KCLarkin Posted February 8, 2018 Share Posted February 8, 2018 It does not explain at all why Siri gets beaten by the much younger Alexa. Is there any objective proof that Alexa is better than Siri? My experience with my echo dots is abysmal. 50/50 that she will do what I ask. And the syntax is frustrating at best. I haven't had any problems with Siri in 4 or 5 years. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SlowAppreciation Posted February 8, 2018 Share Posted February 8, 2018 It does not explain at all why Siri gets beaten by the much younger Alexa. Is there any objective proof that Alexa is better than Siri? My experience with my echo dots is abysmal. 50/50 that she will do what I ask. And the syntax is frustrating at best. I haven't had any problems with Siri in 4 or 5 years. I've been really underwhelmed with my Echo. It's fine for music and timers, but seems quite dumb to me otherwise. Yes, it's better at detecting what is being said to it, but that's likely more a function of better mics, which are made possible by the larger form factor. Call me a skeptic on this whole "smart speakers are the next huge computing platform" narrative... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liberty Posted February 8, 2018 Share Posted February 8, 2018 The Phone and the Watch weren’t massively late “me too” products in a category that was already on the way to being well-defined by competitors. And in both cases, there were some very basic engineering, thermal, or energy constraints that don't apply to this situation. The HomePod is not coming into and redefining the space. The iPhone entered the cell phone market and said “Guess what, there’s something called a smartphone, and it’s great.” The HomePod is entering a SMART speaker market and saying, “Come on guys, smart stuff isn’t -that- important. Let’s just listen to U2 with voice commands”. I'm saying this is suggestive of how uninspired Apple seems to be about this space, and their component decisions are also consistent with that read. I'm not saying Homepod will be great or not, I'm saying your previous objections are weak. Maybe. But Amazon and Google are selling cheap enough speakers that, should they not work in two years, won't inspire reddit jihad against the companies. More importantly, both companies are pretty much all-in strategically on the extreme thin-client model. Apple is selling a speaker that costs five times as much, will be consequently held to a much higher standard of longevity, and Apple, well, you know, fucking sucks at cloud software. Apple is trying to make a speaker that sounds good (at the higher end of this category) by using computational acoustics not used by anyone else, and it happens to have voice assistant capabilities, and maybe it'll grow on that side over time. The others are trying to make assistant-speakers that can produce ok-ish sound quality. Not the same target and strategy. Not saying one's better than the other, but Apple certainly knows that music is important to its users and with the AirPods and HomePods it's giving them something useful, even if not flashy. And Apple has never been early to categories. iPod wasn't first MP3 player, iPhone wasn't first smartphone, iPad wasn't first tablet, Apple Watch wasn't first smartwatch, etc. They're particularly late on this one, but I suspect that they're stretched pretty thin these days working on a new iPhone/iPad/Macs/Watch every year + AR stuff + VR stuff + car stuff + Airpod stuff (small item, but tons of engineering in there) + Homepod + Apple TV + new OSes + etc. Can't do everything, no company can. "Privacy" is an abstraction that requires no software and no power, since it’s the absence of something. Getting work done while maintaining some privacy standard requires quite a bit of software and power (and it magically requires more as time goes on, imagine that). You may notice this if you ever buy a new iMac that needs to run facial recognition on your iCloud Photo library and takes about a month to do it, probably committing more FLOPS to the project of categorizing all of your dog photos than all of the aggregate on-craft computation of every space shuttle mission ever. Exactly. A speaker doesn't have to run ML algorithms on photos and videos, which uses mostly GPU. A speaker isn't storing data, it's a way to play it. If data was going to be stored related to a Homepod, it would be in the cloud, as I doubt there's much local storage, and most of it will be music cache that gets frequently overwritten. Well that's a convenient excuse for why Siri gets beaten by Google. It does not explain at all why Siri gets beaten by the much younger Alexa. In any case, you'd think that if Apple's DNA was so error-ridden in the "server-side software" space that this could actually be an argument that supports my contention that Apple is making a mistake for designing a product that relies entirely and exclusively on server-side software. Alexa has a very different approach. It's one language, it's almost fixed syntax (you have to learn a vocal command line). Siri is multi-language and can accept much fuzzier syntax to try to deduce intent. A lot of people compare Siri on a phone to Alexa on a plugged in speaker with 7 microphones and beam-forming... I suspect Siri might get better if they decide to focus more on it, but it's definitely not been a company priority and they squandered their early lead (when it came out in 2011, nobody had anything like it on that scale), so there are definitely pluses and minuses in their column, but the analysis certainly isn't as superficial as you make it out to be. None of the voice assistants are that great all around right now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nwoodman Posted February 11, 2018 Share Posted February 11, 2018 Initial testing has the audiophile crowd shaking their heads in disbelief. Looks like Apple's Audio Engineers have hit the ball clear out of the park. https://www.reddit.com/r/audiophile/comments/7wn8a2/good_morning_raudiophile_measurements_are_underway/ While hardly an audiophile I can attest that it is giving my Naim Mu-so Qb a run for its money in the kitchen. By way of comparison the Homepod retails for $500 in Australia vs $1299 for the Mu-so QB. The Homepod is also much smaller and therefore easier to tuck out of the way. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spekulatius Posted February 11, 2018 Share Posted February 11, 2018 Initial testing has the audiophile crowd shaking their heads in disbelief. Looks like Apple's Audio Engineers have hit the ball clear out of the park. https://www.reddit.com/r/audiophile/comments/7wn8a2/good_morning_raudiophile_measurements_are_underway/ While hardly an audiophile I can attest that it is giving my Naim Mu-so Qb a run for its money in the kitchen. By way of comparison the Homepod retails for $500 in Australia vs $1299 for the Mu-so QB. The Homepod is also much smaller and therefore easier to tuck out of the way. Pretty awesome. It looks like Apple actually leapfrogged completion here by packing massive technology software and economy of scales into the device. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liberty Posted February 11, 2018 Share Posted February 11, 2018 John McFarlane, the founder and ex-CEO of Sonos, has some first impressions on HomePod: https://twitter.com/JohnLMacFarlane/status/962077667330727936 (thread) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DooDiligence Posted February 11, 2018 Share Posted February 11, 2018 John McFarlane, the founder and ex-CEO of Sonos, has some first impressions on HomePod: https://twitter.com/JohnLMacFarlane/status/962077667330727936 (thread) That guy does a masterful job of selling Sonos' to Apple haters. 8) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nwoodman Posted February 12, 2018 Share Posted February 12, 2018 The guys report is up I am speechless. The HomePod actually sounds better than the KEF X300A. If you’re new to the Audiophile world, KEF is a very well respected and much loved speaker company. I actually deleted my very first measurements and re-checked everything because they were so good, I thought I’d made an error. Apple has managed to extract peak performance from a pint sized speaker, a feat that deserves a standing ovation. The HomePod is 100% an Audiophile grade Speaker. I am sure it will be the first of many tests but it looks like Apple may have just turned another industry "on its ear". I think concentrating on on the "smart" in smart smart spear by many reviewers may be missing the real innovation here. In Australia a pair of KEF 300A's will set you back around $1000 for the speakers alone. So two Homepods to give you an immersive sound stage is the same price as an entry level set of audiophile grade speakers that need an amp, cables etc. Not to mention careful consideration in terms of where they are placed in order to maximize their performance. Seems a pretty compelling proposition to me. After a couple of days using the homepod it has been smart enough for my immediate needs such as voice activating music and homekit devices. It does need multiple voice recognition but I am sure Apple will get there sooner than many expect. However the audio performance is what really draws you in. cheers nwoodman Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liberty Posted February 12, 2018 Share Posted February 12, 2018 http://www.businessinsider.com/apple-outsold-the-entire-swiss-watch-industry-in-2017-2018-2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spekulatius Posted February 12, 2018 Share Posted February 12, 2018 The guys report is up I am speechless. The HomePod actually sounds better than the KEF X300A. If you’re new to the Audiophile world, KEF is a very well respected and much loved speaker company. I actually deleted my very first measurements and re-checked everything because they were so good, I thought I’d made an error. Apple has managed to extract peak performance from a pint sized speaker, a feat that deserves a standing ovation. The HomePod is 100% an Audiophile grade Speaker. I am sure it will be the first of many tests but it looks like Apple may have just turned another industry "on its ear". I think concentrating on on the "smart" in smart smart spear by many reviewers may be missing the real innovation here. In Australia a pair of KEF 300A's will set you back around $1000 for the speakers alone. So two Homepods to give you an immersive sound stage is the same price as an entry level set of audiophile grade speakers that need an amp, cables etc. Not to mention careful consideration in terms of where they are placed in order to maximize their performance. Seems a pretty compelling proposition to me. After a couple of days using the homepod it has been smart enough for my immediate needs such as voice activating music and homekit devices. It does need multiple voice recognition but I am sure Apple will get there sooner than many expect. However the audio performance is what really draws you in. cheers nwoodman This product seem to deliver very good sound. It is too bad that Apple has not designed the product open, it needs third party apps to play music from AMZN etc for example to be more useful. I do think that Apple can be a gamechanger in the audiophile smart speaker market and give companies like Bose a run for the money. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nwoodman Posted February 12, 2018 Share Posted February 12, 2018 it needs third party apps to play music from AMZN etc for example to be more useful. I think this will be the story for WWDC18. However I wouldn't be surprised if the best listening experience is still via apple music. Cue revealed how HomePod will adjust how it sounds to different music without offering user-facing bass and treble adjustments. We already knew that HomePod will tune itself differently based on its position in a room, but Cue describes Apple’s smart speaker adjusting its sound even when used in place. Cue explains that every song is individually tuned based on Apple’s analytics, according to Patrick Ryan who attended the event. He also confirms that users will not be able to manually adjust the equalization for this reason https://9to5mac.com/2018/02/07/eddy-cue-pollstar-conference/ This could prove to be another example of the value in owning the stack (hardware/software) cheers nwoodman Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TorontoRaptorsFan Posted February 12, 2018 Share Posted February 12, 2018 This product seem to deliver very good sound. It is too bad that Apple has not designed the product open, it needs third party apps to play music from AMZN etc for example to be more useful. I do think that Apple can be a gamechanger in the audiophile smart speaker market and give companies like Bose a run for the money. They don't need Amazon or Spotify to be wildly successful with Homepod. If a million of these sold since being available it means they've likely done half of Sonos yearly revenue. This products takes a lot of share from audio manufacturers who benefited from homeowners who rent, live in condos & apartments, and university/college dorms. I would love to see Apple introduce a standalone Soundbar to pair up with AppleTV. Even better if it incorporates Dolby Atmos since it will be available as a software update shortly on AppleTV. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
siddharth18 Posted February 13, 2018 Share Posted February 13, 2018 A bit dated article but it was so good, I had to share: https://seekingalpha.com/instablog/8125221-gregg-rosenberg/4427186-apple-misunderstood-giant Apologize if it was already posted previously. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liberty Posted February 13, 2018 Share Posted February 13, 2018 Good thread by Sinofvsky about software quality, scale, etc: https://twitter.com/stevesi/status/963142502604779520 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
redhots Posted February 28, 2018 Share Posted February 28, 2018 EVERYTHING Warren Buffett & Charlie Munger EVER said on Apple https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=32&v=dXqb6OOE46Y Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CorpRaider Posted March 5, 2018 Share Posted March 5, 2018 Biggest active bet globally and in US large Caps is underweight AAPL. Per UBS via: https://ftalphaville.ft.com/2018/03/05/1520247093000/The-world-is-overweight-Baba/. I also did a little rif on this on my site. Basically, I would roll with the GOAT and the index. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rkbabang Posted March 5, 2018 Share Posted March 5, 2018 These Are The 911 Calls of Apple Employees Who Walked Into The Glass Walls of Their "Spaceship" https://www.sciencealert.com/apple-employees-injuries-glass-walls-spaceship Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liberty Posted March 6, 2018 Share Posted March 6, 2018 Great ad: http://www.adweek.com/brand-marketing/spike-jonze-and-fka-twigs-made-a-jaw-dropping-short-film-for-apples-homepod/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dynamic Posted March 16, 2018 Share Posted March 16, 2018 I'm not sure if it's been posted here before (I didn't notice the 'Notify' feature until some months ago, so may have missed some posts) But on GuruFocus I saw an old link to this great chart showing Apple's accumulating cash pile, very modest US cash, cumulative buybacks and cumulative dividends, and its cash net of debt, as they've increased the use of very cheap debt to offset their overseas cash stockpile and make accretive buybacks and pay substantial dividends in the last few years. I can imagine that repatriation will change the picture again in the near future, but it's impressive what a cash machine Apple has been. Nonetheless I would imagine that the position in cash net of debt will remain fairly consistent over time, despite the changing mix. Also, the text of the article is a brilliant primer in non-technical terms about what a public company is and how it rewards its shareholders. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gfp Posted March 16, 2018 Share Posted March 16, 2018 Nice graphic. Important to note that Tim Cook did say Apple would now move to a 'net cash neutral' position over time with the repatriation. So, over the next few year, I would expect them to move that 'cash net of debt' to closer to zero if they are to be taken at their word. Their annual capital management announcement is coming sometime soon I believe. There might be a guy in Omaha who could provide them some sizable blocks if they wanted to retire shares quicker. Although Apple stock is pretty freaking liquid if they just want to buy in the shares daily in the market I'm not sure if it's been posted here before (I didn't notice the 'Notify' feature until some months ago, so may have missed some posts) But on GuruFocus I saw an old link to this great chart showing Apple's accumulating cash pile, very modest US cash, cumulative buybacks and cumulative dividends, and its cash net of debt, as they've increased the use of very cheap debt to offset their overseas cash stockpile and make accretive buybacks and pay substantial dividends in the last few years. I can imagine that repatriation will change the picture again in the near future, but it's impressive what a cash machine Apple has been. Nonetheless I would imagine that the position in cash net of debt will remain fairly consistent over time, despite the changing mix. Also, the text of the article is a brilliant primer in non-technical terms about what a public company is and how it rewards its shareholders. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dynamic Posted March 16, 2018 Share Posted March 16, 2018 Good point, GFP. I looked at the graphic again - so informative! I imagine they'll be reasonably gradual about moving to net cash neutral, as you say, taking a few years to do so. My guess and hope is that they'll continue to adopt a 'progressive' dividend policy and simply continue to raise the current dividend by a healthy percentage, perhaps 10% compound for a few years. If that's the case, I'd imagine they'd intend to extend the authority to repurchase their own shares and buybacks could accelerate for a few years. I would ideally like this is done opportunistically or in proportion to the discount to IV, but won't hold my breath. For example, if there's a market crash that sees the share price fall 20-50% perhaps for as much as 6 months to a year, the rate of deployed of capital into buybacks could increase to a substantial proportion of daily volume without unduly propping up the price. This would deliver tremendous per-share intrinsic value enhancement to continuing shareholders and to employees holding options or restricted shares alike. However, I don't think they accelerated the buyback scheme substantially during the sub-$100 period in 2016 when the historic earnings yield was over 9% (>10% yield net of cash), so I won't hold my breath for them to do so aggressively in the event of a future lull in price-to-value ratio. I would not expect a one-off special dividend after repatriation. If one is announced, however, my 30% withholding tax hit is likely to make me consider at least a temporary sale (no Capital Gains Tax applies to my tax-free UK ISA account but my discount broker will not file a W8-BEN to reduce withholding tax on foreign dividends to 15%). I've done very well on the investment regardless, and it wouldn't kill me to lock in the very fortunate 46%+ IRR achieved over my 22 month ownership, which is bound to lower nearer to ROE in the long term, and re-consider where to invest the capital in future, which might include Apple. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fareastwarriors Posted March 19, 2018 Share Posted March 19, 2018 Inside Apple's Secret Plan to Develop and Build its Own Screens https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-03-19/apple-is-said-to-develop-displays-to-replace-samsung-screens Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liberty Posted April 2, 2018 Share Posted April 2, 2018 https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-04-02/apple-is-said-to-plan-move-from-intel-to-own-mac-chips-from-2020 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liberty Posted April 3, 2018 Share Posted April 3, 2018 https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/03/business/apple-hires-googles-ai-chief.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LongTermView Posted April 13, 2018 Share Posted April 13, 2018 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-5609853/Apple-Watch-caught-new-mothers-life-threatening-thyroid-condition-NO-symptoms.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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