indieshack

Like many, I have Apple Enterprise credentials and they couldn't make it more clear that it's not intended for app distribution outside of a company. I'm astonished Facebook was doing this - time to get some grownups in to help run that company.

I can't imagine this is anything but an one in a million hardware malfunction. My X heats up bigtime with some apps, also charging but no smoke yet

maestro64 said:

Very few people today care about what is inside. People stopped check list buying habits a long time ago. Only the geeks care and even then it really does not matter on an Apple product what is inside. People just look at the overall experience and call it a day.

disagree - I think even casual users have become more hip to the specs and upgraded internals are a selling point not just for geeks.

A few comments: 1. All the Echo products (except the new Echo Spot) have been heavily discounted - at one point Home Depot was selling three dots for $30! So I'm not surprised that Echo's did well. 2. I don't understand the concept expressed by others here that the HomePod is competing with the Echo devices. I think the Echo and the HomePod are for different customers with a thin potential overlap. The HomePod appears to me to be aimed at audiophiles and Apple fans for who the price doesn't engender sticker shock. If Apple sells X number of these with it's usual sky-high margins it will reach a break even point and do quite nicely without selling anywhere near the same numbers that Echos sell. 3. If Apple was looking to provide a mass market device to insert itself into the home automation market, the HomePod clearly isn't it for a few reasons; stuff has been happening while Apple has been getting the pieces together for its version of home automation and secondly the HomePod is priced as a premium device. I wouldn't say Apple has missed the boat because there's always room in the market for quality products, and Apple is a master of the quality product, but the company's apparent development inertia means it appears to take far longer than expected to get a product out of the door - because of this slowness plus heavy competition from industry heavyweights plus price points, it will never be a leader in home automation. That doesn't mean it won't be an important player or innovator in this domain. 4. A previous commenter suggested that the Echo was known to be under development because all companies know whet their competitor is doing - not so, it came out of left base when announced by Amazon a few years back and was a genuine "disruptor" (if I recall correctly, same for the iPad).

"Apple is replacing affected iPhones for free" - as opposed to them charging to replace a defective, week-old $1000 plus device?

Seriously though, although Apple is replacing units now, it shortly won't. Right now Apple will be working overtime to find a way to resolve this in-store or by repairing it at a local facility. For those to whom this happens in a few weeks or so, expect to be without your iphone for 10 days while it's sent away by the Apple store. I went through similar crap with the iPhone 6 Plus.

Apple does an amazing job at bringing very tech to the mass market, but there are so many variables; unfortunately those comments here about the first X owners being beta testers is spot on. I have an X currently stuck in clearance in China - this doesn't bode well.