The HomePod Is Already Hurting The Echo ( A Little Bit)

A few weeks ago I wrote an article about why I thought the HomePod would be popular, And time has gone by and the HomePod has been out on the market for a few weeks now. So I thought it would be a great idea to look back and see how the HomePod has been fairing in cut-throat smart-speaker market.

The HomePod Is Off To A Great Start, What A Surprise

Appleinsider came out with a report detailing how the HomePod has been received by the public. To no ones surprise the HomePod has a customer satisfaction score of 89%. But the report also went on to say that people don't really expect a whole lot from their smart speakers. All people really care about are the basic functionalities of a smart speaker.

Looking at what the average person uses their smart speaker for its clear that "intelligence" doesn't really matter. You could have the best AI assistant and your speaker would still fail if it is a crappy speaker. Lots of people have been critiquing Siri for being to dumb (Although I don't think so). So usage patterns like these negates the disadvantage Siri supposedly has in the intelligence department.
Siri nails everything on that list. Even with general questions with iOS 11 Siri has got a lot smarter at answering general questions even though she is not at a Google Assistant level yet. The only thing Siri can't do at the moment is buying things and hopefully that will come soon.

Still The HomePod Has A Long Way To Go

The report also goes on to give us a breakdown of how popular each smart speaker is.

So the HomePod has a 3% market share at the moment. It is even lagging behind Cortana at the moment but this signifies that the HomePod has some momentum in the industry. Even though the Echo and Home are far ahead, they should be prepared to lose some of their iOS subscribers as Siri works just fine for the average user. It is clear that Apple did their homework before launching the HomePod. If the HomePod didn't sound as good as it does not would just be another speaker in the market even if Siri were to be exponentially smarter. So does this mean that the Echo and the Google Home are done for? No not by a long shot. I Expect more people who use an iOS device to switch to the HomePod and Apple Music and the Echo and Home Will compete for the Spotify crowd. Expect great things from the HomePod.

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The Huawei Ban Is Justified (Hear Me Out)

So a few a year or so ago I talked about the consequences of using a Huawei phone here and more than a year later things aren't all that different. Recently Huawei was accused of being a security threat by the United States and has asked all American companies to not do business with Huawei. So that means that Huawei is now cut off from Intel, Qualcomm and most importantly Android. Now this might seem harsh at first glance. The US is unfairly targeting a law abiding company just for the fact that it is Chinese. But a closer look reveals much more. How China Does Business Unlike in the west and much of the world. China does not have a protections for intellectual property. That means that no ones protecting your idea from being ripped off by someone else and then being brought to market. In most of the world if someone violates a patent you can sue them. Case and point look at pressy a small Kickstarter that makes a small button that plugs into your phones headphone jack (

So Which Is The Best Browser For Your Mac?

With all the chrome bashing that's been going on of late, It got me wondering and a bit jealous cause I was missing out on the aforementioned Chrome bashing. Does it really matter what browser you use? I mean they all fundamentally do the same thing, It turns all the ones and zeros of the internet into things that you can actually read on your screen. But as is turns out a whole lot of things have to happen for your favourite website to be displayed to you, In the shady back alleys of code that our browsers run on, It turns out that each browser does things a little bit differently. So what are our options? The Three main browsers that we'll be taking a look at today will be Safari, Firefox and Chrome. Safari Safari is the browser that comes with your iPhone or iPad or your Mac as we are discussing in this case. It's a fast fluid responsive modern browser. It's my browser on choice. Safari a few things going for it. First off it's a first party brows

My iOS 13 Wishlist

Around this time last year I wrote the iOS 12 wish list , And to my surprise most of my prayers were answered, and iOS 12 has been wonderful for the last 5 months or so. But now we're coming up on another WWDC, Yes its still 5 months away but that hasn't stopped the rumour mill from speculating what the next version of iOS will be.Here are a few features that I'd like to see on the next version of iOS. A New Look For iOS 13 Ever since iOS 7 iOS has looked the same more or less, With its flat icons and punchy colours. I feel that the time for a refresh is long overdue. Don't get me wrong it looks great but, Its stale and I fresh new coat of paint can go wonders in making iOS 13 feel radically different. Apple has their work cut out for them if they do decide to go down this route. Finding a new design aesthetic isn't the most easiest thing in the world. When you consider that the new design refresh will have be loved and should be simple to use for millions

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