I chose homepods because they sound great paired up, can read me my texts, and the mics are way better than any of the google nests/minis I have in less music centric areas of my home. HomePod seems to lack value and compelling reasons to dominate already crowded living spaces. This is coming from an iPhone, Airpods 2 and Apple Watch Series 4 owner, so I'm by no means an Apple h8r. Siri is Alexa + Google Assistant's special needs sister when it comes to home automation and voice control, yet we outfitted an entire condo with competent, full size Echos and Google Homes on sale, for less than the price of one HomePod 'on clearance.' A HomePod doesn't sound exponentially better than a day one Echo, let alone the latest models. HomePod is never going to happen at $300. Otherwise, flop hard against cut-throat competition.

Make less expensive variants a la iPhone XR or blow these out at fire sale prices, ensnare even more people into the ecosystem, get more devs onboard with a larger install base, and make all the money back (and more) through services.

Users cancel spotify over lack homepod