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Apple's "HomePod" Sinks Users Deeper Into a Walled Garden

posted by martyb on Sunday February 11 2018, @03:53AM   Printer-friendly
from the garden-full-of-apple-orchards dept.

takyon writes:

The HomePod is the point of no return for Apple fans

The notion of Apple's "walled garden" ecosystem of products precedes even the iPhone. For as long as the company has existed, Apple products have worked best with other Apple products and that's been that. But the new HomePod speaker, which is going on sale today, ratchets this commitment up another notch. If you thought you were locked inside the Apple ecosystem before, buying a HomePod is like adding an iron ball to those chains.

The HomePod costs $349. That's a high price for the vast majority of people, and it pretty much guarantees that you'll be using the HomePod as the primary listening device in your home. The HomePod has voice control for music playback, but you'll have to be tapping into Apple's own Apple Music, iTunes tracks, or iTunes Match to take full advantage of Siri. Alternatively, you can use AirPlay from an Apple device, which gets you access to services like Spotify but with drastically simplified play / pause voice control. In any and all cases, to get the most out of the HomePod, you absolutely must have a subscription to an Apple music service and an iOS device to set the speaker up.

[...] Apple's HomePod is, by all accounts, a superb speaker that sets a new benchmark for sound quality in its size and price class. But it is also brazenly hostile to any hardware or service not made by Apple. If you decide to buy one, do so with the full awareness of how deeply ensconced inside the Apple bubble you will be.

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  • (Score: 2) by http on Sunday February 11 2018, @05:28AM (2 children)

    by http (1920) on Sunday February 11 2018, @05:28AM (#636272)

    If I was given one for free, I'd have to throw it away. No way to sell given that I couldn't even demo it.

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  • (Score: 2) by vux984 on Sunday February 11 2018, @05:46AM

    by vux984 (5045) on Sunday February 11 2018, @05:46AM (#636275)

    "No way to sell given that I couldn't even demo it."

    Look, I agree its piece of proprietary crap that I wouldn't want in my house either. But you'll have no trouble unloading it on craigslist or ebay or whatever. People buy stuff on ebay and amazon all the time without a "demo".

  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by melikamp on Sunday February 11 2018, @07:19AM

    by melikamp (1886) on Sunday February 11 2018, @07:19AM (#636295) Journal
    They are sort of a darwin award, from great business-people to various nice persons $349 poorer (+$1389 more for accessories to make it all just work™®).