JP144

We 3 iPhones, 3 iPads, and 4 Amazon Alexas. Why?

- My wife has a routine called “Good Morning” routine which 1) gives the weather forecast 2) plays interesting facts from the This Day in History skill 3) plays headlines from “good news” skill. I have tried in vain to replicate this with Apple Shortcuts. It cannot be done

- We use another skill from a 3rd party that allows us to play a style of independent music only found on that skill. Again… this cannot be replicated on a HomePod because HomePod doesn’t allow (or easily allow) developers to create skills for it.

- We regularly use Pandora and Spotify. Pandora works on HomePod, Spotify does not.

- As stated many times in other comments, Siri on our phone is constantly trying to send us results to our questions on Safari. Many times she does this on the simplest of questions. Whereas Alexa just answers the question.

At this point I think they should just scrap HomePod and come up with something new. Like an affordable touch screen mini iPad. Something that developers can develop for. Something that plays Spotify. Something that runs Apple Intelligence so that Siri works. And something that has “routines” which can stitch “skills” together. I put quotes around “routines” and “skills” btw so that Apple can re-brand them with its own catch phrase. 🙂

iMacs are inarguably gorgeous and now blazing fast. I just wish there was about 3 more inches of gorgeous and blazing fast. 

If this “mini G4” is basically Apple’s new HomePod speaker + Screen + Apple Intelligence then I’m in. Sad though that we won’t see it until 2026. Sad too that it will likely cost $1000. It really needs to be here spring 2025 and cost half that.

I can’t remember when I’ve been so disappointed in Apple. My daughter has Apple Silicon, and she was accepted from the waiting list (what’s that all about) today too. But from what I’ve seen of Apple Intelligence I see no reason to upgrade my iPad Pro to Apple Silicon just for AI.

Plus I can’t for the life of me see why I need Apple Silicon to have AI write me a simple poem, even if it simply passed it off to Chat GPT? Or give me a coherent answer to basic questions? This whole thing reeks of a scam to strong arm us to upgrade hardware. 

Two examples:
- I can get AI in Canary mail today WITHOUT Apple Silicon or iPhone PRO. Why does Apple Intelligence in the Mail app require Apple Silicon on iPad? Or iPhone PRO?
- I can get AI in Craft notes today WITHOUT Apple silicon or iPhone PRO. Why does Apple Intelligence in the Notes app require Apple Silicon on iPad? Or iPhone PRO?

VERY disappointing. And I say this as a “fanboy” for all intents and purposes. Apple is losing its way in 2024. It used to be that OS updates applied to EVERY device. And there is not one single reason why the mediocre Apple Intelligence features in iOS 18.1 REQUIRE a device upgrade, when other apps available on the App Store are already doing it just fine on older hardware.

This is greed in its pure form.

Yes! Next stop… Oregon please.