40 ms·
When I saw this, I actually had the opposite reaction. I remember when I first saw an iPod Nano with the color screen and the scroll wheel that magically scrol
by dkrich 9y ago
When I saw this, I actually had the opposite reaction.
I remember when I first saw an iPod Nano with the color screen and the scroll wheel that magically scrolled up and down by just moving your finger around it without actually turning a wheel. It seemed like magic. Same thing when I first saw the iPhone/iPod Touch. Apple's products were very carefully designed and only released when they were perfect, and very rarely failed to wow you.
Amazon on the other hand, always seems to rush things to market and then see what sticks. I understand that this is largely their ethos, but when it comes to Amazon hardware, I've found myself pretty cynical towards it because they've released so much poorly-executed crap over the years. Even with Alexa, I like many others, find that it's pretty much useless for anything beyond playing music or setting a timer.
Having an Echo, I saw this and my first thought was "meh." I have a feeling that if Apple released a similar product category, that wouldn't be the case.
- ganfortran 9y agoBut Amazon's products are cheap. Echo first gets out, it is merely 99 dollars, and at the time, a vanilla bluetooth speaker worth that much. It is about accessibility.
- lowtolerance 9y agoAmazon Echo was $199 when it was first introduced, which was still fairly competitively priced against premium bluetooth speakers.
- dkrich 9y agoAlso the Fire Phone, which as I remember was priced at about $650.
- aslkdjaslkdj 9y agoIt was $99 for Prime members.
- btgeekboy 9y agoIf you preordered when it was first announced, it was $99. Once it was released, the price returned to full $199.
- iamatworknow 9y agoPrime subscribers were offered it for $99 when it was first announced. I think you had to get put on a waiting list but that's how I ended up with mine.
- lowtolerance 9y agoMy mistake. I haven't been a prime subsciber for many years, and didn't realize that they got such a great deal on the Echo at first.
- iamatworknow 9y agoThe deal didn't last very long and I don't think many people were familiar with the idea of a home personal assistant device at the time. Siri was around but I think by that point (late 2014) the hype had faded for that quite a bit. There were a few Kickstarters[0] that were trying to tackle the idea but none of them took off, and Amazon came along and made them obsolete. The Echo was very, very bare bones in terms of functionality at the start. There were like half a dozen basic commands and that was it, so my guess is people who saw the Prime invitations for it didn't think it was even worth the $99. I just scrolled through my inbox to find the oldest "What's new with Alexa" message I was sent from January 30, 2015, and it mentions adding Pandora/Spotify support as well as making the companion phone apps available, so those didn't even exist for the first few months Echo was for sale. [0] https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/607691307/ubi-the-ubiquitous-computer-voice-activated-and-al-0/description https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/607691307/ubi-the-ubiqu...
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- trapperkeeper79 9y agoMy latest gen Apple TV wants to disagree with you. As does my wife's first gen Apple Watch ... both are magical turds IMHO.
- dkrich 9y agoI don't own an Apple Watch, but I know lots of people who do and love them. But in any case, I think the last ten years of iPhone and iPad releases do somewhat agree with me.
- msabalau 9y agoSo if we only look at Apple's successful products, we can agree that Apple's only makes "very carefully designed" things..
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- ben174 9y agoIt's amazing that the Apple TV is considered a turd. They seemingly did everything right. Support for third party apps, an awesome remote, decent power. Aside from missing 4k, what makes it such a turd?
- ejtek 9y agoI agree Apple does release a far higher quality product which is why I'm a fan. Your point about the iPod Nano and iPhone/iPod Touch is a great one. Apple does have a track record of holding back and releasing a much more relevant and well thought out product in the end. I guess I question if this is even a product category they want to get into or if they feel that from a utility standpoint the ability to just say "Hey Siri..." from any apple device already fits the bill for most use cases.
- jasonsync 9y agoI see what you did there. "Apple's products were very carefully designed..."