Apple to ship crippled, incomplete HomePod months late

“Those waiting eagerly for Apple’s HomePod smart speaker have now twice been disappointed,” Ben Lovejoy writes for 9to5Mac. “First, when Apple delayed the release from December until February, and a second piece of bad news now as the release date has been announced.”

Coming this year in a free software update, users will be able to play music throughout the house with multi-room audio. – Apple Inc.

“It’s not even yet 100% clear whether you’ll get stereo performance from two speakers before the update,” Lovejoy writes. “You’d certainly hope they’d manage that much, but that too may depend on the speakers communicating with each other.”

“The question facing would-be buyers is: buy now, and only have limited functionality for who knows how long, or wait until Apple has everything working before diving in?” Lovejoy writes. “It seems interest is waining as the delay and issues have continued. Back in November almost 60% of readers said they would be buying one. More recently, only 43% said yes.”

Read more, and take the polls, in the full article here.

MacDailyNews Take: In 2017, Apple CEO Tim Cook was paid well over a quarter of a million dollars per day ($279,452/day), yet his company cannot manage to ship a fully capable smart speaker 3 years, 3 months, 4 days and counting after Amazon invented the category.

Regardless of the profits and stock performance, many will say: Too many mistakes too richly rewarded. The recent lack of focus, timely performance, and vexing issues with quality control (that should not exist in the world’s most valuable company, 40+ years after inception) will, if continued, negatively impact the company and future executives years down the road, likely not the current set. — MacDailyNews, December 28, 2017

Daring Fireball‘s John Gruber writes today, “How does this handle multiple people in the same home? That seems like a big question to remain unanswered before folks start plunking down $349. This feels like if Apple had started selling the iPod back in 2001 without ever having explained how the click wheel worked or how you synced music to it from iTunes, and instead just said ‘Trust us, it’s great.’ AirPlay 2 has been postponed until ‘later this year’ — and AirPlay 2 is required for using two HomePods in stereo or multi-room audio. Both of those features were promised all the way back in June when HomePod was announced.”

Exit question: How much would Apple Inc. be worth today had a Jeff Bezos-type CEO taken over the reins instead? – MacDailyNews, November 21, 2017

SEE ALSO:
Apple’s HomePod arrives February 9th, available to order this Friday, January 26th – January 23, 2018
Apple CEO Tim Cook paid close to $102 million for fiscal 2017 – December 28, 2017
Apple’s Phil Schiller: We feel bad about the HomePod delay – December 8, 2017
Echo Dot was Amazon’s Black Friday – Cyber Monday bestseller as Apple’s delayed HomePod waits for 2018 release date – November 28, 2017
Apple’s late, delayed, limited HomePod is looking more and more like something I don’t want – November 27, 2017
Why Apple’s HomePod is three years behind Amazon’s Echo – November 21, 2017
Under ‘operations genius’ Tim Cook, product delays and other problems are no longer unusual for Apple – November 20, 2017
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’s desperate Mac Pro damage control message hints at a confused, divided company – April 6, 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