“Apple was planning to make a big splash in the smart speaker world this month with the release of its new $349, Siri-powered HomePod,” Ben Fox Rubin writes for CNET. “Instead, the tech giant punted, postponing the launch until early next year.”
“The delay delivered a quick one-two punch to Apple. The company ceded the holiday shopping season to competing voice-activated speakers, namely the Amazon Echo and Google Home,” Rubin writes. “And the HomePod may also lose out on valuable buzz and partnerships from January’s CES, the nation’s biggest tech show.”
“If this situation involved any other company, its product might be doomed. But Apple has the ability to overcome these obstacles and make the HomePod a success anyway, industry watchers say. Heck, it may even benefit from the delay,” Rubin writes. “The company may also benefit from targeting a higher end of the market, pricing its speaker at $349, compared to $150 for the Amazon Echo and $130 for the Google Home.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Apple goes where the money is and the money is at the high end of markets, not the low end.
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 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
As Reddit user Arve stated after HomePod’s unveiling:
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”.
MDN Take –
It won’t take much for Amazon (or Google) to add high end speakers into their already superior virtual assistants if a $350+ speaker market actually exists. Apple might not hold the top end for long.
Apple can peddle their high end vaporware speaker all they want – but the truth of the matter is that most people can’t even hear the “superior sound” HomePod will supposedly be delivering. Apple has already screwed up everyone’s hearing with EarPods to the point that most people couldn’t tell the difference between Dolby and a tin can. They’re going to be selling a $350 speaker that only lab equipment can differentiate the sound on.
BTW – the article was wrong on pricing as well. 2nd Gen Echos sell for $99 – and deliver good enough sound for the majority of the market.
You’re not the market for the HomePod if you’re the sort of person happy to listen to music coming out of a tin can with no bass.
Enjoy your Alexa device – which admittedly will order you sanitary towels while it plays elevator music for you.
You really are an idiot. First you should read up on speaker sound, and that will prove your first idiotic statement about what people can and can’t hear on speaker quality sounds. Apple didn’t ruin anyone’s hearing with ear pods, your second idiotic statement. If you feel the need to try and belittle another product to make you feel better about your brand, maybe you should by another brand.
That reddit snippet is a good explanation of what I was talking about on another thread. HomePod really is a great deal price-wise for the tech packed into such a small footprint. It is impressive stuff. Put two HomePods in a room for $700 and I’m not sure you could beat the sound quality at that price. I’m fairly sure you’d have to spend a lot more than $700 to get the same sound.
Win what? Hasn’t Amazon already sold about a gazillion Echos by now. Everyone says Amazon is untouchable in the virtual assistant market. Everything that Jeff Bezos even says he’s going after, all Amazon’s rivals seem to fall over dead. Amazon is like that heavyweight boxer that only has to step into the ring and the referees start holding up signs saying “K.O.” It’s really amusing. I’ll bet if you ask anyone on the street about Apple’s chance of competing in the virtual assistant market and they’ll just start laughing and say, “Hey Alexa, what do you think of Apple’s chances of defeating you?…” And even Alexa starts laughing.
Wall Street has already said Siri is stupid and Apple is way too late to the VA party which means Amazon has already won. It’s somewhat disappointing how Apple keeps getting owned by Amazon, but when a company becomes complacent about competitors, that’s what always seems to happen.
You must be Steve Ballmer incognito….go crawl back under your POS Surface and repeat “I like our strategy…I like it a lot!”
“Hasn’t Amazon already sold about a gazillion Echos by now.”
Consensus sales estimates seems to be about 15,000,000 units (after 3 years of trying). Ten million of those units coming after Amazon introduced the Echo.dot, a $30 device that sounds just plain horrible (by any standard). I’ve listened to a .dot demo, and it truly is horrible. It only sells because of the novelty of a living room digital assistant and a $30 price tag.
The .dot is the equivalent of a $20 “but wait there’s more” as seen on TV device that is no longer used in less than a year.
The “smart speaker” market is wide open, especially for a device that provides extreme high end sound on top of a digital assistant.
Being “late” to this market is a non-issue. By the end of C2018 the Home Pod will garner 55% of industry profit on 10% market share.
By the end of C2019 Home Pod will garner 85% of industry profit on 20% market share.
Market share without profit is a manufacturer’s death sentence.
As Siri is now, the HomePod is closer to being a voice controlled high end speaker than being a voice assistant hub that would control other devices.
In other news, from unmagnificent…
“Hey MP3 Player companies, what do you think of Apple’s chances of defeating you?”
“Hey cell phone companies, what do you think of Apple’s chances of defeating you?”
“Hey netbook companies, what do you think of Apple’s chances of defeating you?”
“Hey Windoze PC companies, what do you think of Apple’s chances of defeating you?”
“Hey pocket camera companies, what do you think of Apple’s chances of defeating you?”
“Hey video camera companies, what do you think of Apple’s chances of defeating you?”
“Hey watch companies, what do you think of Apple’s chances of defeating you?”
“Hey smartwatch companies, what do you think of Apple’s chances of defeating you?”
F*ck Apple. Apple exists only to bankroll Apple’s elite. Tim Cook et al want to grab as much cash as possible. Apple couldn’t care less about its faithful users, it’s all about grabbing as much cash as possible as quickly as possible.
Apple Home Pod. The promise that was never delivered on time. Apple has forsaken its promise. Now it’s about vapor me are and speculation.