“Sorry to rain on your parade Apple fanboys, but Amazon just totally stuck it to Tim Cook’s baby,” Brian Sozzi writes for TheStreet. “Amazon said that it sold three times as many Echo devices worldwide midway through Prime Day.”
MacDailyNews Take: As compared to what? Sheesh. In English, what Amazon actually said was that it sold more than twice as many Echo devices in the U.S. and more than three times as many worldwide versus Prime Day 2016.
“Imagine what the grand total looks like seeing as Amazon was hawking the smart speaker for a low, low price of $89.99. What this means to Apple is rather simple to understand: Amazon has managed to stuff more homes with Echos in front of Apple’s major HomePod launch,” Sozzi writes. “Hence, if you bought a discounted Echo why in the world would you want a HomePod, too?”
MacDailyNews Take: Apple’s target market for HomePod is not people who will settle for discounted, wildly inferior speakers.
“In analyst jargon, Amazon has taken a bite out of Apple’s market share before its key new digital gadget has even hit the market,” Sozzi writes. “Sorry, but it’s the truth.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Ford moved a bunch of 2016 Fiestas with a one-day discount promotion, so they’ve taken a bite out of BMW’s market share before the 2018 BMW’s even hit the market. Sorry, but it’s not the truth because it’s an insipidly stupid proclamation of utter nonsense.
Again, Apple’s target market for HomePod is not people who will settle for discounted, wildly inferior speakers just as BMW’s target market is not people who will settle for discounted wildly inferior vehicles.
Via Reddit user Arve:
1. They’re using some form of dynamic modeling, 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. You can read an introduction to the topic here. 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
2. 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.
3. 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”.
So yes, compared to the typical sub-$2000 speaker, the technology they apply may just as well be considered “magic”.
SEE ALSO:
Newsflash: Apple sells premium products at premium prices to premium customers – October 23, 2012Apple Watch and AirPods in high demand; HomePod buying intent outpaces Amazon Echo – July 10, 2017
Apple’s HomePod could have an even more successful start than Apple Watch – July 7, 2017
