“HomePod, which finally starts shipping this week, was delayed for several months,” Lisa Eadicicco writes for TIME Magazine. “That’s an eon in the fast-moving gadget world, and much has changed since Apple first revealed the device.”
“There are now several other smart speakers with high-end audio quality on the market, including Google’s Home Max, which uses the Google Assistant, and the Sonos One, which has Amazon Alexa and is set to get Google’s software later this year,” Eadicicco writes. “Like the HomePod, both devices aim to provide audiophile-worthy sound quality along with a voice-activated assistant, making it tougher for the HomePod to stand out. Other third-party companies that specialize in high-end audio gear, like Altec Lansing and Bang & Olufsen, also have plans to release new Google Assistant-enabled speakers.”
“Early indications overall suggest that, while the HomePod may sound great, it comes up short in the software department,” Eadicicco writes. “That could be a big problem for an expensive device that’s entering a crowded market with plenty of options… HomePod faces a challenge that few of Apple’s previous category-defining hits had to overcome. Tablets and smartwatches, for instance, weren’t very popular with mainstream consumers before the iPad and Apple Watch came out. But, thanks largely to the Amazon Echo and Google Home, 39 million Americans already own a smart speaker, according to research from NPR and Edison Research. They have permeated pop culture, too, with Alexa appearances in a South Park episode and a Saturday Night Live spoof. That means it’s too late for Apple to create or define this gadget category the way it so often does. With the HomePod, the company will have to prove that it can compete in a game for which somebody else wrote the rules.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: HomePod is not for Joe or Jane Sixpack. HomePod is for Apple iPhone and/or iPad owners, and especially those who are Apple Music members. Reviewing HomePod as if it’s a generic “smart speaker” meant for sale to the general public is a misreading of the product and its intended target market: iOS device owners who subscribe to Apple Music, a target market of 36 million users worldwide that is growing by millions per quarter.
HomePod is not meant for Joe Schmo with his pretend BOGOF iPhone cobbled together by a South Korean dishwasher maker running an insecure, privacy-trampling OS from a search engine/online ad firm who listens to music via ad-laden free tiers from Spotify and Pandora.
Apple will sell millions of HomePod units to high-value customers, the cream of the crop (i.e. those with disposable income and the will to spend it).
Nicely said, MDN!
Tech journalism has become so sleazy
“Has become so sleazy”????
Holy FCK Go back to the 90’s jzdf. Not trying to pick a fight. I am just saying look no further than Guy Takeo Kawasaki.
We Apple Evangelists @ the time had to defend ourselves night and day 24-7 against MicroClone Stupidity.
MAN how iWish Steve were here today. Would love to have seen a debate between the 2 STEVES….. Monkey Boy would have NO CHANCE. Dam shame.
By all the reviews it sounds like an amazing sounding device. However for me it misses the mark on one front and that is connecting my non AppleTV channels to it. I really don’t need a soundbar and HomePod. I wish it had one fibre optic cable and I would be jumping in.
Even among Apple owners, I don’t think there are enough audiophiles to make HomePod a great success. Most people don’t seem to care that much about superior audio quality, especially if it costs more. Wasn’t audio quality a main selling point for that speaker system Apple released a few years ago, the one that nobody bought?
The “Apple Hi-Fi” was a huge box, that really didn’t fit well any where. Over the years we have gone from having component stereo systems with even bigger speakers, to mini systems, and in now in many cases, phones and several small speakers around the house. Basically, besides it’s size, the Hi-Fi was an early product in an immature, changing landscape. The HomePod is pretty late entering a maturing market, and its form is perfect for today for the majority of folks. Nobody thought there would be enough people to pay over $1000 for a phone. Nobody thought people would pay more for an Apple Laptop, or $160 for earbuds, and yet Apple is the biggest most profitable company in the world. Apples customers are premium product users by in large, and I suspect, like me will happily buy one ore more of these. I know I’ve bought several speaker systems for my home, all of which have been nothing better than “OK”. I’m hoping the Apple solution will finally hit the sweet spot!
I don’t care what the naysayers say, I receive my HomePod this Friday and couldn’t be happier. I’ve heard Amazon’s Alexa at a friend’s house (he’s an iPhone user and thinks Alexa was a wasted purchase) and it didn’t sound any better than an old transistor radio from the ’60s.
When Apple releases the stereo software update I’ll be buying a second HomePod.
Now for the math. If 39 million Americans have already bought an Android power “smart” speaker then the market is in excess of 48 million. Ten percent of that will be your premium consumers, which means Apple could sell 4.8 Million HomePods at $349. With a 35% gross margin Apple will immediately control >45% of industry profit (probably more than that when you consider that more than half of Android “smart” speakers are sold at $39.
Big investors are only interested in overall market share percentage and not just premium sales. I think you’re missing the obvious reason of how companies are being valued. Do you think Amazon is being valued for how many premium products they sell or high profit margins? That’s why the huge difference in P/E. Amazon’s P/E of 250 to Apple’s P/E of 16. It only matters which company has the highest overall market share. Apple will always be the loser when judged by that metric. Apple’s P/E will always be stuck at 16 to 18 because of Apple’s non-competitive attitude. Big investors hate Apple’s “nice guy” attitude.
That must be why MSFT, HPQ and others (Dell had to go private) are doing so well in the market place.
Market share without profits are meaningless. Apple is transitioning from a volatile hardware products manufacturer to a more consistent high margin services provider.
Still, as a hardware products developer/manufacturer Apple is the most highly valued firm in the world. As it transitions to a more predictable services company its valuation will increase.
Careful buying the HomePod, you may end using it forever like the Apple Hi-FI (it sounds good after 11 years and will not die).
I’ll take my chances
Reads like an article from 2007 talking about the iPhone.
I’ll give a listen to the speaker some day but my Sonos setup (4 speakers accumulated over time) is terrific and not worth starting over with a new investment;
Also I get the super premium audiophile branding positioning bit, but in my case the exclusion of non-ios devices is a further deal killer – if you’ve never had an evening back yard social where anyone with a mobile device can throw songs into the Sonos queue all night long, you’re missing out
MDN could have written “Joe Sixpack and Jane Cookiecutter.”
You could see some of the logic in this article until it mentioned Bang and Olufsen et al. Seriously they will suffer the same problem of imposing themselves but won’t be any danger to Apples sales which rather confuses the logic of their argument. Especially in light of the similar but totally discredited argument that that was aimed at the Apple watch and it’s hopeless task of apparently of out competing high value watch brands. Don’t hear that these days. Fact is Google and Amazon will struggle in the up market sector in speakers far more than Apple will after all it’s already heavily respected in that market place, so despite all the incompetence it will still have a very strong place in the market especially as Apple Music increases its market share and Apple gets its act together with Siri which isn’t about its ‘intelligence’ but all about its breath which is far more easily fixable if they get off their asses and focus for a change. The music quality superiority and related brand association will give them time to do that thankfully.
Ah the MDN take, every the Apple Fanboi circle jerk.
One of the things all the naysayers forget (much to their dismay) is that Apple didn’t develop the iPad, AppleTV, Apple Watch, Air Buds or HomePod to compete against the Android industry. Apple developed these products in order to iPhone users additional products.
From Apple’s financials: “Other Products” (accessories) has been growing at an average 38% per annum for the last 4 years.
This is the benefit if having a 1.3 Billion iOS device user base. They, not Android users, will buy the HomePod, if for no other reason than how well it will integrate with the iOS ecosystem. Give it superior sound and its a no brainer success.
Whoops. Should have read: “in order to SELL iPhone users additional products.”
As a strategy it is working extremely well, much more so than Android manufacturers’ attempts to do the same thing.
‘Or something’ MDN? Really? 12 quintillian words available and you MUST repeat ‘or something’ in every third story heading?
How about this one next; Mac – Something or Something.
Nothing like biased opinion reporting.
“HomePod, which finally starts shipping this week, was delayed for several months,” Lisa Eadicicco writes for TIME Magazine. “
Since when is 2 months ‘several’, even if you want to count December, that’s only 3, not several.
Not defending the delay, they should have delivered on schedule with full features promised.
But this Biased reporting really has to somehow show negatively against the authors. There needs to be some quality ranking on reporting as journalism seems to be dead.
This is just too much for poor Apple? Say it ain’t so!
I suppose that Apple never successfully entered the cell phone market where billions had already been sold and every Android company rapidly began copying the innovative iPhone design. Yet, Apple still prevailed.
And I suppose that when an ailing Apple released the Bondi blue CRT all-in-one iMac in 1998, the market wasn’t already dominated by Windows-based computers selling in the tens of millions. Yet Apple prevailed and reinvented modern desktop and laptop computers.
So, when I am informed by some publication that Apple is somehow not up to the challenge, I scoff and move on. Because, clearly, that writer has no real understanding of Apple or the challenges that it has successfully overcome in the past.
Did Lisa Eadicicco just have her Steve Ballmer moment? 👅