Apple, this is a Dear John letter. Except, I'm John, and I'm thinking about breaking up with you.
With your music, at least.
This week Apple announced that its Amazon Echo and Google Home competitor HomePod, a smart speaker that 70 million American adults would be interested in, will be delayed until next year.
This is not necessarily fatal, but it is bad. Seriously bad. Apple is missing out on not only the gargantuan consumer-gasm that is Black Friday and Cyber Monday, it's also kissing the Christmas giving season goodbye.
In other words, Amazon Echo and Google Home have another 3-4 months of virtually unchallenged market access ahead of it.
If you don't currently own an Echo or a Google Home, you have no idea what this means.
Personal and home-based smart assistants are great, but there's a reason why Amazon focused on media for Echo. Alexa does a lot of things and knows a lot of things, like timers, basic information, setting alarm systems, turning lights on and off, but music on demand might just be the most satisfying thing she conjures up.
- "Alexa, play some Bach."
- "Alexa, play some classic rock."
- "Alexa, play some French pop music."
Before iPods, we didn't know how much agonizing effort it was to find a CD, take it out of its case, place it in a small machine, touch a few buttons, and hear music. Before Alexa, I didn't know how much work it was to open the Sonos app, select Apple Music, find a music "station" that I liked, and play it.
Ambient computing is a wonderful thing, and the world's vast collection of music on instant command is one of modern life's real miracles and true luxuries.
By waiting three years to respond to Echo, by not buying Sonos, and by further delaying its entrance, Apple has not only created a massive disadvantage for itself in home audio. Probably much more importantly, it has left the ambient home computing space entirely to Amazon (and, more recently, to Google).
Smart assistants are the future of personal technology, and Amazon's genius jiu-jitsu move upon losing the battle for mobile computing (no one really uses the Fire phone) was to reinvent the battleground to the home.
That's worked very well for the the commerce company, but it's getting better.
As the devices move from Echo to Echo Dot, from Google Home to Google Home Mini, they are disappearing into the fabric of our homes. Ambient computing is achieved when the devices go away, and we're left with the ability to invoke technological assistance via voice, gesture, or, at need, other modalities like text.
That's a technological shift that could eventually threaten the smartphone ... and something that Apple, with its cash-cow iPhone franchise, needs to be ultra-aware of.
But for the moment, the core risk for Apple is Apple Music.
Services revenue is increasingly important for the company, and with a 34% year-over-year jump in the most recent quarter, it's one of the fast-growing slices of income. That makes sense, because the number of devices Apple can sell is limited ... and growth is slowing.
Apple Music is a big part of services revenue, and the company needs to maintain momentum.
But with Amazon's music service integrated into Echo, Google's integrated into Google Home, and competitors like Spotify, iHeartRadio, and Pandora playing via Echo, Apple Music has no horse to ride in the critical home market.
Apple has played long odds before, and it has successfully conquered markets that it has been late to. Smartphones and smartwatches are just the latest examples.
It looks like the Cupertino company will be coming from behind once again.
