“Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook this week answered questions surrounding the the reasoning behind ARKit and the new HomePod announced during the WWDC keynote, calling the new speaker a ‘breakthrough’ and Apple’s ARKit’s impact ‘profound,'” Mike Wuerthele reports for AppleInsider.
“Speaking with Bloomberg shortly after the WWDC keynote, Cook fielded an assortment of questions, mostly discussing the new product release, and Apple’s future plans,” Wuerthele reports. “‘What we’ve tried to do is build something that is breakthrough speaker first,’ said Cook, responding to a question about why people should buy the $349 HomePod over Amazon’s cheaper Echo… ‘I think when people listen to it, they’re going to be shocked over the quality of the sound, and of course it does a number of other things,’ Cook said, talking about Siri controls on the device. ‘We wanted a really high quality audio, as well.'”
“Cook was asked about what Apple watchers could read into Apple’s implementation of the HomePod, and what could be gleaned about future products from it,” Wuerthele reports. “Cook warned to not try to tell the future from one product, and the HomePod stands on its own, and is a logical part of Apple’s evolution.”
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Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Apple, being Apple, was required to offer high quality audio or they would not be able to be market or sell the product.
We just can’t ship junk. – Steve Jobs
SEE ALSO:
CNET: Apple’s HomePod offers superior sound quality vs. Amazon Echo and Sonos Play:3 – June 6, 2017
Apple’s new HomePod sounds incredible! – June 6, 2017
Apple HomePod takes on Amazon Echo – June 6, 2017
Apple reveals HomePod smart home music speaker – June 5, 2017
Newsflash: Apple sells premium products at premium prices to premium customers – October 23, 2012
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Readers “Fred Mertz” and “Dan K.” for the heads up.]
Looking into ARKit, it is very impressive and I think will be great for iOS moving further as consumption focused devices. Unable to compare however with Project Tango which appears to be more focused on generating new content as supporting devices require hefty HW specs to allow imaging and rendering on-device.
Apple don’t ship junk? Can somebody please send the memo to the teams responsible for the Mac Pro and the Mac mini?
cc that memo to the Apple TV guys (hey what’s with that remote ? ) …
No way Jobs would have allowed the Cylinder to be sold as Apple’s flagship pro device today (GPU one quarter the power of current cards , TB2, not updated since 2013).
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Still I have to say though that even today if they FOCUSED they can come up with good products. Perhaps this WWDC is a turning point that they want to go back to doubling down on quality (the determination to spec out the iMac Pro is impressive) .
I’m typing this on a upgraded Cheese Grater so I’m waiting for the Mac Pro and I believe the Mini could be killer if they did it right (the Mini was on Amazon’s desktops bestseller list for years before they neutered it ).
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btw loved Jobs words on that MDN clip.
The Mac Pro is anything but junk (trashcan design or otherwise) it was simply ill conceived for the market it was aimed at which even if it could work seamlessly with no loss of performance with external devices or indeed offer sufficient internal performance allied to that potential flexibility would never be accepted at this juncture by the Pro market which is very set in its ways and understandably so as the technology to make the MacPro a good option was never going to be brought to market.
The Mac mini was even less deserving of that term, it was a brilliant device upon launch and would still be now if Apple had bothered to develop it subsequently. Sadly with Apple profit and margins especially in recent years under Cook have taken precedence over product development, even common sense in some cases. Its some of the decision making that might be properly described as junk.
Or Apple Music? Or laptops lacking ports. Or MacBook Pros with vampire video?
Not shipping junk?! This is one of the few categories of tech where that statement doesn’t apply – have you forgotten HiFiPod, that horrible-sounding square piece of nonsense, exact copies of which were afterwards sold under other labels for less than a third of the price ?
THAT was Apple’s darkest hour – so I remain sceptical until otherwise proven wrong …
And may I point out: this is a category firmly owned by Sonos; it’s not competing with Amazon products.
There is clearly an overlap with Amazon products and it is an area that Amazon would naturally wish/plan to expand into, not rocket science to work out why.
I’ve tried saying, “Hey, Sonos,” to change the track.
It didn’t work.
I’d say that your conclusion is a little off.
“Cook, responding to a question about why people should buy the $349 HomePod over Amazon’s cheaper Echo..‘I think when people listen to it, they’re going to be shocked over the quality of the sound,”
It’s nothing but a Cloud iPod for the home with voice recognition. Works well as long as your asking it to play music, from the Apple cloud.
Nobody seems to bother, but my first question would be:
When I say “Hey Siri, whatever”: Which Siri will respond? HomePod or iPhone? Both will always be around. I assume the devices will be aware of each other, but I may want to get a voice response sometimes (->HomePod) and a visual reply in other cases (->other). Maybe the term “Hey Siri” should be adjustable in the future.
Actually, Apple already deals with that, as is shown by having both an Watch and an iPhone nearby when you say, “Hey, Siri.”
Basically, whatever device is “active” will have priority. So if your Watch is up and lit, Siri will respond there; if not, and your iPhone is available (typically meaning that the camera is not seeing black), it will respond. I would have to surmise that HomePod would be third in line in this process.
Not sure that’s a good example since the Apple Watch would usually be wirelessly linked to your iPhone. In the HomePod’s case it is most likely connected to your account in the iCloud and would be ‘always’ listening so if you had your iPhone active when you said “Hey Siri” to the HomePod, both may actually answer.
You’re right, I wasn’t aware, ’cause a watch isn’t for me I guess. A tinny sales rep (Amazon) or spy (Google) isn’t for me either. But HomePod definitevely is, maybe even two if it sounds much better.
“and of course it does a number of other things,”
But primary its an iPod tied to your home to play music. That’s why they said that “other things” as a second thought.
Reportedly, Steve Jobs had his hand in products up to 5 years out. That means that he was very likely heavily involved in the design of the cylinder Mac Pro. It is the kind of design he loved. It doesn’t mean that he didn’t make mistakes, although, admittedly, beautiful mistakes (from a market acceptance perspective) – like the Cube.
I think that too. Steve Jobs cast a long shadow, and what was in prototype back when he was active would have received his imprimatur, to be carried out after his death 💀 Like the spaceship campus. I do think the custom GPUs were a strategic error.