Quote:
Originally Posted by kscherer
I know there are use-cases for these things, I just can't come up with one for me. Much like Apple watch and HomePod, they are successful* products that have found no success for me. I don't wear a watch and don't want to start, I don't listen to enough music to justify a HomePod, and the idea of computer-based glasses is still super creepy to me.
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Apple Watch is doing great, I'd say. Off to a rocky, premature start, mostly in terms of software (watchOS 1 really didn't get the use cases and interaction model right, and third-party apps really didn't take off as expected either), but also partially hardware (the first Watch was quite underpowered, though I'd argue so were the iPhone and iPhone 3G; the Watch Edition was… something else). By now, it's a solid high-end fitness tracker/smartwatch with a pretty decent market share and a good chunk of people who find it fashionable.
And year by year, they add useful stuff. They'll probably have even more sensors over time.
Quote:
Originally Posted by kscherer
* "Success" and "HomePod" are words whose mutual use within a sentence are still unknowns.
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Well, on the one hand, they reduced the price by $50. That's unusual for Apple. Either they wanted $299 all along (maybe?) and just couldn't quite hit that price with a healthy margin, or they really wanted $349, but saw low sales.
On the other hand, if
the estimated numbers are right, I don't think Apple minds the business. Holiday quarter is probably the strongest, but even if the other three are a fraction, that's still a billion-a-year business.
(Me, I don't have one. I ended up getting a JBL Link Music for $99 instead. I'm guessing its audio is worse, though it's unclear just by how much. I kind of like its more varied colors! I don't care about it not having Siri. I think it has Google Assistant; I don't care.
I do care how flakey AirPlay/HomeKit is. Is that on JBL? On Apple? Both? I don't know. If a $299 speaker is as unreliable at, y'know, outputting audio, that'd be kind of bad.)