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Comment by poisonborz | Hacker News Reader

Smart speaker, car, VR, and now robots... it's crazy how much money can be burned when a few of your other products are successful and mature, while those mostly just receive incremental updates.

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I'm not sure that the homepod belongs in this list as by most accounts it's a financial success. Nothing will be as profitable as the iPhone but the homepod enhances the Apple eco-system. Of all the devices I absolutely would not trust Google/Amazon with, it's a smart speaker. With homepods all over the house, it just makes it that much harder to switch to a non-iphone.

Of all the devices I absolutely would not trust Google/Amazon with, it's a smart speaker.

Not just you. My company's work from home policy requires any Amazon or Google speaker on the same floor as a home office to not be just software disabled, but actually unplugged from the wall. HomePods, on the other hand, are allowed to just have the Siri diagnostics feature turned off.

My company ($1B+) is not exactly known for its technical agility, so I don't think these rules came from in-house testing. Because we're in healthcare, my guess is they are recommendations from a federal agency.

“The master has failed more times than a novice has tried” rings true here.

I’m glad there’s companies out there trying things as opposed to doubling down on rent seeking (which apple also has a tendency to do)

HomePod would be a fantastic device if it didn’t have Siri and was just a decent speaker with AirPlay… as is it sits unplugged somewhere in my garage because I got sick of it butting in to every conversation where anyone said anything like “see ree”.

all of my homepods have that feature turned off. it is a simple toggle and you never have to worry about it again

Siri can be disabled on the HomePod.

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