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Yesterday I launched a guide to buying Apple products for 2018, focused on selecting the best Apple Watch, iPad, iPhone, Mac and accessories, in anticipation of the Black Friday-Cyber shopping period Monday. Apple's $ 349 HomePod, the $ 349 "smart speaker" I've reviewed here, has left me out, even though it's very likely to get discounts.
I bought HomePod right out of the box, and in a year that has seen more and more new Apple devices, this is the only purchase I regret to keep. Since I had been home for nine months in my house taking dust, I wanted to prevent it from accidentally becoming this year's "charcoal" gift to someone you care about. – even though it's on sale this week.
HomePod is a simple concept. The all-in-one speaker can stream audio from Apple Music or Apple devices, answer voice commands with the help of Siri and control HomeKit smart home accessories. The official Apple HomePod page shows the speaker sitting alone in a living room, but the company has suggested sitting in a kitchen, a dining room or a shelf. Gray and white versions are available.
The HomePod is inspired by previous smart speakers: it incorporates multiple tweeters and a woofer into a 7-inch-tall tube, rather than a traditional box form with separate left and right sides. Because of his round body, he projects the audio in multiple directions instead of playing music with his original stereo separation. If you want something closer to real stereo, you need to buy a second HomePod, assuming you're ready to pay $ 700 for a pair of speakers as small.
Apple deserves credit for trying to improve HomePod after its initial release. The speaker was delivered in February without the initial promise of support for stereo or multi-room playback, but Apple turned on these features at the end of May. In September, HomePod gained skills in phone calls, multiple countdowns, recognition of the Spanish language and support for Siri Shortcuts. In addition to being able to market HomePod in more countries, Apple wanted to make it a kitchen companion in the kitchen – a market recently targeted by Amazon's Echo speakers and recent Google Assistant devices with screens. missing at HomePod.
The main problem for Apple is that HomePod is ridiculously expensive compared to competing smart speakers. Almost all of its competitors are sold for less than $ 200, and the top sellers are between $ 50 and $ 150. Ordinary people have installed several Amazon Echo speakers at home because it's really affordable to do it.
Amazon led the industry in popularizing smart speakers. He recently launched his third generation Echo Dot for $ 50. give them with the holiday shopping of some technology gadgets; a recurring contract offered them for one dollar (plus taxes) with a new Amazon Music Unlimited subscription. Last year, Echo Dot was Amazon's most popular holiday product among "all manufacturers, all categories", and the new version is even more enjoyable, with a fabric exterior similar to that of HomePod.
Yes, HomePod sounds better, but in a typical kitchen or on a shelf, it will not sound seven times better than an Echo Dot, even if it costs seven times more. If you really need more competitive audio, Amazon, Google, Sonos and others already have options equal to or lower than the price of HomePod with more attractive features. Amazon alone offers a surprisingly large number of new and improved echo options for this year and next year.
Above: Third generation Echo Dot.
Image Credit: Jeremy Horwitz / VentureBeat
The other major problem with HomePod is that Amazon's and Google's solutions are smarter and easier to use than Apple's Siri solutions. The new Echo Dot has arrived at home and, with zero work in addition to connecting its power cable, to settle on my Wi-Fi network, connect to my Amazon account and update automatically its firmware. Just like the Echo Spot that I bought last year, it instantly responds to Alexa 's requests and surprises me regularly by its extensibility. It offers the kind of fun and frictionless experience that I could recommend to everyone and, unlike the HomePod, you will feel comfortable placing it anywhere in a home.
All year long, rumors ran about the fact that Apple was working on a smaller and more affordable version of the HomePod. It remains to be seen whether it will come out or if Apple will completely exit the smart speaker market. In general, the company does not abandon a new product line after a single problematic release (see: Apple Watch), but that's what happened with its latest in-house speaker, the iPod Hi-Fi, years ago.
My advice for the holiday season is to let the current HomePod, even if it is significantly reduced, because the same dollars could be used to buy one of Apple's top products, or a whole fleet of Echo Dots products. Unless you plan to give HomePod to someone with a very specific need for Apple Music speaker, do not be surprised if this turns out to be a pretty expensive disappointment.
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