Apple Finally Announces Release Date For HomePod And Releases More Spectre And Meltdown Fixes

6 responses to “Apple Finally Announces Release Date For HomePod And Releases More Spectre And Meltdown Fixes”

1. 

   si

   January 24, 2018

   So not only is it more expensive than the competition, it has less features and is locked into the Apple ecosystem.

   I guess thats pretty standard for Apple.

   But are anyone but the Apple diehards going to care enough to buy this? I picked up a Google Home, 2 Google Home Minis and a Chromecast Audio for around $250 over the Christmas period, and they allow me to use Spotify for music, and mostly work with IOS too (of course you cant cast anything from the Apple software suite, but Spotify casts no problem from IOS devices.

   They are going to have to make it more feature rich quickly, because the Google Home Max will blow it out of the water when it comes out if they dont, pretty much everyone I know got at least 1 Google home device (home or mini) for Christmas. And a lot of people like to stick with something once they buy into it.

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   1. 

      poita

      January 24, 2018

      But are anyone but the Apple diehards going to care enough to buy this? I picked up a Google Home, 2 Google Home Minis and a Chromecast Audio for around $250 over the Christmas period, and they allow me to use Spotify for music, and mostly work with IOS too (of course you cant cast anything from the Apple software suite, but Spotify casts no problem from IOS devices.

      It depends on what you want. Sound quality is going to be the decider for me, and as for being ‘feature rich’ a lot of the time the excess of features tend to get in the way with some companies implementations.

      a lot of people like to stick with something once they buy into it.

      You mean like Apple diehards? ;^)

      In all seriousness, this is not meant to be any competition for a Google mini, just like the iPhones aren’t competition for a $300 phone. It is more competition for the higher model Sonos etc. and in that space it will be the audio quality that will make or break it.

      The other big plus for me is privacy, I’m not keen on Google or Amazon mining my life, so I steer clear of those products, Apple seems to be the only major company that isn’t using their customers as product at the moment, and that is a big plus for me personally.

      The lack of multi-room speaker functionality is a big miss for Apple.
      Yes and no, multi-room is coming, so while it is annoying it isn’t there day one, I don’t think that will deter people too much as it will be updated. I’d rather it come later and work, that have a flaky implementation available now. The other products other than Sonos don’t do it very well.

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      1. 

         si

         January 24, 2018

         I’m not keen on Google or Amazon mining my life, so I steer clear of those products, Apple seems to be the only major company that isn’t using their customers as product at the moment, and that is a big plus for me personally.

         This is true I guess, but on the flip side, they are pushing it for music, and the only supported music service is Apple Music, which requires a subscription, I’m guessing they will also support airplay for playing music from other iDevices which might make the device compatible with other services via that route.

         But I don’t believe for a second that they aren’t doing a big chunk of data mining on their customers, they just aren’t using that data like Google and Amazon which are first and foremost an Advertising company and an eCommerce company respectively.

         At least not yet…..

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   2. 

      ijameson

      January 24, 2018

      Don’t be shocked when the police start asking Google and Amazon for the voice data they collect.

      Very good speakers are expensive. We will find out in a couple of weeks if they deserve to be called very good.

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2. 

   poita

   January 24, 2018

   So not only is it more expensive than the competition, it has less features and is locked into the Apple ecosystem.
   because the Google Home Max will blow it out of the water when it comes out if they dont,

   The Google Max is USD50 more than the Apple product, and the Sonos 5 is USD150 more expensive than the Apple product in this case. You can find cheaper units than the homepod, but you can find a lower quality cheaper phone than an S8 but it doesn’t mean the Sammy is more expensive than its competitors.

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3. 

   si

   January 24, 2018

   The Google Max is USD50 more than the Apple product, and the Sonos 5 is USD150 more expensive than the Apple product in this case

   Good point, and I probably should have looked up the price of the Google home max before spouting off gut feelings.

   Having said that, if the GMax and the Homepod offer similar sound quality (which remains to be seen) but the features that the Homepod is currently lacking aren’t added quick enough, the I’m not sure that being 50 bucks cheaper will be enough to make the Homepod stand out. Of course I’m no expert in any of this stuff so this is purely opinion

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