macroformat investigates
It’s been a long time coming, but has Apple’s smart speaker missed the boat?
Is Apple’s HomePod too late to market?
Apple likes to make a splash when it announces new products, and HomePod was no different. The company’s press release confidently stated ‘HomePod reinvents music in the home’, going on to describe it as a ‘breakthrough wireless speaker’ and ‘the perfect musicologist’.
It’s easy to understand the bombast. Apple’s rivals Amazon and Google had already launched smart speakers – Apple had to convince people the wait for its version was worth it. In any case, Apple is not known for being the first to market with a new product. Instead, it waits until the time is right and the technology is mature enough.
That was the case with HomePod, which began development in 2014 and finally made it to market earlier this year. But could it be that, rather than helping Apple enter the market at the perfect time, the company’s long-perfected patience has left it far behind its rivals? And can Apple do anything to catch up with Amazon and Google?
The sound of the future?
When Amazon’s Echo smart speaker launched in 2014, Apple was taken by surprise, according to Bloomberg. The HomePod team bought a couple of Echos and took them apart, but wasn’t impressed by the device’s audio quality. The team moved on, intent on bringing its HomePod project to fruition.
From the outset, Apple decided HomePod was to focus on fantastic audio quality, rather than Siri, its smart assistant. For the likes of Amazon and Google, the assistant was the cornerstone of their speakers. That different approach may have cost Apple.
Think of it this way. Apple has had a capable smart assistant for years. Speaker engineering, on the other hand, is unfamiliar ground for the company. In order to produce a speaker that meets Apple’s high standards, and to allow Apple the time to actually learn how to get up to speed with relevant engineering, Apple was forced to devote a number of years to the project. If it had taken the Amazon approach – make a speaker with an excellent smart assistant but only average audio quality – it would have been much quicker to market, and may not now find itself so far behind.
But there’s a problem with that logic: it’s simply not Apple’s style. For years it has been accustomed to arriving late but in spectacular fashion, blowing its rivals out of the water with
a product that they wished they had made. The iPod was not the first portable music player, and the iPhone was not the first smartphone, but when they arrived they made it painfully obvious what everyone should be producing.
In the cases of the iPod and iPhone, Apple had an advantage: the market was weak and underdeveloped. Its rivals were pumping out ostensibly poor products because they could, lacking, as they were, any serious, breakthrough competition.
That is not the case today in the smart speaker market. Amazon and Google have both had time to refine their speakers, and gained sizeable and loyal followings. Apple is not entering a fragile market. It’s entering one with a number of powerful rivals that are consolidating their positions.
In this instance, it’s useful to compare HomePod to Apple Watch. The smartwatch market was a niche area; Apple entered and came to dominate it; then more traditional watchmakers tried their hand at smarter timepieces. In the smart speaker space, traditional manufacturers – such as Harmon Kardon – had gained a foothold long before HomePod launched. That’s a worrying sign – Apple isn’t getting on the bandwagon; it’s arriving after the bandwagon has departed.
Facing the music
It’s not just Apple’s focus that’s an issue, but also its ecosystem. So often a strength of any Apple product, in the case of HomePod the ecosystem may actually be holding it back.
For example, in order to use HomePod, you must have an iPhone; it won’t work with Android phones because the only method of connecting a phone to HomePod is AirPlay, a system exclusive to Apple devices. Though Android users can subscribe to Apple Music, they can’t send tunes to Apple’s speaker.
HomePod’s role within that ecosystem may also be causing problems, as Apple seems to be positioning it as merely an accessory, and a way into other Apple products, rather than as the centre of its own system.
Contrast that with Amazon’s approach to Echo. Thanks to its integration of ‘Skills’ (more on that later), Amazon has put the Echo at the centre of its own ecosystem, allowing it to function as a hub that can be extended in various different ways. Conversely, HomePod relies heavily on an iPhone; clearly, it is meant to be an accessory.
What can Apple do?
First and foremost, Apple needs to open up HomePod to Android users. If Apple was in a position of strength, then quarantining HomePod as an Apple exclusive would be acceptable. But Apple is far from that sort of situation – HomePod has only just launched, and already Apple needs to work on saving it. Sure, a HomePod flop is unlikely to plough a catastrophic hole in Apple’s finances, but it would be a huge embarrassment. How can you claim that you’ve ‘reinvented music in the home’ with a product that no one buys?
If it isn’t already, Apple also needs to work on a more affordable version of HomePod. By now, Google and Amazon have a range of smart speakers to suit different budgets.
Even though Android users can subscribe to Apple Music, they can’t use HomePod
HomePod’s £319 price tag is steep compared to the £149 and £129 at which Amazon Echo and Google Home launched, respectively, but it’s the only speaker Apple offers.
That means that Apple is taking a big risk and betting that the public will be tempted more by high-quality audio than by a cheaper speaker that still packs a smart assistant. If you prioritise an excellent smart assistant over top audio quality, then Apple could be in trouble. (Incidentally, Google has launched a Home Max speaker in the US, costing $399, that features improved audio quality. But unlike Apple, Google has not put all its eggs in one basket.)
Apple can also take some pointers from the Amazon Echo ecosystem – and from its own App Store. Echo allows developers to create ‘Skills’, or apps that the Alexa smart assistant can control. Thousands of Skills have been created for the Echo, enriching the experience for anyone who owns one.
HomePod, on the other hand, is limited. It has nothing like Skills for extending its capabilities. And though it’s managed in the Home app, alongside HomeKit accessories such as lights, locks and thermostats, it can’t be included in home automations – to play at a certain time of day, for example. Hopefully, at WWDC, we’ll find out whether Apple plans to connect more apps and services to its smart speaker – so you can ask it to call a taxi, say.
HomePod strengths
Of course, HomePod has strengths that Apple needs to make the most of. Apple’s traditional security and privacy expertise is one big advantage. Apple learns about your needs through your conversations with Siri, but these are all encrypted and anonymised before being sent to Apple; depending on your outlook, that may help to allay any fears of HomePod constantly listening in on you.
With HomePod then, what you say won’t be in the hands of the world’s largest company to target you with online ads, for example. Fortune has argued that this privacy stance makes it harder for Apple to improve Siri based on real user data, but Apple has a wealth of resources at its disposal with which to refine its digital assistant; while making use of your personal data might help, Apple clearly thinks it can make do without.
While HomePod will only work with an iPhone and not Android phones, if you’re already invested in the Apple ecosystem then it makes a lot of sense as a purchase. As with AirPods, pairing your iPhone with the speaker is extremely simple; you just hold your iPhone near the speaker and the two devices will automatically recognise each other. The iPhone will run you through a few simple steps to pair the speaker with your home network, your smart home in the Home app, and your Apple ID.
So all is not lost for HomePod, but Apple needs to make up ground on its rivals very quickly. Apple is banking on people being won over by HomePod’s audio quality in a market where customers are used to affordable smart speakers. Will people be tempted to spend extra on Apple’s offering when Google Home and Amazon Echo are good enough, offer potentially superior smart assistants, and already have a strong lead? Time will tell, but what is certain is that Apple has a lot of catching up to do.
Apple can take pointers from the Amazon Echo ecosystem and its own App Store