Every year more and more people start to upgrade their homes to “smart homes” but for people in the Apple ecosystem there really isn’t a good all-in-one smart home device to control it all. There’s the HomePod, but that’s a half baked product at best.
Late last year I got into the smart home game starting with smart light bulbs and loved them. What I hated about them was controlling them with Siri and Apple HomeKit. Siri would barely recognize the request – if she heard it at all.
There’s nothing I love doing more than arguing with my wristwatch to turn my living room lights on.
The future!
— Mike Rastiello (@mikerastiello) January 16, 2018
Out of frustration I bought a Google Home Mini to serve this need, and have grown to use it in other ways, too.
Our Google Home knows my voice, and knows Ali’s voice. I can ask about my day, or commute to work and I’ll get back results for me. Ali can do the same and get her results. If two people asked the same thing on a HomePod, only the person who set up the device will get the answers. Half baked.
Siri has tons of shortcomings. Tons. Hopefully Apple hiring Google’s AI chief away will help Siri, and fast.
A few weeks ago Apple announced that they would be killing their AirPort base stations – a suite of products that as the suite of products evolved, would serve wifi, expand the size of a network, act as a USB hub, and would later connect to Time Machine to back up your computers.
For the life of me I can’t figure out why Apple released the HomePod as a standalone product and didn’t combine it with the Apple TV and roll the AirPort product into it. Granted, it would be a fairly expensive product, but that hasn’t stopped Apple before.
The AppleTV is usually located in peoples living rooms where most people congregate. They could follow what Google Home and Alexa do with smaller devices to spread across your house. One in the kitchen, bedrooms, etc.
This is one of those things that seems like a no-brainer that Apple is missing. Maybe they are working on something in the background, but they have lost a lot of ground to Google Home and Alexa.
I’m really jealous of the Google Home ecosystem, but we are so far into the Apple ecosystem with devices and media it would be a lot of money and frustration of juggling multiple devices and platforms or even switching.
I used to write a wishlist for Apple’s WWDC event every year where I would talk about features I’d like to see added to Apple’s major products. I would love to see Apple turn the Apple TV it into what it really should be – the all-in-one smart home device and hub for all technology in your home.
Hopefully one day.
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