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HomePod – the Smart Speaker

Posted on June 5, 2017 by admin Posted in Hardware, Music, User Interface Leave a comment

What it is: Apple announced HomePod, their smart speaker coming in December.

Amazon started the virtual assistant market with Echo then Google followed up with Google Home. The big problem with these early virtual assistants is that they focused more on natural language processing and less on audio quality. On the other hand, wireless speakers offered superior audio quality but no natural language processing capability whatsoever. To fill this gap, Apple introduced HomePod for $349, which will start shipping in December.

The main idea behind HomePod is to be an intelligent home assistant. Not only will it focus on music more than its rivals from Amazon and Google, but it will also focus on controlling a smart home as well. HomePod costs more than the cheapest Amazon Echo or Google Home, but those products also offer less as well. Whether Apple can sell more HomePods at a high price remains to be seen, but the added value is clearly there. Whether people want to pay for that added value is the big question.

The key advantage of HomePod is its link to HomeKit devices. Unfortunately, HomeKit isn’t as widespread or common as Apple would like. That means HomeKit compatibility is a nice feature, but not a compelling one to most people. Siri integration is fine, but nothing Amazon and Google don’t offer already. Linking HomePod to Apple Music is also nice, but Apple Music is a subscription service and not everyone relies on it.

So HomePod’s two key features (HomeKit and Apple Music) distinguish it from Amazon and Google, but don’t necessarily make it a must-have feature. The huge difference will likely be in the audio quality.

Right now, Amazon and Google offer mediocre audio quality. HomePod will clearly blow these rivals away. The best way Apple could demonstrate this would be to let people hear the difference in audio quality from all three devices. For people who value superior audio quality, HomePod will win. For people who care more about a low price, Amazon and Google will win.

HomePod is a nice new product, but not a revolutionary one. As HomeKit devices become more common and useful, then HomePod will also become more common and useful. HomePod won’t be the overnight success product that everyone wants Apple to introduce, but it’s a start and that might be enough.

Beats 1

Posted on July 16, 2015 by admin Posted in Music Leave a comment

What it is: Beats 1 is an Internet radio station that runs 24/7 with DJs curating the music to play each day.

In the old days, people listen to the radio to hear their favorite songs. Back then, individual DJs ran their own shows so their musical tastes ranged from mainstream to truly bizarre. As long as you understood each DJs preferences, you could find a DJ whose musical tastes mirrored your own. Then you could listen to what the DJ chose to hear the type of music you’ll be most likely to like.

The problem occurred when radio stations started consolidating under a single corporation. To save costs, the major corporations simply programmed the same playlists into a computer and eliminated the DJs altogether. Now instead of a DJ offering his or her own eclectic tastes in a regional market, you had a uniform playlist of music that often satisfied nobody.

Beats 1 is an attempt to bring back the days of DJ-curated music that gives fans a chance to hear different types of music that they might not have discovered on their own. Part of the fun is listening to new songs and finding new artists to follow.

However, if you listen to Beats 1, you may not hear the range of new music that you personally like. That means you may have to listen to several songs you don’t like just for the chance to hear one or two songs you might like. After a while, you may get tired of listening to Beats 1 altogether.

Yet the name gives you a clue what the future may hold. Beats 1 can’t possibly cater to the whole world’s musical tastes, so it’s reasonable to expect a Beats 2 and Beats 3 station to pop up sometime in the near future. Each Beats station will likely cater to a different group of people with their own favorite DJs curating the music they like best. The goal of Beats isn’t just to attract listeners but to convince them to pay for a streaming music subscription or buy the songs as digital audio files outright. As Beats 1 proves itself (or not), a Beats 2 or Beats 3 station could become financially feasible, leading to an entire network of stations catering to different musical tastes and interests.

There could even be a talk show version of Beats consisting of nothing but talk radio or podcasts catering to business, health, or technology. The possibilities are endless, and it all goes back to the old days of discovering new music on the radio.

Just as people were loyal to one local radio station or another, so might people become loyal to a particular Beats station in the future. Beats 1 is just the beginning. When Beats 2 and Beats 3 arrive, then you’ll know that the future will be arriving faster than you might think.

About Beats 1.

The Changing Music Industry

Posted on June 13, 2015 by admin Posted in Business Leave a comment

What it is: The music industry changes more rapidly than the technology industry. After dominating the digital audio market, Apple soon fell behind in the streaming audio market. With its $3 billion dollar acquisition of Beats Music, Apple is rebranding itself as Apple Music.

Anyone remember vinyl records? While vinyl records still offer superior audio quality, most people long ago switched to CDs for the convenience. People used to play CDs in their cars and carry around stacks of CDs so they could listen to their music wherever they want.

Then digital audio downloads appeared and decimated the music stores forever. For several years, iTunes dominated the digital audio market by providing people a legal, simple, and easy way to find and get their music to store on an iPod or any other device running iTunes. Yet within a few years, iTunes started seeing declining sales as the world switched to streaming audio services. Now Apple is trying to catch up to the streaming audio market by offering Apple Music.

Beyond the monthly subscription price, the one unique feature of Apple Music will be a 24/7 free Internet radio station run by DJs choosing the music they think people will like. Rather than rely on computer algorithms, this free Internet service will be a way for people to hear different music and (hopefully from Apple’s point of view) buy it as a digital download. If not, they may simply decide to subscribe to Apple Music.

Apple’s free Internet radio station is meant to give everyone a free sample of different music to entice them further into the Apple music ecosystem of iTunes downloads and Apple Music streaming subscriptions. Whether Apple can translate the popularity of iTunes to Apple Music remains to be seen, but they realize iTunes is dying and Apple Music needs to be an alternative before iTunes disappears completely like record stores.

What makes Apple Music particularly attractive isn’t the service itself but Apple’s tremendous brand loyalty among iPod, iPhone, iPad, and Macintosh owners. A certain percentage of those people will likely pay for Apple Music simply because they trust Apple and they want the convenience of making it easy to hear their music on the devices they already own. Rival streaming audio services like Tidal or Spotify don’t have that similar “halo effect” of popular products, so they’ll never gain customers the same way that Apple can.

What might make Apple Music more interesting is the social network aspect that allows artists to connect to their fans. Apple tried this once before with Ping, which flopped. Their new service called Connect could make a difference. Instead of just listening to music through a regular streaming service, Connect lets fans follow their favorite artists in a central location. If connect proves popular with both artists and fans alike, that will be a feature that no rival streaming service could duplicate as easily.

Apple Music’s feature isn’t a sure thing, but it’s likely something interesting to watch in the future. With free Internet radio stations to entice people in and a social network with recording artists to keep them once they try Apple Music, Apple Music has a good chance of success. In the still growing and profitable music industry, notice that Google is also trying to compete but Microsoft is nowhere in sight? After their failed Zune experiment, it’s likely Microsoft is simply ceding the music industry segment of the computer industry to Apple, Google, and anyone else.

About Connect.