Jean-Louis Gassée, MondayNote, on trying to find a way to sell the Mac in the dark days of 1985, with Steve Jobs recently gone:
Position the Mac as a Graphics Based Business System (GBBS). The Business System part was adman puffery meant to project gravitas, but the reference to graphics made unarguable sense: The Mac’s Graphical User Interface (GUI) was clearly a distinguishing factor at the time.
Everyone in the room loved the idea. Rather than take on the whole market, Apple would define and dominate a niche. As the Valley marketing sage put it (quoting Julius Caesar), better to be the chief of a small village in the Alps than second-in-command in Rome.
And:
Thanks to Jobs’ vision and powers of seduction, a couple of “serious developers”, Adobe and Aldus, helped transform the GBBS air guitar into a reality. Adobe contributed the PostScript software engine for the LaserWriter’s breakthrough typography and graphics. Aldus came up with the PageMaker program that made exemplary use of the Mac + LaserWriter combo. Aldus Chairman Paul Brainerd coined the term Desktop Publishing (DTP), a phrase that replaced the GBBS straw man and remains to this day. The Mac became #1 in the DTP village.
In the rest of this smart, well-written piece, Jean-Louis asks, and attempts to answer the question, “Is there an Alpine hamlet that the HomePod can claim as its own?”
One major difference between the original Mac and HomePod (besides the obvious ones) is that the original Mac had no ecosystem, no huge, dependable, cash-abundant audience on which to draw. With an iPhone/Apple Music-backed ecosystem, Apple has the luxury of a steady stream of HomePod early adopters to keep the cash flowing and feedback coming while the product evolves.
like like matthew said HP is a high quality shelf speaker, it’s not a platform onto itself. it will never become a platform, either. it has a relatively narrow job to be done — playback music with great sound.
count me in. but it’s not going to become more than what it is. (tho yeah i expect siri will get better)
I’m starting to wonder about a strategy. Without knowing the background of how the HP was developed, it feels like a me too product spurred by the success of Echo. When you hear that they were developing it years ago though, I start to ask.. why? If Apple is still the land of 1000 Nos for 1 Yes, why did THIS product get a Yes?
It could be just “hey, we’re a company that is about music and we can do this cool accessory…” but that feels off the cuff for a large company like Apple. So I’m wondering what the overall strategy is.
I agree it is much like the airpods which are just a better and easier to use version of something that has been around for a long time. That said, I love my airpods, and I am loving HomePod. I think that is the basic customer response one wants.
My HomePod is a great speaker and for music it is much easier and more powerful than the Echo that sits next to it, or the Sonos 5 that sits next to that and really needs app to work it (yes there are now voice commands through echo but that’s turning out to be not so easy to use). It plays from my Apple TV flawlessly, and from my other devices as well. If you use Apple Music it is a no brainer. It’s ability to hear you speaking at a normal volume (even when music is playing) is much better than Echo.
If you want a really good and versatile speaker with voice control then the competition is similarly priced. Everyone is going to keep improving the software side of these products, so the current state of affairs is perhaps not always the best way to judge them. I do want the HP to do somethings better-like control the Apple TV– but fortunately these are all software issues as far as I can tell. I had a huge list for Alexa, too.
If you want voice control for other reasons and Siri does not suit your needs (it works for me for 90% of what I normally used the Echo for over the past 2 years-news weather, time, timer, spelling, MUSIC) then you just have to spend $30 extra and get a echo or google puck.
if anything, the product Apple IS missing is the cheap dongle/puck one puts all over the house–it’s basically a remote microphone. I don’t think they are really losing money on that deal since if I really need to call a cab or order a pizza from the toilet I can still use my phone. Oh yeah, the phone i carry everywhere with me and that I can talk to, or use any app I want.
The platform everyone is thinking about is HAL. A computer that actually runs things. That is very far off, and when it arrives who cares about plunking down another $300. –a frustrated smarthome experimenter.
Is it fair to say Apple’s strategy is very simple: to extend Siri’s reach?
No rocket science, no evil plan, just a high quality product from Apple that leverages one of its core technologies.