holyone

cloudmobile said:

rogifan_new said:

zroger73 said:

For Apple's sake, they better have a significantly superior product to overcome the popularity Amazon's Echo has gained.

The echo is cheap. I’m sure a lot of purchases are people just trying it out because the cost of entry is low. But is this the next big thing or is it another cheap fitness tracker that gets shoved in a drawer after a few months?

How quickly we forget that the cost of entry for the iPod was similarly low. And similar to the iPod, the primary use for the smart speakers will be to play music, which people aren't going to suddenly stop doing. In other words, for most people, the Echo and the Home will simply be another small bluetooth speaker. And since small bluetooth speaker quality varies widely being able to get a quality, name-brand and 100% supported bluetooth speaker for as little as $29 - as opposed to the off brand Chinese equivalent that normally dominates at that price range - is a lure that should not be underestimated. Just get a name-brand one instead? Please. You will often see devices no better than the Alexa or Home going for 2-3 times as much. 

I see that a lot of Apple fans are dismissing this category merely because it was one that Apple didn't originate by comparing it to fitness trackers. Never mind that Apple has only originated or disrupted with 3 devices - the iPod, iPhone and iPad - which leaves the entire rest of the tech world to others. And yes, this includes speakers, a market that Apple has little penetration or reputation in even after buying Beats. But here's the deal: tech products that tend to fail are those that are electronic/computerized versions of pre-existing successful and widely used non-electronic ones. Non-electronic fitness trackers (think pedometers) long existed, were never widely used, so there was no reason to think that they would ever be successful. In fact, the main lure of early fitness trackers was precisely the fact that you could pair them with your iPhone and use the iPhone to collect and track data. They were sold as iPhone accessories, NEVER as standalone devices. And since smartphones also had the very same health tracking features, they were redundant. They were also useful to people who were ALREADY bikers, joggers, gym rats etc. but worthless to everyone else. 

But the iPod? It replaced the walkman and other portable radios/cassette players with a superior device. The iPhone? It replaced cell phones, which while not saturation ubiquitous like they are now, were still very common (imagine the opening sequence of "The Matrix" without them being so) as well as iPods and to a degree PCs. The iPad? Combination iPhone/PC/casual gaming console. That's why they were huge successes. They were new, better ways to do popular existing activities. The same way with Alexa and Google Home. At the very least, you get a very good Bluetooth speaker for $79. Before you claim that no one wants or needs those, you should state that Apple should stop selling the Beats Pill, especially if they are going to charge 3 times as much for it. The "smart" features for it? Sure, claim that there is any difference between saying "Hey Alexa" to your speaker and "Hey Siri" to your Apple TV or MacBook. There isn't. All it does is take a pre-existing successful product - a connected speaker - and add functionality to it that was popularized by Apple with Siri. The only reason for thinking that it would fail is having some strange notion that only Apple is capable of or deserves the right to create a successful product. Which, again, is bizarre because Apple makes only like 6 products: iPods, iPads, iPhones, set top boxes, watches, PCs.

nhughes said:

philboogie said:

nhughes said:

I've been the managing editor of AppleInsider for 8 and a half years...

Can you explain the decline in the number of posts? Articles used to get hundreds of replies, but nowadays it seems only every now and then an article receives over 30 posts. Most articles are getting single digit posts, making this site feel like a ghost town. There used to be really great discussions on all things tech, which I always loved to read and participate in.

I don’t know the answer for sure, but I can offer you a few educated guesses:

- We publish more news, which pushes older stories down the page, which leads to fewer comments. Weekend content tends to receive more comments because there isn’t as much news being published.
- We, along with every other website on the internet, have a troll problem, which stifles discussion and discourages new people from commenting.

maestro64 said:

Blunt said:

maestro64 said:
Why aren't these people standing up for the poor college students in the US who work for no pay just the experience.

Because it's not the same thing.

Yes it is the same thing. It is not like it is poorly educated kids who did not know better or were pulled off the farms in the country. These are college students they should know better. Internships are specifically set up for companies and the government to get fee labor under the guise of a learning experience. I know this subject very well, I went to one of the few Universities who had mandatory co-op programs for their students which companies were required to pay students verse getting free labor. Guess what we got the learning experience and got paid and paid well. No one got a free ride. What I find interesting is the media and government in the US employee more free interns than any industry in the US.  This is just another example of the media industry needing to in look inside before they look outside for problems that need to be fixed.