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There is a lot of demand in the higher end market for a great speaker. Also, don't forget the apple ecosystem which people are already into. If and when Siri becomes as good as Google Assistant, people will buy into the homepod for sure.

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There are already plenty of good sounding smart speakers out there (Sonos, for one). Most good assistants can connect to external speakers, as well. Banking on "it's not good at much, but it sounds good" is a very risky approach.

Plus, the Google Home Max will be out soon, which will presumably far outshine the homepod by being a good sounding speaker and a useful assistant.

Plus the Google Home Max has two 4.5" woofers and the Home pod one 4". Depends how well done but the Max should have excellent sound and a much smarter assistant with better voice recognition than Siri.

I find it a bit surprising that companies like B&W haven't integrated Alexa into their wireless products. Sonos has a new wireless speaker that looks nice, but I wouldn't consider it high-end.

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