“Christmas will be a little disappointing for some Apple fans. And the company’s holiday season slip-up may be another sign that its crown as the disciplined king of manufacturing is becoming tarnished,” Shira Ovide writes for Bloomberg. “Apple Inc. acknowledged on Friday that its much-hyped HomePod voice-activated home speaker won’t go on sale next month in the U.S. and two other countries, as the company had announced in June. The company said the product needs more seasoning… It has been odd that Apple merely said the HomePod would be ready for sale in ‘December’ but had not provided a more specific date since the summer. Now we know why.”
“A delayed product on its own isn’t necessarily a big deal. Sure, Apple misses a shot at 2017 holiday sales for the HomePod, but this is a long game and one holiday season doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things for the world’s most valuable public company,” Ovide writes. “The troubling thing, though, is product delays or other problems are no longer unusual for Apple. ”
“A year ago, Apple also pushed back the sales date for its AirPods wireless headphones, and the products were also in short supply for some time afterward. Apple’s statement on Friday about the HomePod delay seems to be lifted almost directly from its AirPods delay announcement in October 2016,” Ovide writes. “Remember that before Tim Cook was promoted to CEO of Apple, he was the company’s maestro of manufacturing. Cook managed Apple’s global network of component suppliers and assembly factories and kept everything running smoothly and on schedule. Now, though, Apple’s product lineup is more sprawling than even before. And its discipline is showing some signs of wear.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: We imagine the parties at Amazon and Google over Apple’s HomePod debacle continue to rage. Missing one Christmas might not seem like a lot, but every user lost to another ecosystem is much, much more difficult to convert into a customer when you finally get your ass in gear and ship.
And, under the tree this year, there will be millions upon millions getting Amazon Echo and Google Home products and into their ecosystems*, not Apple’s.
*And other services, like Spotify instead of Apple Music, for one prominent example.
Apple really screwed the pooch on this one.
Real artists ship. – Steve Jobs
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Something along the lines of Amazon Echo is what Apple should have done if run by competent, forward-thinking management. When Apple finally does do their version of Amazon Echo (and they will get around to doing such a product eventually) they will rightly be called a follower. The company had all of the ingredients to make their own Echo before Amazon, except for the vision, it seems. — MacDailyNews, March 29, 2016
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There could be a psychological component to this that leads people use Alexa over Siri precisely because they know the Echo is there (it’s a physical object), but forget about Siri being everywhere, even on their wrists (because Siri is embedded inside devices that are “for other things” in the user’s mind (telling time, watching TV, computing, phone calls, etc.) and therefore “hidden” to the user. Hence, Siri gets forgotten and goes unused while people use Alexa…
Again: We believe people use Alexa because Amazon Echo is a physical manifestation of “her,” while forgetting about Siri even though she’s on their wrists at all times and/or in their iPhones and iPads because Siri is hidden inside objects whose primary function is something other than “personal assistant” in people’s minds (watch, TV, phone or tablet, as opposed to “Siri.”) Alexa is present thanks to the Amazon Echo. Siri is absent because she has no such counterpart; no physical manifestation.
Siri is a ghost. Alexa is that cool, fun, glowing tube right there on the counter.
Apple would do well to not discount the psychology behind why people use certain features, even though cold, hard logic tells them it’s a redundant and unnecessary product.
An “Apple Echo” device would sell in the millions of units per quarter and boost Siri usage immensely. — MacDailyNews, June 15, 2016
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Once they finally get something shipping in quantity, it’ll be fun to watch how quickly Apple takes the top end of the market away from Amazon’s Echo since Apple’s solution will certainly have unique advantages within Apple’s ecosystem that makes it the obvious choice for Mac, iPad, iPhone, and Apple Watch users. — MacDailyNews, May 10, 2017
SEE ALSO:
Apple delays HomePod release to early 2018 – November 17, 2017
Apple CEO Tim Cook: The ‘operations genius’ who never has enough products to sell at launch – October 23, 2017
Apple reveals HomePod smart home music speaker – June 5, 2017
Apple is misplaying the hand Steve Jobs left them – November 30, 2016
Apple delays AirPod rollout – October 26, 2016
Apple delays release of watchOS 2 due to bug – September 16, 2015
Apple delays HomeKit launch until autumn – May 14, 2015
Apple delays production of 12.9-inch ‘iPad Pro’ in face of overwhelming iPhone 6/Plus demand – October 9, 2014
Tim Cook’s mea culpa: iMac launch should have been postponed – April 24, 2013
