nhughes

dewme said:

Does the HomePod consume one of the ten (10) device licenses authorized to access iTunes Match?

rogifan_new said:

nhughes said:

StrangeDays said:

nhughes said:

AppleZulu said:

nhughes said:

gatorguy said:

nhughes said:

rogifan_new said:

gatorguy said:

mjtomlin said:

rogifan_new said:

Where are the reviews?

They'll start coming out today. Here's two...

Digital Trends - Apple's HomePod delivers on brilliant sound, but Siri still has room to grow
Refinery29 - One Hour With Apple's New HomePod

Oddly the time allowed with the unit was limited (to an hour?) and the reviews are not at all detailed, just describes the Home Pod in broad strokes. IMO unusual for a new Apple release where there's typically a plethora of detailed reviews on sites like Wired & ArsTechnica un-embargoed just before the device goes on sale. 

Makes me wonder how confident Apple is in this product considering the rollout. 

I wouldn't sweat it. Apple took a similar approach with the iPhone X, letting some websites and YouTubers get controlled hands-on time with representatives watching over their shoulder. The product doesn't launch for two weeks, they are probably just spacing out their media strategy to remain in the news cycle.

Neil, I didn't pay attention the the X review timing but you're saying they didn't supply review units to anyone before the pre-orders began? Now that I've gone back to look the first REAL in-depth X reviews didn't happen until a couple days after pre-orders began. So in-depth reviews of the Home Pod should probably start hitting the main sites next week. Thanks!

Yes, reviews of the iPhone X (and 8) didn't hit until after preorders began. That's normal practice for Apple. For example, iPhone 8 preorders began Sept. 15, but review embargo did not lift until the next week, on Sept. 19.

Also worth noting that the iPhone 8 officially launched on Sept. 22, just 7 days after preorders began. And the reviews arrived three days before launch. With HomePod, there is a two-week window. So we may not see review embargoes lift until Feb. 6-7-ish.

(I haven't been asked to sign an embargo, so I'm not withholding any inside info, just speculating.)

If you think about it, this is probably a good strategy for Apple. As seen on this very thread, initial sales for a pre-order are already built in. Apple has a good enough track record that a lot of people will buy the thing sight-unseen. Out in review world, even if a product is flawless, there is a decent chance that some reviewer will seek attention (and clicks) by writing a bad review. If that sort of thing is written before preorder sales and manages to generate enough negative buzz, it could dampen those sales, as some people decide to 'wait and see.' Then, even if the negative review is based entirely on false or distorted information or just plain made up criticisms, the next big news after that is about how pre-order numbers are disappointing. The result is a perfectly good product fighting an uphill battle on release. Heck, there are people who have already posted plenty of negative information about the HomePod on sites like this one, having never seen or heard the thing. Some appeared out of nowhere just to do that, which is at least potentially the dirty work of competitors.

So by tightly controlling access to the device until well after pre-sales begin, Apple can limit the potential damage of an attention seeker or of intentional sabotage. With that delay, even if someone puts out that misleading review and it gets some buzz, Apple follows it with a report of robust pre-order sales, and next, all those pre-orders start arriving and the customers themselves generate buzz about how much they like the thing. Mind you, this strategy wouldn't help if Apple were to actually produce a real turnip, but if the product is a good one, this way limits their exposure to negative opportunism, and primes the pump for positive buzz.

Agree with you, but also consider that sometimes reviews help the product. See: Apple Watch Series 3 with cellular and the Wi-Fi connectivity bug. Had Apple provided review units earlier (even if the embargo remained the same), they could have presumably had more time to find out about and fix what was, for a very short while, a legit show-stopping bug for LTE users. You can bet your bottom dollar that Apple would have liked to have a day-one patch to fix that bug for faithful fans who preordered before reviews went live.

In the end, the Wi-Fi bug was a minor blip on the radar. Still shouldn't have happened, though.

Actually Gruber wrote about the opposite of your theory being true — that what was in fact a minor bug got blown into something much worse than it was IRL, harming sales, and that those reviews likely contributed to Apple’s decision on the next launch (X). Joanna Stern trolled Apple so much in her review that she dinged it for not having “all day” battery life and requiring recharging after leaving her phone at home and trying to use the Watch as her primary comms device, despite it clearly not being designed for that use case. Reviewers like her aren’t reviewing what the product is designed to do and instead or reviewing what they want or wished it to do, and that didn’t benefit Apple, arguably harmed. So it’s no surprise they’re backing off giving media early content for clicks now. 

Except they're not "backing off giving media early content clicks." There will be review units provided prior to launch, just as there always have been. And review embargoes will lift 2-3 days before the product finds its way to consumers, just as the company has always done. You're right, it's no surprise, because nothing has changed.

I was making the argument that Apple should provide review units to the media more than a week before product launch, whenever possible, because it could help them squash bugs by the time it launches to the public. But then again, I work for the media, and would like to have more time to fairly test a product before reviewing it, so my perspective is skewed.

As for your suggestion that something changed in a significant way with the iPhone X launch? The handset became available Nov. 3. Our review was published Nov. 1.

http://appleinsider.com/articles/17/11/02/iphone-x-review-apples-face-id-vision-for-the-future-of-ios

I’m pretty sure I remember reading iPhone X reviewers saying they wish they were given more time with the product. I wish Apple would have done that. It would have made the reviews better. I think all reviews are better when reviewers have more time with the product and time outside of a controlled environment.

rogifan_new said:

gatorguy said:

mjtomlin said:

rogifan_new said:

Where are the reviews?

They'll start coming out today. Here's two...

Digital Trends - Apple's HomePod delivers on brilliant sound, but Siri still has room to grow
Refinery29 - One Hour With Apple's New HomePod

Oddly the time allowed with the unit was limited (to an hour?) and the reviews are not at all detailed, just describes the Home Pod in broad strokes. IMO unusual for a new Apple release where there's typically a plethora of detailed reviews on sites like Wired & ArsTechnica un-embargoed just before the device goes on sale. 

Makes me wonder how confident Apple is in this product considering the rollout. 

rogifan_new said:

Where are the reviews?