“While you’ll find iOS accessories and iPhone X cases if you’re looking for them, the news coming out of CES floor is dominated by smart home gadgets and connectivity,” Michael Simon writes or Macworld. “From showers to speakers and everything in between, CES is all about making the dumb things in your home smart. And more often than not, Alexa is the way you’ll control them.”
“Amazon’s early bet on the smart home has paid off in a big way, and its full-on press with its family of Alexa-powered devices has created a platform dedicated to controlling the gadgets around our home,” Simon writes. “And no matter how much better the audio from the HomePod sounds than an Echo, it won’t do much to close the gap.”
“When Siri launched in beta form back in 2011, our reactions were, as Scott Forestall put it at the time, ‘it blows me away,'” Simon writes. “Seven years later, that vision is nearly here, except it’s not Siri that’s doing the answering, it’s Alexa. Unless I’m doing something directly on my iPhone such as setting an alarm or playing a song, I’m asking my Echo instead of Siri. When I was setting up my smart home, I tried Siri and Google Assistant along with Alexa, and Amazon’s solution was the far superior one…”
MacDailyNews Take: If Apple truly gets outflanked by Amazon in IoT and home automation, history will not be kind to Apple CEO Tim Cook.
Now, listen, when it finally ships, HomePod will take the high end of the smart speaker market, however large or small that may be. Its seamless integration into the Apple ecosystem will make it the go-to smart speaker for the very best customers – those with strong, coveted demographics (disposable income and the proven will to spend it). We’ll see if Apple can establish a beachhead and move down into the mid-market with Siri devices going forward. However, doing so would require some timeliness on Apple’s part which has not proven to be among the company’s strong points in recent years.
Yes, we’ve been writing about Siri, Alexa, Apple, Amazon, Tim Cook, Jeff Bezos, Echo and echoes of Echo for years. A compendium for your perusal:
Apple CEO Tim CookSomething 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
—
As for the HomePod delay into 2018, missing this Christmas, [Apple SVP] Schiller said: “We feel bad we aren’t able to deliver Homepod for the holidays. We’re going to take the time to do it right and make sure it’s great when it comes out. We need more time to make it right.”
You know what? A company with $250+ billion liquid should be able to get the job done right and on time, especially for a product they announced in June. It’s a speaker, not a rocket ship, Phil. Lame marketing pablum doesn’t cover ineptitude. The time to do it right and make sure it’s great was all of the time before October when it should have been shipping at the latest.
There’s nothing like digging yourself an unnecessary hole two years late, huh, Phil? No wonder you feel bad. You ought to be mad. – MacDailyNews, December 8, 2017
—
Why is Apple so late to the smart speaker market? Visionary CEO vs. caretaker CEO, that’s why.
“Oh, but Tim Cook has made Apple the world’s richest company! The stock price is near record highs!” some might say. And that’s true enough.
Others might say, “Let’s be honest, Steve Ballmer could’ve generated the same kind of money running Apple Inc. given the massive momentum Steve Jobs handed over at his death. Sometimes, in fact, it looks like Steve Ballmer is running Apple. Although, no, it doesn’t really, because even Ballmer would have updated the Mac Pro by now, made sure he had enough Apple Watches ready so as not to pretty much totally kill launch momentum, had enough Apple Pencils and Smart Keyboards on hand for the iPad Pro launch, enough AirPods at launch, etc. Even Monkey Boy would have had an Amazon Echo knockoff on the market for Christmas 2016, at the latest, too. Not missing Christmas 2017. Deny it if you must, but you know it’s true.”
Listen, Tim Cook has some very admirable qualities. For just one example, his stance on privacy is important and unparalleled. We’re not sure we’d have such privacy with any other CEO this side of Edward Snowden. (Of course, Cook’s ability to make that a selling point is in question as the near total lack of privacy doesn’t seem to dissuade literally billions of people from surrendering it daily to FaceBook and Google.) His commitment to clean, renewable energy is another.
Still, after this latest delay, missing Christmas with HomePod, thereby ensuring millions more Amazon Echo and Google Home units find their way under Christmas trees this year and all of the ancillary negative offshoots of that (Spotify rather than Apple Music subscriptions, for example), we’re left wondering:
How much would Apple Inc. be worth today had a Jeff Bezos-type CEO taken over the reins instead? – MacDailyNews, November 21, 2017
—
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.
This wouldn’t have happened this way under Steve Jobs.
The HomePod’s internal code name ought to be “Clusterfsck,” but that’s already been taken by the Mac Pro.
Steve Jobs could see the whole picture and into the future. He would inherently know how to use Siri to tie together Wi-Fi connectivity, home automation, Bluetooth, Apple TV, sound reproduction, Apple Watch, iPhone, iPad, etc. and he’d direct his staff to work towards the goal(s) he defined. When you lose your visionary CEO and replace him with a caretaker CEO, this is the type of aimless, late, bureaucratic dithering that ensues. – MacDailyNews, November 21, 2017
—
Luckily for Tim Cook, Steve Jobs left him a perpetual profit machine that can absorb pretty much any lackadaisical fsckatude that can be thrown into the spokes.
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
what do you mean by “don’t have the capital” Apple has more capital than almost any company in the whole world. Apple should be able to do more than a couple of things at one time.
No. No more. Yes, It is still supperrior to the alternative, but with each new update I wonder: Will it come back to life?
Last update to the iPhone: Photos setting changed without my action to iCloud. Resulting in not being able to transfer files from the device to Photos on my Mac. I spent half a day in total figuring it out. It just works? With my / our experience it is sometimes a challenge, so NO, it no longer just works. It requires Microsoftian logic these days!
When a bunch of beer-swilling bloggers can clearly see what needs to be done years before Apple can manage to ship a product, something’s broken at Apple. A fish rots from the head down.
It easily gets lost in that quite long MDN take, and it is worth pulling it out and repeating it:
“Real artists ship.”
(Steve Jobs)
In his exceptional economy with words, Jobs distilled the essence of the difference between all those who promise, announce, demo, and those who actually sell stuff.
“And more often than not, Alexa is ONE way you’ll control them.”
I fix that for him, because everything I’ve seen has HomeKit, Google and Alexa integration.
One day, Will look at tens of millions of heavily discounted smart home speakers being sold and think “how quaint“. That’s about the time when HomePod will be sitting quietly in the corner waiting for a command and both Google and Alexa will be surveilling and spouting random ad phrases every now and then 🙂
I wouldn’t use products at CES as a true sign of anything, so many tend to be rubbish or never released. The broader point is valid though, Alexa is becoming synonymous with home automation as it can do a lot and is available at a variety of price points to allow everyone to get it and to suit all usage scenarios. Personally, Siri is fine for me because I feel that a lot of the voice interaction functionality is gimicky and I don’t need it. I’m not everybody though, and even if usage is over hyped (like a lot of amazon stuff is), it’s not complete nonsense. Homepod could be great, but even if it had shipped on time I think it’s overkill for a lot of people and environments. Since a lot of home automation is becoming synonymous with voice control Apple need to have more ways for people to speak to their home. Not every person has an iPhone/Apple watch. They’re not in every room in a house, guests might not have access. Apple should add Hey Siri (without a button) to Apple TV, airport express, or some similar device to allow whole house coverage. It doesn’t need to have all the skills of Alexa, but they need to get it in people’s homes. They need people to be part of their ecosystem. With iPhone they can afford to not get involved in the low end of the market, but this is different, it’s almost a loss leader.
It’s ironic in a way that echo is a plan B from the failure of their phone efforts. If Apple had seen the light an actual physical HomePod wouldn’t really need to be a core product, one would have expected that (Indeed it was foreseen by others at least) all iOS products would have seamlessly worked with HomeKit the moment you entered the appropriate environment and in the case of AppleTV and AirPlay actually already resided there ready to do the job. Speakers are really a filler product to get people into the concept, make it familiar through a physical entity and more ubiquous in a multi use environment.
But of course Apple seems incapable of actually advancing concepts these days even when they have all the ingredients, technology and even outsiders telling them what should be done as they did with home speakers. Hell how painfull is it to watch Samsung make their phones work with monitors as mini computers in the hone with no inherent experience in so doing while the company that boasts about controlling the whole widget and associate OS platform is a massive advantage not to mention chips that are sorely under exploited, stands by and ignores the potential of the concept of true Mac/iOS integration … at least till it sees some monetary gain to its coffers. Problem is it no longer thinks laterally enough to see how that can be achieved which brings us back to the missed opportunity in home speakers, or indeed music streaming.
All might be forgiven if Apple’s home solution blows away the competition but then why do I not feel confident?
I believe the Mac Pro and other debacles have shown us this ship is pretty rudderless, with no one in the overview seat. My guess is they’re too busy looking at their personal fortune spreadsheets and giggling with delight. It’s a sad day when even the faithful start to question what’s going on.
“It’s a sad day when even the faithful start to question what’s going on.” My guess is you’re referring to recent (2017/2018) events.
There are those of us who have been using (and preferring) Apple equipment since the late 70s. Many of us started questioning Apple’s focus in 1992, then eagerly worked through the rebirth in the late 90s.
We’ve been actively questioning Apple’s focus and goal for a few years now.
Almost every day, Cook seems more and more like Sculley 2.0.
Well even the most “diehardiest” of us are losing confidence. For me it’s the Mac Pro debacle, a machine I’ve been waiting to upgrade for 2 YEARS. But MY Mac Pro sure wasn’t and isn’t the 2013 one. That was a design contemptuous of pros.
Anyone still “questioning” what’s going on is because they want to ignore the VOLUMES of data that has spelled it out, fairly clearly, ever since Steve started using “PostPC”. iOS and devices services that support iOS are where Apple has been headed and it’s been a pretty straight-as-an-arrow line.
If you are into producing products and content for iOS, you’re in the right place. If you want to have a rack mounted, high RAM, high CPU, powerful GFX… etc. etc. etc…. Apple is not the vendor you should be focused on. The folks I helped to switch over years ago THOUGHT they’d regret their decision over time. But, every time they need more power, they go get it (usually from Amazon and usually overnight). They don’t have to wait to see what Apple is going to do and, for them, it was the right decision.
Apple’s home solution does not need to “blow away the competition”. There’s only ONE thing the HomePod needs to do to become the leader in it’s category.
Exist.
Apple’s TRYING to kill the Mac Pro, and they’re doing a good job of it. The quicker they can get rid of it, the quicker they can put ALL their focus in PostPC…. so that’s not really a good comparison.
All I know is that piece of junque, Siri, has been utterly useless for me. It never, and I mean never gets anything right. That fish rotting from head statement seems true in Apple’s case in past few years, i.e., since Steve died.
Apple has placed all of it’s stock in the iPhone and allowed practically all products and new products to suffer. Apple should change their name back to Apple Computers or to Apple Communications.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: privacy, privacy, privacy. I certainly do not want a device from Amazon inside my home that is always listening and converting anything I do with that device into a profit opportunity. Apple products offer a lot of value. And especially with devices like this I’m always going to choose the company that prioritizes my privacy.
the problem is that tens of millions of consumers aren’t smart like you worrying about privacy, so Google, Facebook, Amazon’s strategies are succeeding.
Because Amazon etc MONETIZE (i.e sell to advertisers) consumer’s info they are able to subsidize products like the Echo (make them cheap) and finance the R&D for A.I (i.e. these are SELF FINANCING — they just sell the stolen data — while Apple has to get cash from elsewhere like iPhones).
Not to mention stealing data often makes their products ‘SMARTER’ (or seem to be) as they can build a database on the customer (they know the person’s habits, his way of speaking perhaps even his accent etc ). Just like real life human personal assistant is way more effective if he knows his boss inside out and can understand and anticipate his needs. Some time back some SIRI engineers quit due to Apple’s privacy policy, specifically they complained that apple flushing out private data after a short while from servers made it too hard.
I’m not CONDONING what Amazon etc are doing, just pointing out the business advantages and that most people seem not really care about privacy
The only thing I have to say is that Apple (Tim Cook) has really dropped the ball here. It has let down their loyal users and others that would be loyal users. I, like others, have friends using Alexa to do all sorts of good things in home security and management as well as Entertainment right now. I’ve held out but for not for much longer. VR maybe your thing Tim but home automation and entertainment is where most people are at and want. This whole thing reminds me of the “We made a mistake with the Macintosh” that we are just getting over with. Home Kit was a very good idea that has been just left to wander around due to lack of leadership and direction. Tim, another miscalculation on you and your management team. You have the money, the people, but lack the well and for-thought.
If you want to share your info with Google Spy Program ™ then Alexa is excellent choice and if you want a retailer listen to your dinner conversations and your kids then the Echo is brilliant thing to have.
These two companies are selling their products taking huge loss because the bigger money is you. They want to advertise things or sell stuff for you. That is where the money is.
Hate to say it but Apple got beat bad by both alexa and google. I bought two google Home minis along with 4 Nest thermostats and am finding myself increasingly curious about google Assistant. The whole system is just so easy and responsive. It’s a joke that Nest isn’t compatible with HomeKit. For the first time in a long time I am a little embarrassed for Apple. They really do look like an island. It’s counter to the way they partnered with everyone on Airplay.
Nest isn’t compatible with HomeKit because Google bought the company… not because it can’t be. I bought into Nest BEFORE Google bought it and haven’t replaced it ONLY because I’ll just wait until it dies. 🙂 I have taken steps to limit the information it shares, though.
Meanwhile, my Belkin light switches and power outlets will soon be connected through HomeKit leaving the Nest stuff the only thing that’s not in HomeKit.
And stop whining about Tim Cook. He is the best CEO on the planet. With HomePod there has been delay because of the deal with Shazam and then there is bigger problem with Meltdown and Spectre. HomePod can´t be vulnarable with these because it is always on. They have iron out those. Plus manufacturing these things in tens of millions is not easy task to do. Apple do not delay anything without a reason. It also does not hurt them. Apple is always “late” to the market and then they just blow everybody out of the water.
MDN has led this website into a judgmental, self righteous, condescending peanut gallery.
Your mostly unfounded criticisms of Tim Cook in face of Apple’s overall success, without offering any meaningful solutions other than off with his head speaks volumes.
MDN’s diatribes only speak of its own one sided harsh and negative judgements, not balanced, not balanced.
I’m sure Apple’s success will continue for decades to come in spite of the naysayers.
Actually… I would LOVE to use Siri daily, I actually did for quite some time. What happened over the last year or so is this…
When Apple secretly slowed down my iPhone 6+ because of it’s aging battery, Siri stopped working for me. Every time I’d hold down the home button to speak, there would be a multi-second delay before it would actually start listening. Previously I could hold that button and begin speaking almost immediately. Lately I hold the button, and wait… and wait… until the little listening line starts to wiggle from background noise, THEN I can speak, after maybe 5 or 6 seconds, sometimes as many as 10. But here’s the thing… there’s ALSO a timer in there somewhere that times out if you don’t say anything for a while. Guess what, it doesn’t account for the startup delay, so now with my 600MHz iPhone (I checked) it actually times out BEFORE it starts listening.
How many millions of affected iPhone users stopped using Siri in the last year? Not that Apple would ever admit it, but I bet there’s a noticeable drop in Siri usage. Of course knowing Apple… instead of looking inward and asking why, they’ll probably assume the voice thing is a fad and people aren’t really using it much. By the time they figure out what’s going on, it’s too late and people have given up on their products.
Mistakes tend to domino like that. Though I’ve heard the phrase plenty of times, I’d LOVE to see Apple “firing on all cylinders”.
Whatever drop in Siri usage there is is likely offset by NEWER devices (these are selling in the 10s of millions, remember?) that begin and continue to use Siri. Then, there are those that upgrade yearly and never stopped using Siri.
The most difficult job for Siri is Apple’s (laudable) desire to do all the recognition on the device, not sending any of your personal audio through the cloud. I don’t know how successful they will be when all of the competition is using the power of the cloud to do SO much more. Perhaps they should even offer an option where they’ll do your voice recognition in the cloud AND sell your data to pay for the cloud infrastructure.
I’m not really interested in Siri as a voice controlled assistant. I’m more interested in a centralized home control and security system.
About a month ago I was in our local Apple store, and asked one of the blue shirts to tell me about HomeKit. What works with it, what options do I have, etc. He went through the demo in the store, very impressive if you want automated window shades, I guess.
Anyway, when it came time to start looking for actual hardware to use with HomeKit, the selection seemed thin. And expensive, if you buy from Apple. Then I started reading online articles about how good HomeKit was, and I mostly found stories of frustration and failure.
Anyone here use HomeKit for door locks, window sensors, and thermostats that can recommend a brand? For consistency’s sake I’d like to use a common brand if possible.
If Alexa was an Apple product, for the last few months the news and net would have been absolutely flooded with negative stories about Apple listening in on your living room an invading your privacy, and btw the competition will soon be coming out with something cheaper and better.
Apple’s strength used to be first to market with a new technology, gain massive market share then lose a bunch of that to copiers.
Coming from behind with a much more expensive solution is not Apple’s strengths.
Apple has lost the home to Alexa and other home automation companies like Wink. Simply because people did’n’t want to wait that long for a solution that had less more expensive options. Am I going to dump 1000’s of dollars in home automation just to get Apple’s version and use Siri? Certainly not. Wisely Alexa is integrated with most systems already.
There only hope is to integrate with other companies now. I love Siri, but she gets destroyed by Google on my phone, with better answers. I’d use google all the time but it can’t integrate with my phone functions.
Tim Cook is destroying Apple on stab wound at a time. He’s too busy on his social causes. There used to be more to Apple then iphones.
Whether true or not, it suggests a leadership which has become…
fat, lazy, too-cool-for-work, too busy going to basketball games and acting up, uncaring, stupid, arrogant, lacking vision.
I have to admit, it would be hard for me to keep an edge if I were making millions, everyone loved and admired me, everyone told me that I was so smart and made all the best products, etc. But that is what Apple has to do. They can take pride in their work but need to always feel they are behind the 8-ball and losing the game.
Don’t be surprised if Apple calls Home Pod an insecure and unnecessary bit of gear, and Apple is moving on….to produce more and better talking turd emojis.
Apple really needs to get their collective $h!t in gear in regards to Siri, AppleTV and the ‘smart home’. Here in Japan…. at Costco, on TV and other places ‘smart home’ speakers and so on are being pushed like crazy with no pushback from Apple to be seen. Even CarPlay seems to be ignored here….
It won’t matter, I am sure the the HomePod hardware will be second to none, the sound quality will be great BUT Siri will still suck, I am sorry I am a Apple Fan Boy as they say but Siri does not get close to google or amazon
Give Apple a break.
They can only do a couple of things at one time.
They don’t have the manpower or capital.
Plus everything has to go through one of only a couple of VPs who earn millions and seem to have lost the hunger and drive of the old Apple days.
what do you mean by “don’t have the capital” Apple has more capital than almost any company in the whole world. Apple should be able to do more than a couple of things at one time.
No. No more. Yes, It is still supperrior to the alternative, but with each new update I wonder: Will it come back to life?
Last update to the iPhone: Photos setting changed without my action to iCloud. Resulting in not being able to transfer files from the device to Photos on my Mac. I spent half a day in total figuring it out. It just works? With my / our experience it is sometimes a challenge, so NO, it no longer just works. It requires Microsoftian logic these days!
What MDN said.
When a bunch of beer-swilling bloggers can clearly see what needs to be done years before Apple can manage to ship a product, something’s broken at Apple. A fish rots from the head down.
“…a bunch of beer-swilling bloggers…”
I resemble that remark.
– Groucho
Sorry, that was Curly.
you’re right, thanks…I am an innocent victim of mixed-up malapropisms.
PS: a-woo woo woo woo.
He’s adjusting Apple’s new Smart Glasses, in pic above. (If ya can ship, just twist bow…they won’t get it til later.)
Actually, fish, like everything else, rots from the inside out.
You say that as if swilling beer is bad…
It easily gets lost in that quite long MDN take, and it is worth pulling it out and repeating it:
“Real artists ship.”
(Steve Jobs)
In his exceptional economy with words, Jobs distilled the essence of the difference between all those who promise, announce, demo, and those who actually sell stuff.
Then maybe, just maybe, Apple needs to go back to their old secretive ways and stop announcing stuff.
“And more often than not, Alexa is ONE way you’ll control them.”
I fix that for him, because everything I’ve seen has HomeKit, Google and Alexa integration.
One day, Will look at tens of millions of heavily discounted smart home speakers being sold and think “how quaint“. That’s about the time when HomePod will be sitting quietly in the corner waiting for a command and both Google and Alexa will be surveilling and spouting random ad phrases every now and then 🙂
In my case, Alexa is a way I WON’T control them. Google Spy is another.
I wouldn’t use products at CES as a true sign of anything, so many tend to be rubbish or never released. The broader point is valid though, Alexa is becoming synonymous with home automation as it can do a lot and is available at a variety of price points to allow everyone to get it and to suit all usage scenarios. Personally, Siri is fine for me because I feel that a lot of the voice interaction functionality is gimicky and I don’t need it. I’m not everybody though, and even if usage is over hyped (like a lot of amazon stuff is), it’s not complete nonsense. Homepod could be great, but even if it had shipped on time I think it’s overkill for a lot of people and environments. Since a lot of home automation is becoming synonymous with voice control Apple need to have more ways for people to speak to their home. Not every person has an iPhone/Apple watch. They’re not in every room in a house, guests might not have access. Apple should add Hey Siri (without a button) to Apple TV, airport express, or some similar device to allow whole house coverage. It doesn’t need to have all the skills of Alexa, but they need to get it in people’s homes. They need people to be part of their ecosystem. With iPhone they can afford to not get involved in the low end of the market, but this is different, it’s almost a loss leader.
It’s ironic in a way that echo is a plan B from the failure of their phone efforts. If Apple had seen the light an actual physical HomePod wouldn’t really need to be a core product, one would have expected that (Indeed it was foreseen by others at least) all iOS products would have seamlessly worked with HomeKit the moment you entered the appropriate environment and in the case of AppleTV and AirPlay actually already resided there ready to do the job. Speakers are really a filler product to get people into the concept, make it familiar through a physical entity and more ubiquous in a multi use environment.
But of course Apple seems incapable of actually advancing concepts these days even when they have all the ingredients, technology and even outsiders telling them what should be done as they did with home speakers. Hell how painfull is it to watch Samsung make their phones work with monitors as mini computers in the hone with no inherent experience in so doing while the company that boasts about controlling the whole widget and associate OS platform is a massive advantage not to mention chips that are sorely under exploited, stands by and ignores the potential of the concept of true Mac/iOS integration … at least till it sees some monetary gain to its coffers. Problem is it no longer thinks laterally enough to see how that can be achieved which brings us back to the missed opportunity in home speakers, or indeed music streaming.
In the meantime the Echo family of devices are doing what they were primarily designed to do, add more sales to Amazon per user.
https://www.digitalcommerce360.com/2018/01/03/us-shoppers-echo-device-spend-significantly-more-amazon/?utm_source=IRN&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=IRN-2018
All might be forgiven if Apple’s home solution blows away the competition but then why do I not feel confident?
I believe the Mac Pro and other debacles have shown us this ship is pretty rudderless, with no one in the overview seat. My guess is they’re too busy looking at their personal fortune spreadsheets and giggling with delight. It’s a sad day when even the faithful start to question what’s going on.
“It’s a sad day when even the faithful start to question what’s going on.” My guess is you’re referring to recent (2017/2018) events.
There are those of us who have been using (and preferring) Apple equipment since the late 70s. Many of us started questioning Apple’s focus in 1992, then eagerly worked through the rebirth in the late 90s.
We’ve been actively questioning Apple’s focus and goal for a few years now.
Almost every day, Cook seems more and more like Sculley 2.0.
Well even the most “diehardiest” of us are losing confidence. For me it’s the Mac Pro debacle, a machine I’ve been waiting to upgrade for 2 YEARS. But MY Mac Pro sure wasn’t and isn’t the 2013 one. That was a design contemptuous of pros.
Anyone still “questioning” what’s going on is because they want to ignore the VOLUMES of data that has spelled it out, fairly clearly, ever since Steve started using “PostPC”. iOS and devices services that support iOS are where Apple has been headed and it’s been a pretty straight-as-an-arrow line.
If you are into producing products and content for iOS, you’re in the right place. If you want to have a rack mounted, high RAM, high CPU, powerful GFX… etc. etc. etc…. Apple is not the vendor you should be focused on. The folks I helped to switch over years ago THOUGHT they’d regret their decision over time. But, every time they need more power, they go get it (usually from Amazon and usually overnight). They don’t have to wait to see what Apple is going to do and, for them, it was the right decision.
Apple’s home solution does not need to “blow away the competition”. There’s only ONE thing the HomePod needs to do to become the leader in it’s category.
Exist.
Apple’s TRYING to kill the Mac Pro, and they’re doing a good job of it. The quicker they can get rid of it, the quicker they can put ALL their focus in PostPC…. so that’s not really a good comparison.
Milking the cow for shareholders and stock option VPs.
Living in a bubble, lost their connection for what it’s like being an end user.
All I know is that piece of junque, Siri, has been utterly useless for me. It never, and I mean never gets anything right. That fish rotting from head statement seems true in Apple’s case in past few years, i.e., since Steve died.
Apple has placed all of it’s stock in the iPhone and allowed practically all products and new products to suffer. Apple should change their name back to Apple Computers or to Apple Communications.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: privacy, privacy, privacy. I certainly do not want a device from Amazon inside my home that is always listening and converting anything I do with that device into a profit opportunity. Apple products offer a lot of value. And especially with devices like this I’m always going to choose the company that prioritizes my privacy.
the problem is that tens of millions of consumers aren’t smart like you worrying about privacy, so Google, Facebook, Amazon’s strategies are succeeding.
Because Amazon etc MONETIZE (i.e sell to advertisers) consumer’s info they are able to subsidize products like the Echo (make them cheap) and finance the R&D for A.I (i.e. these are SELF FINANCING — they just sell the stolen data — while Apple has to get cash from elsewhere like iPhones).
Not to mention stealing data often makes their products ‘SMARTER’ (or seem to be) as they can build a database on the customer (they know the person’s habits, his way of speaking perhaps even his accent etc ). Just like real life human personal assistant is way more effective if he knows his boss inside out and can understand and anticipate his needs. Some time back some SIRI engineers quit due to Apple’s privacy policy, specifically they complained that apple flushing out private data after a short while from servers made it too hard.
I’m not CONDONING what Amazon etc are doing, just pointing out the business advantages and that most people seem not really care about privacy
The only thing I have to say is that Apple (Tim Cook) has really dropped the ball here. It has let down their loyal users and others that would be loyal users. I, like others, have friends using Alexa to do all sorts of good things in home security and management as well as Entertainment right now. I’ve held out but for not for much longer. VR maybe your thing Tim but home automation and entertainment is where most people are at and want. This whole thing reminds me of the “We made a mistake with the Macintosh” that we are just getting over with. Home Kit was a very good idea that has been just left to wander around due to lack of leadership and direction. Tim, another miscalculation on you and your management team. You have the money, the people, but lack the well and for-thought.
If you want to share your info with Google Spy Program ™ then Alexa is excellent choice and if you want a retailer listen to your dinner conversations and your kids then the Echo is brilliant thing to have.
These two companies are selling their products taking huge loss because the bigger money is you. They want to advertise things or sell stuff for you. That is where the money is.
I think you meant Google Assistant and Alexa (Google and Amazon Echo family respectively).
Hate to say it but Apple got beat bad by both alexa and google. I bought two google Home minis along with 4 Nest thermostats and am finding myself increasingly curious about google Assistant. The whole system is just so easy and responsive. It’s a joke that Nest isn’t compatible with HomeKit. For the first time in a long time I am a little embarrassed for Apple. They really do look like an island. It’s counter to the way they partnered with everyone on Airplay.
Nest isn’t compatible with HomeKit because Google bought the company… not because it can’t be. I bought into Nest BEFORE Google bought it and haven’t replaced it ONLY because I’ll just wait until it dies. 🙂 I have taken steps to limit the information it shares, though.
Meanwhile, my Belkin light switches and power outlets will soon be connected through HomeKit leaving the Nest stuff the only thing that’s not in HomeKit.
And stop whining about Tim Cook. He is the best CEO on the planet. With HomePod there has been delay because of the deal with Shazam and then there is bigger problem with Meltdown and Spectre. HomePod can´t be vulnarable with these because it is always on. They have iron out those. Plus manufacturing these things in tens of millions is not easy task to do. Apple do not delay anything without a reason. It also does not hurt them. Apple is always “late” to the market and then they just blow everybody out of the water.
MDN has led this website into a judgmental, self righteous, condescending peanut gallery.
Your mostly unfounded criticisms of Tim Cook in face of Apple’s overall success, without offering any meaningful solutions other than off with his head speaks volumes.
MDN’s diatribes only speak of its own one sided harsh and negative judgements, not balanced, not balanced.
I’m sure Apple’s success will continue for decades to come in spite of the naysayers.
You are an apologist.
MDN has been consistently right about this for years and what has Tim Cook to offer? Delayed vapor.
My portfolio _would_ beg to differ, but I told it to just be quiet.
Actually… I would LOVE to use Siri daily, I actually did for quite some time. What happened over the last year or so is this…
When Apple secretly slowed down my iPhone 6+ because of it’s aging battery, Siri stopped working for me. Every time I’d hold down the home button to speak, there would be a multi-second delay before it would actually start listening. Previously I could hold that button and begin speaking almost immediately. Lately I hold the button, and wait… and wait… until the little listening line starts to wiggle from background noise, THEN I can speak, after maybe 5 or 6 seconds, sometimes as many as 10. But here’s the thing… there’s ALSO a timer in there somewhere that times out if you don’t say anything for a while. Guess what, it doesn’t account for the startup delay, so now with my 600MHz iPhone (I checked) it actually times out BEFORE it starts listening.
How many millions of affected iPhone users stopped using Siri in the last year? Not that Apple would ever admit it, but I bet there’s a noticeable drop in Siri usage. Of course knowing Apple… instead of looking inward and asking why, they’ll probably assume the voice thing is a fad and people aren’t really using it much. By the time they figure out what’s going on, it’s too late and people have given up on their products.
Mistakes tend to domino like that. Though I’ve heard the phrase plenty of times, I’d LOVE to see Apple “firing on all cylinders”.
Whatever drop in Siri usage there is is likely offset by NEWER devices (these are selling in the 10s of millions, remember?) that begin and continue to use Siri. Then, there are those that upgrade yearly and never stopped using Siri.
The most difficult job for Siri is Apple’s (laudable) desire to do all the recognition on the device, not sending any of your personal audio through the cloud. I don’t know how successful they will be when all of the competition is using the power of the cloud to do SO much more. Perhaps they should even offer an option where they’ll do your voice recognition in the cloud AND sell your data to pay for the cloud infrastructure.
I’m not really interested in Siri as a voice controlled assistant. I’m more interested in a centralized home control and security system.
About a month ago I was in our local Apple store, and asked one of the blue shirts to tell me about HomeKit. What works with it, what options do I have, etc. He went through the demo in the store, very impressive if you want automated window shades, I guess.
Anyway, when it came time to start looking for actual hardware to use with HomeKit, the selection seemed thin. And expensive, if you buy from Apple. Then I started reading online articles about how good HomeKit was, and I mostly found stories of frustration and failure.
Anyone here use HomeKit for door locks, window sensors, and thermostats that can recommend a brand? For consistency’s sake I’d like to use a common brand if possible.
If Alexa was an Apple product, for the last few months the news and net would have been absolutely flooded with negative stories about Apple listening in on your living room an invading your privacy, and btw the competition will soon be coming out with something cheaper and better.
What has Apple got for CES?
Apple’s strength used to be first to market with a new technology, gain massive market share then lose a bunch of that to copiers.
Coming from behind with a much more expensive solution is not Apple’s strengths.
Apple has lost the home to Alexa and other home automation companies like Wink. Simply because people did’n’t want to wait that long for a solution that had less more expensive options. Am I going to dump 1000’s of dollars in home automation just to get Apple’s version and use Siri? Certainly not. Wisely Alexa is integrated with most systems already.
There only hope is to integrate with other companies now. I love Siri, but she gets destroyed by Google on my phone, with better answers. I’d use google all the time but it can’t integrate with my phone functions.
Tim Cook is destroying Apple on stab wound at a time. He’s too busy on his social causes. There used to be more to Apple then iphones.
Whether true or not, it suggests a leadership which has become…
fat, lazy, too-cool-for-work, too busy going to basketball games and acting up, uncaring, stupid, arrogant, lacking vision.
I have to admit, it would be hard for me to keep an edge if I were making millions, everyone loved and admired me, everyone told me that I was so smart and made all the best products, etc. But that is what Apple has to do. They can take pride in their work but need to always feel they are behind the 8-ball and losing the game.
Sounds like Bezo’s idea of constantly keeping a company in ‘start-up’ mode (high growth).
Don’t be surprised if Apple calls Home Pod an insecure and unnecessary bit of gear, and Apple is moving on….to produce more and better talking turd emojis.
Maybe even be able to turn the Animoji head completely around to view all sides.
Apple really needs to get their collective $h!t in gear in regards to Siri, AppleTV and the ‘smart home’. Here in Japan…. at Costco, on TV and other places ‘smart home’ speakers and so on are being pushed like crazy with no pushback from Apple to be seen. Even CarPlay seems to be ignored here….
It won’t matter, I am sure the the HomePod hardware will be second to none, the sound quality will be great BUT Siri will still suck, I am sorry I am a Apple Fan Boy as they say but Siri does not get close to google or amazon