speaker. The HP is priced on the high end of the segment. We'll just disagree about the HP being feature rich and it's ecosystem dependency being a detriment.
Of course it does -- you shifted the context of the conversation from "high-end in the market of smart speakers" "high-end in the market of speakers", which is obviously a completely different product segment. Either you moved the goalposts, or you're just confused. 🤷♂️
According to the latest numbers, the HomePod has a 7% marketshare here in the US. That percentage has been shrinking, from a high that itself was pretty low. It’s well behind the market leaders.
i have two of them, so I’m not against it. It’s pretty good, for what it does. But realistically, it’s going nowhere. Apple needed to have a much cheaper model as well, when they first introduced this.
Apple does not chase marketshare. Why do people have so much difficulty understanding this? Marketshare in the tech world is achieved by selling low-end devices of marginal quality and razor-thin profit margins. That's not what Apple does, ever. HomePods sound great, and are a part of a (albeit slow-growing) more secure HomeKit home automation environment.
Why do some people have such a difficult time in understanding that Apple does indeed chase marketshare. They just try to do it in a less obvious way. Do you really think that Cook would always point out that the Watch is not only the worlds best selling smartwatch, but that Apple’s watch division is the worlds biggest watch “company”?
Jobs used to do the same thing. This is nothing new.
but Apple doesn’t chase really low end marketshare, and that’s the difference. But it doesn’t mean that they don’t chase marketshare. They chase it where they want to, and don’t, where they don’t want to.
According to the latest numbers, the HomePod has a 7% marketshare here in the US. That percentage has been shrinking, from a high that itself was pretty low. It’s well behind the market leaders.
i have two of them, so I’m not against it. It’s pretty good, for what it does. But realistically, it’s going nowhere. Apple needed to have a much cheaper model as well, when they first introduced this.
Apple does not chase marketshare. Why do people have so much difficulty understanding this? Marketshare in the tech world is achieved by selling low-end devices of marginal quality and razor-thin profit margins. That's not what Apple does, ever. HomePods sound great, and are a part of a (albeit slow-growing) more secure HomeKit home automation environment.
People trot this out whenever an Apple product has low market share. Then we get the profit share argument. But if HomePod was as successful as Apple Watch no one would be talking about market share vs profit share.
Yes, because it's true -- Apple's primary concern is, has been, likely always will be, profit share. That's what matters. As Gruber says, profit is the air corporations breathe. Market share is a secondary concern. It's far less important. But if Apple happens to get both, of course people will mention that.
How do you still now get how Apple works? It's profit, not worshiping at Church of Market Share.
Comments
Within the smart speaker segment, it’s priced to the high end. Mel’s suggestion was it “needed” to launch with a cheaper option. Again I ask: when has Apple done that? They start at the top and work their way down.
(the rest of your post is off my topic, but I disagree there - HP is feature rich, with more languages supported and the more secure HomeKit support. Alarms, texts, reminders, homekit, music, and trvia — about all these devices are good for. And of course it’s designed for the Apple ecosystem, that’s the market it serves.)
So now what’s stopping you?
The problem with HomePod is audiophiles will have something better and people that want a really good smart speaker and don’t care as much about sound can find as good or better ones for cheaper. HomePod is targeting a very niche market, like Sonos. Difference is Sonos isn’t tied just to Apple ecosystem.
Amazon, on the other hand, is mostly an opportunist constantly seeking to attract new customers. Loss leading products, like Echo, and constant waves of big sales events like Prime Days are all about acquiring new customers. Amazon's strategy is pretty damn simple, low prices, low prices, and occasionally, but very predictably, even lower prices. Amazon isn't losing any sleep worrying about customer experience or whether you're still still deriving value from that POS Fire tablet you picked up last year for $50 bucks, but they'll gladly sell you a new one this year on Prime Day for $39.99 so you can stuff your old on in the trash bin. Which brings me to Amazon Skills...
A perfect example of Amazon's indifference with customer experience is seen with Amazon Skills. Most of the skills are lame, but one in particular, the Ring Skill shows how little Amazon values you as a customer. Take a look at the abysmal customer ratings on the Ring Skill. As everyone knows, Amazon owns Ring, and smart home automation is one of the hottest areas of technology today, yet the integration between Amazon's Echo devices and Ring's smart home and home security devices is anything but first-class. Amazon has total control over all of the moving parts needed to deliver a premier customer experience in a vital market segment but they are phoning it in with a pathetic level of implementation that does almost nothing to accentuate the value that Amazon customers get from using these Amazon products together. The fact that Amazon allows one of their own homegrown Alexa Skills to fester at such poor levels of quality in their storefront without taking corrective action says a lot about their customer focus. They know they're doing a shitty job based on customer feedback, but they don't really care as long as you keep opening your wallet on Prime Day.
At least with Apple HomePod you are getting a premier experience if you are an Apple Music customer. But with Amazon, you don't know what you're getting even if you purchase products that are all under the Amazon umbrella, because quite frankly, the only meaningful relationship you have with Amazon is your continued subscription to Prime and the spending spree they can count on the next time they roll out a big sales event.
apple seems to want to do what others aren’t really doing. Yes, they all have something like this. But they started out cheap, and expanded into more expensive models. For something like this, that method makes a lot more sense.
would Apple ever do something like a 5.1 system? Probably not, just as they’ve never come out with the oft mentioned Tv. Would it sell, if they did? Depending on price, maybe. Will we ever find out? Probably not.
And in the consumer world, these days, that’s exactly the opposite of what they should be doing. People want cheap. They don’t see an advantage to something that’s more expensive. So you do what Amazon has done, and Google, and flood the market with something that affordable to most people. Then, once it’s established, you can go up market.
yeah, yeah, I know some people here will hate that idea. But I’ll bet they never had to make a real business decision of that type. I did.
You guys know nothing when you say that. Apple sure does chase marketshare. From the days of Jobs to today, Apple would always tout sates numbers and marketshare. It’s only when they’re in trouble that they don’t. For years, as an example, they would proclaim the number of iPhones and iPads sold in the first day. The first weekend, the first week, etc. They stopped when that sales growth petered out. Now, with the problems they’ve been having, they stopped altogether.
it’s not that difficult to get a good estimate for numbers. Apple is required to publish, quarterly, financial numbers for various segments of the company. Knowing what’s sold in a segment, we can get a good idea of how those sales are sectioned up. And Apple does give up overall growth numbers. And they have occasionally given actual numbers. So extrapolation is certainly doable.
but people have to acknowledge that Apple isn’t perfect. They make mistakes, sometimes, major ones.
remember the Apple Hi-Fi iPod speaker? I have one. It was $350. Pretty good too. Also expensive for the category. When it came out, I said that while it was good, it was too expensive. Yep, I got the same comments about Apple and high end, lack of interest in marketshare, blah, blah. What happened? It failed, and Apple dropped out until the HomePod. What’s happening to the HomePod? Lack of marketshare, and sales. I hope it doesn’t suffer the same fate, because Apple knows very well that this is somewhat important for their quest to get more people to use Siri.
now we read that Apple may be coming out with a less expensive model—to chase marketshare. I hope it’s not too late.
And yep, I too had to make similar business decisions in my own business, where I also produced a physical good which I sold in national retailers. Tho that doesn't make me qualified to out-manage Apple, which clearly has been killing it.
Right, so if you don't want to use the voice interface to the HomePod, don't. You don't have to. It's a perfectly capable AirPlay-endpoint speaker (meaning one you have to beam the audio stream to). Like the speakers of yesteryear.
Of course it does -- you shifted the context of the conversation from "high-end in the market of smart speakers" "high-end in the market of speakers", which is obviously a completely different product segment. Either you moved the goalposts, or you're just confused. 🤷♂️
Why do some people have such a difficult time in understanding that Apple does indeed chase marketshare. They just try to do it in a less obvious way. Do you really think that Cook would always point out that the Watch is not only the worlds best selling smartwatch, but that Apple’s watch division is the worlds biggest watch “company”?
Jobs used to do the same thing. This is nothing new.
but Apple doesn’t chase really low end marketshare, and that’s the difference. But it doesn’t mean that they don’t chase marketshare. They chase it where they want to, and don’t, where they don’t want to.
How do you still now get how Apple works? It's profit, not worshiping at Church of Market Share.