Apple Just Quietly Announced One of their Best Products, and Loudly Announced One of their Worst

The regular apple peaked with the pie innovation

The 2017 Apple WWDC (World Wide Developers Conference for those of you not in the know) is currently in full swing. The estimated 5000 attendees packed in on day one to hear the Apple brass talk new software, and some new hardware, to loyal Apple fans worldwide. The WWDC is not the place for new iPhone launches, except for the 3GS and 4 models, but is a place for the Cupertino company to show off new software and sometimes for them to show off their next wave of home computers. Previous WWDC saw the reveal of macOS, the App Store, and Safari. The pressure is usually not as high for the company as it is for an iPhone launch, but plenty of people still pay attention. No matter what Apple does, when they take the stage, people listen.

The 2017 edition of the WWDC was heavy on new software upgrades. Apple's latest operating system, named High Sierra, was put on display. iOS 11 received some new updates including enhanced augmented reality abilities. The voice assistant Siri is getting some much-needed updating. These reveals and updates are par for the course at WWDC.

Lost in all the hoopla of the software advances, Apple announced one of their most mind-blowing products ever. The new iMac Pro is one of the most beautiful, and insanely powerful, computers ever packaged for the consumer market. The specs on this machine, and the price to own one, is off the charts. Much like the light bulb for General Electric, Apple seems to keep its computer business around to show respect to their past. This part of the business is usually neglected. This WWDC is different. With the incredibly iMac Pro, Apple just released the best home computer a whole lot of money could buy.

The iMac Pro was not the big reveal at the 2017 WWDC. That honor was reserved for Apple's entry into the marketplace of smart speakers. The new HomePod joins the Amazon Echo, Google Home, and whatever Microsoft says is coming as the big kids on the personal assistant speaker market. The Siri in a speaker will tell you the news, play music, and do other not described things like all the smart speakers that came before. Apple is confident that their loyal fanbase will give up their Echos, Google Homes, or newly jump into the smart speaker market with their branded offering. The HomePod goes on sale at the end of 2017 for $350.

The Apple HomePod is the dumbest product Apple has ever been happy to sell to their customers. Most of the time Apple will see a market where no one has found the true potential, and then they take over that market with a well thought out product. Apple's offerings are never the best, they never do everything the customer wants, but they do the simple things extremely well. And they look good doing it. The HomePod is nothing like the successful products of Apple's past.

The HomePod is entering a marketplace where the Cupertino company's competitors have been adapting to the customers wants for over a year, and they are all doing it for far less money than what a HomePod will cost. Apple knows they are behind on the smart speaker market. The only way the presenters at the WWDC could differentiate the HomePod is to talk about how good it sounds. That has been proven to not be important for the smart speaker market. The original Amazon Echo was hailed by many in the tech media as a "premium" speaker with the benefits of Alexa. Once Amazon released the affordable Echo Dot, the one without a good speaker, sales skyrocketed. Amazon learned that people want a smart speaker for the smarts, not how the music sounds out of it. If someone wanted a great Bluetooth speaker, they would buy something from a company known for good speakers. Bose, Harmon Kardon, Sonos, they all offered great speakers for less than $300, and they all connect wirelessly to the Echo. Amazon and Google have already used Apple's model of introducing hardware, and now they will swat away the HomePod like all the other failures before.

Apple's claim of making the HomePod a great speaker shows how lost they are with the product. The tech press has predictably been there to hold the water for Apple's bad decisions. Once the HomePod is availbale for purchase, tech media sites like CNET and Gizmodo will no doubt praise Apple for having the best sounding smart speaker on the market. Check out this comically idiotic defense of the HomePod from the Cupertino bootlickers at Engadget. The author wants everyone to forget about the smart applications of the HomePod, and just focus on how awesome the speaker is. This is a speaker allegedly built by the scam artists who built the Beats Audio headphones and speakers. The same people who ruin good sound quality by overemphasizing bass and put unnecessary metal into their products so the headphones / speakers would feel heavy and therefore the consumer would think the product is high end. The HomePod was made by a group of people concerned more about marketing than they are concerned about actual audio quality. That should say all there is to say about the sound quality of the HomePod. 

Many of the Apple faithful will fall for the reviews from a subservient tech media, and they will trust their favorite company and buy the HomePod. These early adopters will then brag to everyone in their social media circles about the superior sound quality. These HomePoders will then have to deal with the smarts of Siri. Here is where they will lose. 

Siri is widely considered far and away the worst of the popular smart assistants, and the HomePod buyers will have only Apple's voice helper. No Spotify, limited use of smart home devices like thermostats and light bulbs, and spotty comprehension. Apple says Siri will be smarter, but they have said that before. In the HomePod reveal, the presenter spent almost no time on the smart assistant features that Echo and Home owners enjoy, and spent a bunch of time having Siri play music from the Apple Music app. On the biggest stage, Apple decided to not show the flaws of their new smart speaker by showing how dumb the HomePod really is.

All these early missteps of the HomePod makes the $350 price tag look even more ridiculous. For the same price people could buy any of these smart home combinations:

2 Amazon Echos (one for the main floor and one for the bedroom)

3 Google Homes (one for the kitchen, living room, and bedroom)

9 Echo Dots (One for every damn room you have, note: you can purchase six Dots for the price of five)

An Echo Dot and a Bose Soundlink Revolve + (this is listed as CNET's best Bluetooth speaker.)

An Echo Dot, Nest Thermostat, and two TP-Link Dimmable Smart Light-bulbs that work with Alexa

An Echo Dot, a Bose Sound Base, and a Harmony Hub (control the television with your voice, and connect to a high-end speaker with Alexa)

An Echo, Echo Dot(s), Google Home, and numerous smart bulbs, locks, streaming devices, whatever, because Amazon and Google have thousands of skills (apps) to properly connect your home. Talk to your house like you live on the bridge of the Starship Enterprise.

Therefore the $350 price tag for a bass heavy, not very smart speaker, is kind of dumb.

The HomePod will not end Apple. The software updates, the new iMac Pro, and the anticipated tenth anniversary iPhone will keep the small Cupertino company in business for a long time. On the backs of the useless Apple Pencil, the HomePod is just a little bit worrisome. Has Apple given up on innovation? Are they relying solely on the ability to separate idiots from their money? Let's hope not. We need the Apple that goes all out and shows off the new iMac Pro, not the one who tries to sell you an overbuilt, lacking usefulness, speaker. Let the HomePod die a Newton like death. Apple should know better.

RD

RD is the Founder and Head Editor for SeedSing. He created his MySpace profile on an original iMac. It had a red shell.

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Welcome to the Future: Wearables Part 2 - Android Wear

Our ability to tell time has come a long way

I too have been using one of these new wearable computers. RD went through his thoughts on the Microsoft Band seeing as he is a Windows Phone user. I, being primarily an Android user, went with a Samsung Gear Live which runs the Android Wear platform. I have been using it since July of 2014. After a little over a year, I can say that I will be sticking with it.

When I first saw Android Wear announced, I was curious. I did not think that I would end up using one of the first generation watches. I did not immediately plan to buy one as soon as one was available. Unlike RD, I was not going to the store hoping they had one in stock. I could have cared less if they were out of stock. How I came to purchase one was that I had traded in my old MacBook Air for some Amazon credit. After adding my Chromebook to the cart, I had about the same amount left over as the cost of the Gear Live. Amazon happened to have it in stock, so I thought I’d give it a try.

Before I go any further, I think that it might be notable to explain that, to this day, I am not convinced of the utility that a smartwatch provides to the average consumer. I once kept my phone in my left pocket. My watch goes on my left hand. It is not effectively more convenient for me to look at my wrist and get vibrations on my wrist as opposed to the same in my pocket. If I still used a pocketable smartphone, I would not have even tried an Android Wear watch.

At the time that I decided that my use case was such that I might benefit from Android Wear, I had a seven inch tablet, the Nexus 7, as my carry around communication device. At one point I had both an iPhone and a full sized iPad and had become frustrated by the complexity and needlessness of two touch screen devices and realized that I could do everything just fine with one smallish Android tablet. The only issue with this was that I often missed notifications. The tablet stayed in my bag or on a table somewhere in the house. I saw this watch as the solution to that issue.

Android Wear works great for getting me the notifications that I had been missing and freeing me from feeling that I need to be close enough to my tablet to hear the audible notifications. But Android Wear has other benefits too. I can read and reply to messages without having the device in my hand. The car connects to my tablet via bluetooth when I start it up and I can play music without digging it out of my bag. I like being able to set timers when I am cooking without touching a screen with my food saturated hands. Having my alarm on my wrist means that it targets no one but me to wake up at the early hours that otherwise bother family members who prefer to keep sleeping. These are all nice extras beyond my original purpose for the device. The fitness tracking features are nice too, but might be better with GPS baked into the watch since I do not want to take my tablet for a run with me.

In summary, Android Wear is a nice accessory for me. I still do not know how useful it is in general and question how far the niche customer base for wearables can drive market demand enough to keep them in production. I think that most people have long since left a watch out of their accessory arsenal and prefer to keep it that way. If wearables are to thrive, I believe a little more creativity and innovation, or at least evolution, will be required. We shall see what the future brings in this space.

Kirk Aug

Kirk is the first colonist in our Idea Farm. Let him know what technology, philosophy, and people will create the new society. Follow Kirk on twitter @kirkaug.