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I've drawn no conclusions about the success of HomePod. I'm explaining why consumers have indicated that they want it, and why people are excited by it despite

I've drawn no conclusions about the success of HomePod. I'm explaining why consumers have indicated that they want it, and why people are excited by it despite it being a "dumb computer" as so many others seem to think. The thing is, whether you like HomePod or not depends on if you want a smart assistant or if you want a really good speaker for your home. If you want the latter, there are few good solutions as elegant as HomePod and if you're in the Apple ecosystem - it's a no brainer at the $350 price point - it really is. It will sell and I think anyone in the market for a high quality audio solution for their home recently will agree (if this is you, then chime in with your experience!). If you want a smart assistant and don't care about the speaker quality as much, then there are tons of alternatives in the market for you at far cheaper price points. HomePod doesn't make sense if all you care about is a smart assistant. Now if you think the metric of success always has to be "Oh but it doesn't match iPhone sales numbers" then Apple will never succeed in your eyes. iPhone is perhaps one of the greatest businesses to have ever been conceived in history by all metrics. Grading a business against that kind of success for literally every subsequent product is not realistic (not saying you are, but many people do tend to do this and it baffles me).

refulgentis 9y ago
I stopped at "Customers have indicated they want it": that's vague enough to be unassailable, yet crucial backbone for 2 essays about how "many people" are fundamentally misunderstanding consumer electronics demand, thus they're not qualified to critique HomePod as a product. I don't think there's much chance of having a productive conversation
- askafriend 9y ago
  Look, obviously we don't have sales data - I'm not oblivious to that fact, and I know it's early - the product just launched last week. The only thing we can have a conversation around is the general sentiment among the audio community and the general excitement about the product by people in the press, and various market analysts' proxies. The perspective I'm trying to give you is just one of the product landscape in the market. If you're in the market for this type of device, there aren't many out there and the ones that are out there have significant flaws at any price point. Look at how successful Sonos is - there is clearly a market for this kind of device - at the very least you must see that. Then look at how large Apple's consumer base is and look at the recently reported numbers for the growth of Apple Music - their paid subscriber rate is about to eclipse Spotify's. Right now, we can only have a conversation around proxies for reasons you pointed out, but all proxies indicate a high probability of at least moderate success.

refulgentis 9y ago

I stopped at "Customers have indicated they want it": that's vague enough to be unassailable, yet crucial backbone for 2 essays about how "many people" are fundamentally misunderstanding consumer electronics demand, thus they're not qualified to critique HomePod as a product. I don't think there's much chance of having a productive conversation

askafriend 9y ago
Look, obviously we don't have sales data - I'm not oblivious to that fact, and I know it's early - the product just launched last week. The only thing we can have a conversation around is the general sentiment among the audio community and the general excitement about the product by people in the press, and various market analysts' proxies. The perspective I'm trying to give you is just one of the product landscape in the market. If you're in the market for this type of device, there aren't many out there and the ones that are out there have significant flaws at any price point. Look at how successful Sonos is - there is clearly a market for this kind of device - at the very least you must see that. Then look at how large Apple's consumer base is and look at the recently reported numbers for the growth of Apple Music - their paid subscriber rate is about to eclipse Spotify's. Right now, we can only have a conversation around proxies for reasons you pointed out, but all proxies indicate a high probability of at least moderate success.