jurassic

Various reports today are stating that Apple sold less iPhones in the recent holiday quarter than they did a year ago... But as they say in math class, "Do the math." 😉 iPhone sales hit 77.316 million units in Apple’s 91-day Q1 FY 2018 quarter. That compares with 78.29 million sales in the year-ago quarter. You’d imagine those figures meant that sales shrank, but it’s not the case: Last year’s quarter extended over 98 days (14 weeks), while this year Apple saw a more traditional 91-day (13-week) quarter. That means Apple sold around 849,600 iPhones every day in Q1 FY 2018, in contrast to 798,877 iPhones it sold each day across Q1 FY 2017. In other words, Apple sold iPhones in Q1 FY 2018 at a 6.35% FASTER rate than they did in Q1 FY 2017! Or, another way to put it, if this year's 91 day Q1 was equal to the 98 days of last year's Q1, the total count of iPhones sold would be 83,260,800 (Again, 6.35% MORE than last year!). 🤔

Mark Gurman is a reporter, not a viable or reliable news source for what goes on at Apple. Gurman, has reported on other stories that panned out to be just unsubstantiated rumors.

In other words, don't get you knickers in a bunch over this story.

seankill said:

Siri really isn’t that useful. 

You may not have used Siri recently (or at all), but that opinion that Siri isn't useful, or in the same league as other AI assistants has been proven to be false.

In December 2017 LoopVentures tested the various AI assistants with the same 800 questions divided into five categories.

Test Results:

• Understood Query:
• Apple Siri: 99.0%
• Amazon Echo: 97.9%
• Google Home: 99.9%
• MS Cortana: 98.9%

• Answered Correctly:
• Apple Siri: 75.4%
• Amazon Echo: 63.8%
• Google Home: 81.1%
• MS Cortana: 56.4%

Siri is currently only slightly behind Google Home, but well ahead of both Amazon Echo and MS Cortana. And Siri's ratings have been consistently improving.

seankill said:

Not sure why this thing is worth $350

Better speakers out there for much less and Siri really isn’t that useful. 

If you have been keeping up with what has been publicized about the HomePod, you would be aware that this is NOT just an "expensive" smart speaker. Like other Apple products when they were introduced in the past, the HomePod is in a class of its own.

A quote from the preliminary comments by someone with a HomePod test unit:

"They’re using some form of dynamic modelling, and likely also current sensing that allows them to have a p-p excursion of 20 mm in a 4″ driver. This is completely unheard of in the home market.

The practical upshot is that that 4″ driver can go louder than larger drivers, and with significantly less distortion. It’s also stuff you typically find in speakers with five-figure price tags (The Beolab 90 does this, and I also suspect that the Kii Three does). It’s a quantum leap over what a typical passive speaker does, and you don’t really even find it in higher-end powered speakers.

The speaker uses six integrated beamforming microphones to probe the room dimensions, and alter its output so it sounds its best wherever it is placed in the room. It’ll know how large the room is, and where in the room it is placed.

The room correction applied after probing its own position isn’t simplistic DSP of frequency response, as the speaker has seven drivers that are used to create a beamforming speaker array, so they can direct specific sound in specific directions. The only other speakers that do this is the Beolab 90, and Lexicon SL-1. The Beolab 90 is $85,000/pair, and no price tag is set for the Lexicon, but the expectation in the industry is “astronomical”.

Lots of people online are calling it overpriced because they think Apple just slapped a bunch of speakers in a circular configuration and added Siri, but the engineering behind it is extremely audiophile niche stuff. And it does this all automatically with no acoustical set up or technical know how."

And here are some quotes from PC Magazine’s Lance Ulanoff:

“Recently, though, I heard Apple’s HomePod again in a variety of scenarios and spaces. It sounded even better, especially when compared to larger Google Home Max [which is more expensive at $399] and the aurally excellent Sonos One, the HomePod’s separation of sounds and fidelity to original instrumentation is astonishing.”

“The matrix of audio components is not inconsequential. In my listening party, songs like Ed Sheeran’s Shape of You picked apart the track, letting me hear both Sheeran’s guitar picking and the clarity of his voice. It was like he was playing in a small café for an audience of me. The bass notes on songs like Gregory Porter’s Holding On and Ariana Grande’s Side by Side were deep and resonant.”

“Since Apple doesn’t sell information or let you buy products through the HomePod, it’s not interested in your personal information. They encrypt your queries and anonymize your personal data.”

Quotes from a preliminary review by Jonathan Bray:

“This driver setup produces a sound that’s truly impressive for a speaker this small. In the mids and high notes, there’s a crisp sweetness to audio reproduction that most small speakers struggle to reproduce.”

“What was most impressive about the HomePod, however, was the amount of bass it was capable of kicking out. And not just the power of it (although that was impressive) but the muscularity of the bass and the quality of it. In back-to-back tests, where we were played the same tracks on “volume leveled” Amazon Echo 2, Sonos One, Harman-Kardon Allure and Apple HomePod speakers, the Apple HomePod won hands down.”

“It sounds great, looks like it’s as responsive to voice commands as Amazon’s speakers and has a decent range of smart capabilities, some of which outstrip its rivals’.”

robertwalter said:

Not very impressive commercials. 

At first, I didn't think much of the ads either. But on subsequent viewing, I realized the limitations of a 15-second commercial, and also what the commercials were trying to achieve.

In 15 seconds, it is next to impossible to talk about features or uses, so Apple hasn't wasted those 15 seconds trying to do that. The focus of each of the ads is on expressing the complexity of music by using "HomePod" as a waveform.

This gives a visual representation of something that people don't usually think about when buying inexpensive speakers, and it is not something that you can just overtly state effectively in voice-over. It needs to be demonstrated visually.

Also, the purpose of these 15-second ads is to introduce HomePod as a new product, to those who have heard of it before as well as to those who haven't. The effect is to motivate curious viewers to learn more about the HomePod, and to alert others who have been waiting to order the HomePod, to "Order Now".

These "teaser" ads will likely be followed by 30-second and 1-minute ads that present the features and uses of the HomePod.

Over all, I think these 15-second ads are very effective, and I really can't imagine a better concept for the ads than what has been produced.