Gruber, like him or hate him, has really hit the nail on the head when attempting to elucidate Apple's thinking towards HomePod. > First, “What if we turned __

Gruber, like him or hate him, has really hit the nail on the head when attempting to elucidate Apple's thinking towards HomePod. > First, “What if we turned ____ into a small advanced computer?” is arguably Apple’s mantra for entering new product categories. > The difference between HomePod and Amazon Echo isn’t that they’re in different product categories. [...] The difference is in the priorities behind the devices. [...] HomePod’s first priority is clearly audio quality. That’s why it costs $350. Amazon has placed a higher priority on price I think Apple's philosophy towards products is "What does a user want to do, and how can we uniquely enable that through design and hardware." Apple has seen that people really want to play music in their home, and with HomePod they have a unique hardware solution and premium experience. That's why I think Gruber is correct in his thinking re: Apple Music exclusivity: > It is unclear at this point whether third-party “Hey Siri” playback support is the way Apple wants HomePod to be, simply something they haven’t gotten around to yet, or still up in the air internally (like native apps on iPhone back in 2007). Some people seem convinced that HomePod doesn’t support external services through “Hey Siri” out of competitive spite with Spotify. I would say that’s certainly possible, but I’m not convinced. [...] my gut says they’ll make the most money by making HomePod more useful, even if that means opening up an SDK that allows for competitors to Apple Music. HomePod might not be a success, and it definitely has some shortcomings. But, given Apple's ability to iterate and change, I probably wouldn't bet against the HomePod being successful at some point in the future. I think, if anything, some of HomePod's most glaring shortcomings are actually Siri's architectural shortcomings. There is a different Siri on each device, with different capabilities. That seems like one of the biggest technical challenges making SiriKit advancements non-trivial.