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Why Apple's HomePod Is Three Years Behind Amazon's Echo (bloomberg.com)
Apple unveiled the HomePod, its first smart speaker to take on market-leading Amazon's Echo lineup of speakers, in June this year. Despite being three years late to the party, the HomePod has largely been pitched more as a speaker that sounds great instead of a device that sounds great but more importantly can also help you with daily chores. On top of this, Apple said last week it was delaying the shipment of HomePod from December this year to "early 2018." So why does a company, the market valuation of which is quickly reaching a trillion dollar, so behind its competitors? Bloomberg reports on Tuesday: Apple audio engineers had been working on an early version of the HomePod speaker for about two years in 2014 when they were blindsided by the Echo, a smart speaker from Amazon with a voice-activated assistant named Alexa. The Apple engineers jokingly accused one another of leaking details of their project to Amazon, then bought Echos so they could take them apart and see how they were put together. They quickly deemed the Echo's sound quality inferior and got back to work building a better speaker. More than two years passed. In that time Amazon's Echo became a hit with consumers impressed by Alexa's ability to answer questions, order pizzas and turn lights on and off. Meanwhile, Apple dithered over its own speaker, according to people familiar with the situation. The project was cancelled and revived several times, they said, and the device went through multiple permutations (at one point it stood 3 feet tall) as executives struggled to figure out how it would fit into the home and Apple's ecosystem of products and services. In the end, the company plowed ahead, figuring that creating a speaker would give customers another reason to stay loyal. Yet despite having all the ingredients for a serious competitor to the Echo -- including Siri and the App Store -- Apple never saw the HomePod as anything more than an accessory, like the AirPods earphones.
Apple's entire schtick is letting the market find great ideas, and then making those ideas appealing.
Literally everything Apple offers stems from this business model.
Apple make so much money from the iPhone that they don't really have a strong incentive to execute any new or innovative products. This makes it easy to waste money on side efforts like this, because, well, why bother?
And they also get caught up in wanting it to seem "special" and not another me-too product, when, actually it really is a me-too product. Sure they can make it with Beats(tm) bass or some kind of super-duper audio which might make it seem more interesting, but that's not really particularly compelling when their customer base is already using headphones.
Until iPhone sales start slipping badly, I don't see Apple having the motivation to do much more than bounce their profits among tax havens. Any *real* risk-taking might actually fail and thus royally piss off shareholders when it becomes a $20 billion write-off. Pissing away a half-billion or so noodling with projects like this seems like all they really need to do at this point.
People are weary of allowing some kind of spybot in their home. If it's marketed as an Audiophile device from the makers of iPod and Beats By Dre then people will buy it and get used to using the siri like functionality and they can suck consumers deeper into the apple ecosystem. So it's not a robot that listens to everything you say, it's a perfectly harmless speaker that you can control with your voice.
Siri is very primitive compared to the competing virtual assistants. Don't get me wrong, I use Siri all the time, but mostly for things like starting timers or asking basic information. Both in terms of information retrieval capabilities and in terms of integrations with other services, Alexa is way ahead.
The problem with the HomePod is that there are already good speakers with virtual assistants built in. The Echo may not have ideal sound quality, but Sonos also makes speakers with Alexa and Google built-in. As such, simply having good sound quality won't be enough for the HomePod to compete. Siri needs to get a *lot* better if they're going to have any chance.
If Siri were designed as generic assistant technology, then it could be added to any new device with relatively minor tweaks. Maybe they overly hard-wired Siri's design to phones and tablets.
Table-ized A.I.
because they can use it to push their store front. Apple doesn't have that so it's a tougher sell. Also they'll have a hard time competing with Echo when Amazon can give the things away and make it up from store purchases & prime membership fees.
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A smart speaker might encourage users to subscribe to the Apple music service. it is not going to sell Apps, it is not going to sell storage, it is not going to sell phone.
The delay does mean most of us who adopted this technology adopted Amazon over Google. Google has play catchup as most people are not going to buy a Google product to supplement Alexa.
People will buy the Apple product if it is a good speaker. One hole in the apple line up, BTW, now that they no longer do routers, is a cheap way to network speakers.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
Apple, just freaking buy them already. You'd have an instant 10+ million consumers, ecosystem with much better audio than Amazon, Google, or Microsoft - and can build up as you want. Crack open the checkbook, Tim, and write out a $3 billion check. And it's yours.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
The biggest reasons?
The Echo/Google Home work for anyone in the room --- even your parents or guests.
The Echo/Google Home doesn't need to be unlocked or swiped or long-pressed or what have you. I don't want my phone in a normally unlocked state -- even when I'm at home or any other "convenient" location. And "OK, Google" doesn't work unless your phone is unlocked.
Those are the two main reasons that I'm interested in one of those devices vs using my phone.
"Apple audio engineers...quickly deemed the Echo's sound quality inferior and got back to work building a better speaker."
Inferior?
I take it Apple audio engineers have not actually used a pair of their own shitty earbuds...
Urban legend......
https://www.wired.com/story/al...
Is there a Apple product that aren't 2 years behind any other product ?
Ceci n'est pas une Signature !
Finally someone gets it. Voice activation works well for short interactions where unlocking your phone and starting the right app is already too much bother. In this case, Echo works pretty well in a home automation setup. My main niggle is that the Echoes aren't location aware... if I say "lights on", it should turn on the lights in whichever room I am in. Currently I'm stuck with having to define separate commands for each room.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
You are not the target market they're aiming for.
The target market they're aiming for doesn't care about a few thousand dollars (or even if they do, are willing to pony it up), or even the performance crown...
This illustrates the problem perfectly.
Amazon have a business model of selling lots of inexpensive products and services (including a music service geared to streaming). Alexa makes this easier. Amazon don't care if it's not perfect. It doesn't even need to be all that profitable in itself. It just needs to sell these other srervices.
Apple sell to people who care about quality (or at least think they do). They will only sell one item every year or two, but that's their core business. iTunes is a sideline that promotes hardware sales. They need to make the device itself profitable. They need to persuade iPad and iPhone users to buy one of these in addition to an iPad and iPhone, Why would you do that rather than get a docking station?