Apple Home Pod vs. The Competition
OK, this article is from Mac World. So, in light of the current topic, it isn't like they can truly be honest. But this is a steaming pile of garbage.
Let's start by looking at the individual points. And the first up is messaging and calls. I don't have an iPhone, but aside from replacing my wife's name with "my wife" the example mentioned doesn't sound at all different from what I do with Google Assistant. But, let's draw a few quick points here... they mention calling. And I can totally do that with Google Home. And while the Echo is nifty, it isn't part of a bigger successful ecosystem. So, while Amazon may be "winning" today, I don't actually consider them a major player in the longer run.
As far as messaging is concerned... how does that even make sense? That question needs an explanation, because I know a ton of people are scratching their heads saying "HEY WAIT, I'D USE A SMART SPEAKER TO TEXT SOMEONE". And, if you have only one smart speaker total (and maybe at the cost of a HomePod that is the expectation) it makes *some* sense.
Why does the number of speakers matter? I'm SOOOOOO glad you asked. Why would you send a message, in general, from a smart speaker rather than your phone? Most likely because you're a tool playing around with technology, or you phone isn't with you. I can't help with the first case. Voice technology is great for things like composing messages... when it works. And it is a pain in the ass when it doesn't. But, more importantly, most conversations aren't one sided. If your phone isn't on you, and you have multiple speakers, how and where do you get the response?
Conversations are generally of a somewhat private nature, you maybe don't want it, or even the reception of the message to be broadcast on every speaker in your household. Even if I have nothing to hide, I have no reason to have either the contents of even the existence of my messages read to an entire household. To actually have a conversation via a messaging platform, realistically, I'm going to be using a phone. Messaging is NOT a strength. It is a gimmick. And a piss poor one. It just sounds good to people who haven't actually thought through the scenario.
And, calls as already stated, on the only viable competing platform... they exist in a perfectly workable fashion.
Sound was the second caveat. Everything I've heard says that the Google Home Max, which is really the actual competitor of this, provides pretty damn good, loud sound. I get the target may be audiophiles but even if it is better, the praise for the sound quality on the Google Home Max is good enough. And, sound these days can be about more than the performance of an individual unit. And I would say that multi-room audio which is mentioned later in the article more than levels the playing field.
I think you truly need to try multi-room audio to understand how it blows ANY single speaker solution out of the water. I can get a nice ambient level of music throughout the entire house without any room sounding too loud or too quiet. I don't need to keep changing devices. It is brilliant.
Apple Music as a pro is an entirely questionable addition. Every platform has offerings. Spotify is available on virtually everything and the catalogue is the basically the same. Same for Google Play Music. But here is the part I don't get, without multi-room audio, even without direct support, I can use an Echo or a GH device as a BT speaker and cast Apple Music, even from an Android device. Sure, I don't get to voice commands, but both Echo and GH have multiple solutions which WILL work both natively on their smart speakers and within the Apple ecosystem if that happens to be where you hang your hat.
Notes I'll give them. But, I'll also point out... there is nothing stopping Google from adding this. Adding a note taking feature would be rather simplistic actually.
Privacy is another thing which is legitimately different. But, for the average user I don't see it being a differentiator worth choosing one product or ecosystem over the other.
Before I go off on my final tangent... I want to point out, even if I couldn't negate the pros for HomePod, I felt they were all stretching. Nothing in that list, alone or in tandem would have been enough to make me want to buy it over the competition. But the list in favor of the competition contains almost exclusively drool worthy differences. Actions and Skills are the equivalent of apps. In short, at the moment Apple has nothing but 1st party and partner offerings. Alexa and Google offer tons. General music, is the least convincing argument here, but it is still better than JUST Apple Music. Multi-room audio, as I mentioned is big enough to decimate any difference in audio quality. Display is huge if you're into that. And lastly price, which needs no real discussion.
The final rant on this topic is, in a way linked to price, multi-room audio and sound quality. I harped on sound quality topic because A) the device is unreleased and untested and B) even if it is amazing and clearly beats all competition, the competition is still good enough for most people. I argue that multi-room audio, with such a small gap in individual unit quality is a huge differentiator. I suspect the author ignored this for a simple reason. You're probably not thinking much about multi-room audio when your only speaker option is large and expensive.
But, overlooking the multi-room audio argument is downright idiotic. This a smart speaker. And the primary thing distinguishing it from a normal speaker is a voice-only controlled digital assistant. Houses tend to have... walls. And various floors and rooms. Things which interfere with a smart speakers ability to hear you.
By starting with the most expensive option, Apple isn't really stopping people buying into their notion, but they are kind of cutting themselves off at the knees. People are going to want multiple and be unable to justify buying them. And, if they get addicted to the technology but hate the implementation... they may actually switch to the competitor. In fact, if they have a line-in, you could shove a Chromecast Audio in there and tie it in with the multi-room audio for your Google Home.
And there is the icing on the cake. If your target is audiophiles, why not build something akin to Chromecast Audio but with a mic array and a bit of smarts to give it the full Siri experience? You could sell the technologies to partners in addition to standalone devices. Audiophiles could add Siri to whatever high quality device they want. Smart speakers may, obviously be about audio as well. But they are primarily about propagating digital assistants. This is why everyone else started in the mid market first and then targeted the low end before going after premium.
The goal is not to sell 1. It is to get one in every room over time. HomePod has no chance at that for the average consumer. And now it may fail before it even has a chance to put products which would help with that effort.
Its just my opinion of course. But, for the above reasons, I feel like Apple missed an opportunity both with Siri and with audiophiles.
Let's start by looking at the individual points. And the first up is messaging and calls. I don't have an iPhone, but aside from replacing my wife's name with "my wife" the example mentioned doesn't sound at all different from what I do with Google Assistant. But, let's draw a few quick points here... they mention calling. And I can totally do that with Google Home. And while the Echo is nifty, it isn't part of a bigger successful ecosystem. So, while Amazon may be "winning" today, I don't actually consider them a major player in the longer run.
As far as messaging is concerned... how does that even make sense? That question needs an explanation, because I know a ton of people are scratching their heads saying "HEY WAIT, I'D USE A SMART SPEAKER TO TEXT SOMEONE". And, if you have only one smart speaker total (and maybe at the cost of a HomePod that is the expectation) it makes *some* sense.
Why does the number of speakers matter? I'm SOOOOOO glad you asked. Why would you send a message, in general, from a smart speaker rather than your phone? Most likely because you're a tool playing around with technology, or you phone isn't with you. I can't help with the first case. Voice technology is great for things like composing messages... when it works. And it is a pain in the ass when it doesn't. But, more importantly, most conversations aren't one sided. If your phone isn't on you, and you have multiple speakers, how and where do you get the response?
Conversations are generally of a somewhat private nature, you maybe don't want it, or even the reception of the message to be broadcast on every speaker in your household. Even if I have nothing to hide, I have no reason to have either the contents of even the existence of my messages read to an entire household. To actually have a conversation via a messaging platform, realistically, I'm going to be using a phone. Messaging is NOT a strength. It is a gimmick. And a piss poor one. It just sounds good to people who haven't actually thought through the scenario.
And, calls as already stated, on the only viable competing platform... they exist in a perfectly workable fashion.
Sound was the second caveat. Everything I've heard says that the Google Home Max, which is really the actual competitor of this, provides pretty damn good, loud sound. I get the target may be audiophiles but even if it is better, the praise for the sound quality on the Google Home Max is good enough. And, sound these days can be about more than the performance of an individual unit. And I would say that multi-room audio which is mentioned later in the article more than levels the playing field.
I think you truly need to try multi-room audio to understand how it blows ANY single speaker solution out of the water. I can get a nice ambient level of music throughout the entire house without any room sounding too loud or too quiet. I don't need to keep changing devices. It is brilliant.
Apple Music as a pro is an entirely questionable addition. Every platform has offerings. Spotify is available on virtually everything and the catalogue is the basically the same. Same for Google Play Music. But here is the part I don't get, without multi-room audio, even without direct support, I can use an Echo or a GH device as a BT speaker and cast Apple Music, even from an Android device. Sure, I don't get to voice commands, but both Echo and GH have multiple solutions which WILL work both natively on their smart speakers and within the Apple ecosystem if that happens to be where you hang your hat.
Notes I'll give them. But, I'll also point out... there is nothing stopping Google from adding this. Adding a note taking feature would be rather simplistic actually.
Privacy is another thing which is legitimately different. But, for the average user I don't see it being a differentiator worth choosing one product or ecosystem over the other.
Before I go off on my final tangent... I want to point out, even if I couldn't negate the pros for HomePod, I felt they were all stretching. Nothing in that list, alone or in tandem would have been enough to make me want to buy it over the competition. But the list in favor of the competition contains almost exclusively drool worthy differences. Actions and Skills are the equivalent of apps. In short, at the moment Apple has nothing but 1st party and partner offerings. Alexa and Google offer tons. General music, is the least convincing argument here, but it is still better than JUST Apple Music. Multi-room audio, as I mentioned is big enough to decimate any difference in audio quality. Display is huge if you're into that. And lastly price, which needs no real discussion.
The final rant on this topic is, in a way linked to price, multi-room audio and sound quality. I harped on sound quality topic because A) the device is unreleased and untested and B) even if it is amazing and clearly beats all competition, the competition is still good enough for most people. I argue that multi-room audio, with such a small gap in individual unit quality is a huge differentiator. I suspect the author ignored this for a simple reason. You're probably not thinking much about multi-room audio when your only speaker option is large and expensive.
But, overlooking the multi-room audio argument is downright idiotic. This a smart speaker. And the primary thing distinguishing it from a normal speaker is a voice-only controlled digital assistant. Houses tend to have... walls. And various floors and rooms. Things which interfere with a smart speakers ability to hear you.
By starting with the most expensive option, Apple isn't really stopping people buying into their notion, but they are kind of cutting themselves off at the knees. People are going to want multiple and be unable to justify buying them. And, if they get addicted to the technology but hate the implementation... they may actually switch to the competitor. In fact, if they have a line-in, you could shove a Chromecast Audio in there and tie it in with the multi-room audio for your Google Home.
And there is the icing on the cake. If your target is audiophiles, why not build something akin to Chromecast Audio but with a mic array and a bit of smarts to give it the full Siri experience? You could sell the technologies to partners in addition to standalone devices. Audiophiles could add Siri to whatever high quality device they want. Smart speakers may, obviously be about audio as well. But they are primarily about propagating digital assistants. This is why everyone else started in the mid market first and then targeted the low end before going after premium.
The goal is not to sell 1. It is to get one in every room over time. HomePod has no chance at that for the average consumer. And now it may fail before it even has a chance to put products which would help with that effort.
Its just my opinion of course. But, for the above reasons, I feel like Apple missed an opportunity both with Siri and with audiophiles.
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