
Apple HomePod – a missed opportunity - jhatax
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-11-21/why-apple-s-homepod-is-three-years-behind-amazon-s-echo
======
LeoPanthera
> The HomePod will be mostly limited to playing tunes from Apple Music,
> controlling Apple-optimized smart home appliances and sending messages
> through an iPhone.

I have an Alexa and this is literally all I do with it - music, smart home
stuff, and maybe the occasional timer - except for sending messages, which it
can't do.

I briefly tried some of the "skills" but they're awkward as hell. You have to
say something along the lines of "Tell <app name> to <command>". Yikes.

So I'm pretty excited about the HomePod. Improved audio quality for music
playback is genuinely enough to convince me. The assistant parts are just
software, Apple can improve that in the future.

~~~
dbbk
Useless for anyone who listens to music through Spotify, though, which is
still the majority of the streaming market.

~~~
d3ckard
Exactly! It's super annoying that Apple started discriminating 3rd party
services in Siri support. I tried Apple Music, it's ok, but I support Spotify
for a reason - I do not want to live in a world of conglomerates in power of
every aspect of my life. And I have the right for that decision, so Apple
could respect it and allow me to listen to music on my preferred service,
since I already spent a lot of money on their devices and going to spend more,
if they stop annoying me.

~~~
JohnBooty
Hard to know what goes on behind the scenes in any particular case but I think
this "discrimination" goes both ways.

For content like that to be a first-class citizen on iOS/tvOS, the providers
(Spotify, etc) would need to expose the relevant metadata, APIs, etc to Apple.

I know that on Apple TV, there were a lot of providers who balked at providing
that information, preventing Apple from fully implementing relevantly simple
features like system-wide content search.

I certainly don't _blame_ the providers, because they wanted to maintain more
branding and autonomy rather than being a faceless Yet Another Source of
Content on AppleTV, because at that point they'd be essentially faceless
interchangeable.

~~~
mikeash
Spotify on iOS exposes metadata and basic commands. When music is playing, the
track info and album art shows up on the lock screen, and you can pause or
skip using the lock screen buttons. Apple makes a standard API available for
that stuff, and apparently Spotify is happy to participate.

Seems to me that Apple could pretty easily let any app opt in to Siri
integration too. All they'd really have to do is pass commands saying "play
song/album/artist named X" to the app, and let the app handle it from there.
Add a setting somewhere to let the user choose which music app they want to
use for Siri, or make them specify it as part of the command, and off you go.

If Apple offered this and apps like Spotify refused to participate, _then_
maybe we could talk about this going both ways.

~~~
evilduck
Other than setting a default app, isn't the SiriKit SDK exactly what you
describe?

Edit: Nevermind, looks like Music apps are explicitly not allowed.

~~~
mikeash
Exactly! Apple has explicitly opened up Siri to certain kinds of third-party
apps... but not music.

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Juliate
Doesn't it look like the very same playbook for every new Apple product?

Every single new product is behind the existing competition in so many ways
(or going in such a different direction) at launch. Industry experts "don't
understand" why.

But for a set of properties that are/become their distinctive anchors into
people's mindset. So people can't really compare side-by-side: it looks/feels
like a different thing.

Then Apple builds from that while the competition tries to copy/adjust their
course.

~~~
gmueckl
The iPod and the iPhone had something new and significant to their credit at
launch (the music store with a big collection on launch and the touch based
interface, respectively). What pushes the HomeBox ahead of its competition? I
don't see it.

~~~
Juliate
iPod was first released in 2001, with an updated iTunes. On a technical
ground, not that much different than the competition at the time (poor
battery, not the biggest memory). The message focused on benefits, not on the
technical details.

iTunes Store was a (huge) complement to it, released 16 months after that.

iPhone was significantly different, yes. Without 3G, just a barely good enough
battery on first release. Those were a basic expectation for other market
phones at the time.

As for HomePod, can't say before I see/touch it for real. Watch for
complements too.

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chrisvalleybay
I really hope Apple is working on those glasses, and hard. This product
category, the speaker, is a hard one for Apple, much because the Apple Watch
basically is a wearable Siri. What however worries me, is that Apple has yet
to be able to make Siri an attractive product. I mostly just use it to set
timers.. Doing something with a virtual assistant seldomly will include only
voice, except basic tasks such as setting reminders, timers etc. one-off
commands, basically. Other things, more complex tasks, mostly require multiple
actions, and a screen, like on the Apple Watch or iPhone will let you browse
and select those tasks.

We have hailed the voice interface as “the next big thing”, but think about
it; what are you actually doing through voice today? Not much. What have we
historically been doing through voice? Getting information, browsing
information, that might for instance lead to a purchase or other actions,
mostly have been done either in person (in a shop), through some sort of
purchasing form in a catalog, or more recently on a screen. Why? Because the
voice is a low-bandwidth interface. One-off commands are fine, because they
aren’t limited (as much) by the bandwidth of this interface, but anything more
complex doesn’t really work.

Think about voice as an interface over a phone call, it’s not really good
enough. It’s always better to meet someone in person, than just talking on the
phone. Why? Because we get to use our eyes, and we get to express emotions.
The interface has higher bandwidth. The screen is not the same thing, but it
has much higher bandwidth than the voice alone. When you think about the phone
or the watch, you can have both voice and the screen, whereas on a speaker you
can not.

I’m not sure what I am trying to say, just thinking aloud, I guess.

Edit: Formatting

~~~
paul7986
I used Siri pretty religiously since 2011 til 2015. There I bought my first
smart speaker which then and in comparison made using Siri very frustrating so
I stopped using it. Though with my iPhone 8 Siri has finally caught up to its
voice assistant competitors and I use it constantly in my car to control
what’s streaming in my car. Like Hey Siri play similar songs and boom she
creates a pandora station and plays it. Hey Siri add this to my songs... hey
Siri where are you (to find misplaced phone .., this one needs to be way more
reliable though)

Wishlist for me would be.. hey Siri play recently added songs. Frustrating it
doesn’t do this already, but maybe an Apple engineer will see this :)

Overall Siri in 2017 is pretty solid and Apple should release a more
innovative HomePod. Like one where I ask “Siri show me the weather,” and boom
I hear and also see a display beamed onto a wall. That Jibo has a perfect form
factor and UX for projecting onto a wall.

~~~
ninkendo
> Wishlist for me would be.. hey Siri play recently added songs. Frustrating
> it doesn’t do this already, but maybe an Apple engineer will see this :)

She definitely already does this - “Hey siri, play recently added” does
exactly what you want... looks like “play recently added songs” plays music by
a band named Recently Added. Which IMO is what I should expect.

~~~
paul7986
Not for me. See this screenshot.

[https://imgur.com/a/yBqfm](https://imgur.com/a/yBqfm)

It’s start playing recently played. Errgh... what are you seeing?

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Jhsto
It will be interesting to see how well the HomePod will integrate with other
devices. I have fiddled some with home automation and unfortunately, working
with Apple products has been a miserable experience. I see no role of Apple
devices in my or anyone else's setup unless they will open up their devices a
bit.

For example, as far as I know, if I want to use Alexa to play something on an
Apple TV, I need to use libraries which have reverse engineered the IR remote.
Why can't I stream video to a specific URL and be done with it?

If it takes Apple this long to ship a smart speaker, how do they think to keep
up with integrating (or producing their own proprietary) building blocks for
the smart home vertical? If their devices on the smart home vertical continue
to be as closed as the Apple TV, people will be completely locked-in Apple's
ability to produce new devices, which certainly hasn't seem to be in their
recent past interest.

Chinese companies like Xiaomi have shown far better judgment for the future by
implementing MQTT protocols for their devices.

I just think Apple's take as of now is a lost cause if they seek to dominate
the space with the same sort of walled-garden approach as they did with apps.
Applying gardens to physical devices space as wide as a smart home will take
much more effort than it does for software.

~~~
Helmet
_It will be interesting to see how well the HomePod will integrate with other
devices._

It will most likely integrate perfectly and seamlessly with other Apple
devices, and maybe not so much with other manufacturers.

 _I have fiddled some with home automation and unfortunately, working with
Apple products has been a miserable experience._

Really? They are generally considered to be the UX/UI standard and have,
arguably, built their entire company on optimizing these two things.

 _If it takes Apple this long to ship a smart speaker, how do they think to
keep up with integrating (or producing their own proprietary) building blocks
for the smart home vertical?_

Apple generally releases products with a more narrow scope, and then iterates
on those products. This has been their general approach, and it seems to be
working well for them.

 _If their devices on the smart home vertical continue to be as closed as the
Apple TV, people will be completely locked-in Apple 's ability to produce new
devices, which certainly hasn't seem to be in their recent past interest._

People have been "locked in" into their services and devices for years now,
yet they keep coming back.

 _I just think Apple 's take as of now is a lost cause if they seek to
dominate the space with the same sort of walled-garden approach_

Every single reasonable business metric (stock price, sales, growth, etc.)
would indicate that you are wrong and those folks in Cupertino must be doing
something right, but hey I guess this could be the thing that dooms Apple to
mediocrity.

------
quesera
If the HomePod is able to play audio from local (Home sharing) iTunes
libraries, I'll buy two.

Unfortunately and inexplicably, the marketing so far says it will only play
songs from Apple Music. If true, I will buy none.

------
oflannabhra
I've long thought that the end-game for voice control is an omnipresent
interaction. For example, using Siri across my watch, phone, computer, or
speaker seamlessly and with shared context. Whether that is achieved through
device-to-device communication (most likely Apple's approach) or device-cloud-
device interaction is pretty irrelevant to the end game of voice control.

I actually agree with Phil Schiller's comment that most of the use cases for
voice control aren't facilitated by a device without a screen. [1] Apple's
advantage is that the design of a HomePod can basically assume that a nearby
iPhone or iPad is available without having to launch an app.

Somewhat ironically, Nest actually seems to have one of the best approaches
I've seen to architecting a platform for such omnipresent interactions to take
place on, with Nest OpenWeave[2].

[1] - [https://gadgets.ndtv.com/apps/features/phil-schiller-
upgrade...](https://gadgets.ndtv.com/apps/features/phil-schiller-upgrade-
pricing-google-home-amazon-echo-swift-1690180) [2] -
[https://github.com/openweave/openweave-
core](https://github.com/openweave/openweave-core)

------
Helloworldboy
Personally I wish they'd just combine the HomePod and the Apple TV into a
single product. Throw in wireless router capabilities and you have the
ultimate home device.

~~~
snarf21
I agree that this is where the market will eventually go but you have a
conflict of use. Most people are going to hide Apple TV in a cabinet somewhere
which is not so great for the speaker and microphone of the HomePod.

------
thisisit
> Amazon offers thousands of “skills” (voice-activated apps) that let users do
> a range of things (including buy stuff from Amazon). _The Google Home Mini,
> which debuted earlier this year, is similarly endowed._

Is there a store for Google Home apps? I have been trying for last couple of
days with no luck.

~~~
gregsadetsky
Based on what I’m finding in “best Google Home Skills” articles, the “store”
can only be accessed from mobile:

[https://beebom.com/best-google-assistant-skills-
actions/](https://beebom.com/best-google-assistant-skills-actions/)

> Just long press on the home button to summon the Google Assistant and then
> tap on the button at the top-right corner. That should take you to the
> “Explore” page where you can explore all the skills and actions that Google
> Assistant has to offer you, categorised into various handy categories.

[https://lifehacker.com/the-best-google-assistant-skills-
to-u...](https://lifehacker.com/the-best-google-assistant-skills-to-use-with-
your-googl-1792134538)

> you can find a list in the Google Home app. To find it, tap the menu button
> in the top left corner, tap “More settings” and then “Services.” Here you’ll
> find a list of services you can try. Tap one of them to get a description
> and some sample commands you can use.

------
Yizahi
Beamforming in a device of HomePod size is a joke. Yamaha builds sound
projectors (as they brand them) for years and "smaller" models still can't do
this. Their first model in lineup that actually has beamforming capabilities
that works is a bigass soundbar more than a meter long with 20+ speakers of
all sizes and fancy algos to calculate spatial configuration. And it requires
that it should be put in a specific room size and plan, in a specific
position. Next model has like 50 speakers and is even bigger. This HomePod is
just another small wireless speaker, I don't think it is possible to do any
high quality music with it or beamforming.

~~~
LeoPanthera
Do we have any reason to suspect that Apple is lying?

It's lucky that Apple don't listen to the millions of internet commenters
telling them that their products can't work.

~~~
Yizahi
Typical dialog on the internet:

xxx: Apple devices specific function Z won't work properly because of this and
that.

yyy: so you say Apple device "can't work", you are "one of the millions"

------
jhatax
Edit: Fixed a typo in the title.

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zython
Why anyone would have such a device in their home is still beyond me. I can
turn on my lights, play music and manage my calendar just fine without the
direct line to the NSA in my living room.

~~~
Matt3o12_
You mean like a smartphone, tablet, smart tv, and laptop? They all have the
same capacities and most of them are always on.

~~~
zython
yes, not to the extreme of smartphones tables and laptops (since all of them
are more or less capable of running on linux) but smart tv for me fall into
the same category as these "smart home" aka mass surveillance devices,
especially because it has been proven that they have been used for
surveillance.

~~~
Matt3o12_
I agree with laptops but I’d say smartphones are worse because they are always
on, always tracking your location (the smartphone via its location service and
your cell carrier). I’d say smartphones have an even worse track record
because of how they manage to circumvent location service restrictions
(through your WiFi SSID, cellular triangulation) as well as asking for almost
all of the permissions you have available.

