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What's up, Apple Byte Nation?
This is another one of those small little add ons we like to throw in here.
I guess we should start calling them Apple Bits or something like that.
But look, the big news that just dropped is that Apple officially said That they're going to be delaying the HomePod for release sometime in early 2018.
I don't know how you feel about that so let's first of all just check out their official statement.
We can't wait for people to experience HomePod, Apple's breakthrough wireless speaker for the home But we need a little more time before it's ready for our customers.
We'll start shipping in the US, UK, and Australia in early 2018.
And so when I see that quote and hear it, there's really two reactions that you probably have for all the Apple fanboys, the diehards.
They're like, come on, Apple.
Get it done, get it done right.
I'm okay.
I'm patient.
I'm willing wait.
We want the right product.
There's also another side of me that thinks okay hey this is two years back to back.
AirPods last year were delayed.
The HomePod this year is delayed.
These are two hot new products that you're supposed to deliver in the holiday season.
Get it together.
I think there's also a part of me that says, a, I just bought an iPhone and spent 1,000 bucks.
I could use the time to save up for that money.
But I think that ultimately we want a good product.
But at the same time, don't over-promise for us and under-deliver.
So, in sales, you wanna always kind of, under promise an overdeliver, but now we're getting this two years, back to back.
It's just not a good look.
We talk about how the AirPods were delayed last year, and if you wanna say, okay, when does this happen, where have these missteps happened before, historically?
Well, let's look at the AirPods.
They were announced at an Apple September key note, back in 2016.
They were promised for late October And they didn't come in late October.
In fact, Apple had a statement very similar to the HomePod, so this is what they said at the time.
The early response to AirPods has been incredible.
We don't believe in shipping a product before it's ready, and we need a little more time before AirPods are ready for our customers.
So that's what they told us, sounds a lot like what we saw earlier with the HomePod.
But this is what happened it didn't go down to late October.
They ended up starting to ship or make them available to purchase the airdrops that is December the13th.
So that's about a two and a half three month delay from when they originally expected to come.Then on top of that not only were they available December 13th but I'd like to say available There was a six-week shipping time on them.
And that went as far as like late July of 2017.
So pretty much even they were available, they were really hard to get.
We know Apple had some issues getting them out.
But then also, they didn't have enough inventory to support it.
So it's not like you're saying, okay, they're here.
They're ready.
People couldn't buy them until recently, so.
That's kind of a boo boo on their side.
We also look at some of these other historical things, this is not their first misstep.
You go as far back as like 2011, and I don't know if you guys and gals remember the iPhone 4.
The iPhone 4 white model was delayed somewhere around nine months because they had some issues with UV protection but.
This was a phone that came out nine months later.
The thing though is that they still delivered the iPhone 4 on time, it's just that they didn't deliver the iPhone 4 in its white color on time.
So now we go back to the home pod and we think about okay is this product.
Look when I first saw the product when they announced it It was a little underwhelming for me compared to what's out there.
We know it's a $349 price tag.
It looks like a lot of things.
It could be like a scratchpost for a cat.
It looks like a big old roasted, toasted marshmallow, like a big ball of yarn, you see at a fabric store.
It could be lot of things, fine let's get over the looks.
But on the technical aspects, you have this 360 degrees sound speaker, that's nice.
But the two technical things, Siri Siri is a whole lot better in 2017, I would give it credit, but it's still not nearly as good as what the Google assistant is, it's not nearly as good as what Amazon's Echo has with Alexa.
So, they're already behind in that aspect, and then when you also talk about music services, from all documentations, all indications, even to developers, the only native music service that is gonna be supported on the HomePod is just, Apple Music.
And to me that makes a really limited device coming out of the gates.
So now, let's look back and think about how Apple used to approach this.
Yeah, you could call me old, like those days are gone.
Look, Apple's a different company, but back in the day, Apple, the SJ era, they would surprise us.
But then they would actually deliver on that surprise within the date range that they told us.
It wouldn't be three or four months later.
It wouldn't be nine, twelve months until a product could actually be purchased.
And that breeds good will.
That was part of the magic of Apple.
And when you do this two years back to back, and you don't deliver during the holiday season right when everyone is ready to buy.
Not only are you losing an opportunity the google home max is coming out Sonos one's platform they're all there they're gonna be ready to be purchase, and Apple's home pod that should've been part of that mix.
That's already behind in smart speakers is not part of that mix, and when you start kind of disappointing your consumer base and just the general perception It becomes a letdown and Apple shouldn't want to feel like they want to be anywhere associated with letting down their customers.
It wasn't that way before and it shouldn't be moving forward.
So fine.
Let's talk about, they say early 2018.
Let's be really.
That's gonna be more like March 2018.
They're not gonna rush it for January.
Apple has sometimes had March events, maybe we'll see something with Macbooks or with Macs and iPads in March, but I wouldn't expect it like!
early 2018, this thing's coming in January?".
I could be wrong were [UNKNOWN] this just to talk about it, but let me know what you think?
Are you disappointed in this?
Does this change how you feel about Apple?
Do you love the fact that they're holding off and you don't care, just give it to us when it's ready?
I just think even when it's ready it's not gonna be that great of a wow Apple product, and ultimately it's just a bad look, and ultimately it's a bad apple.
So thanks for watching this, leave you feedback in the comments, lets talk about it.
And there you that's another apple bites, apple bits wrapped up.
Peace.
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