678: Sliced by the Bleeding Edge

I just want to know, what do you think of the new home view from Apple? And can anyone explain to me why the wall mounted version without the speaker is the same price as the one with the speaker attached? And then you also have to spend extra money on the mounting hardware.

Carissa, let's start with you.

Yeah, so I have been using a Google Home Hub, which is kind of like the very old Google equivalent of this product for a long time.

So on one hand, I think seeing Apple do this, I'm kind of like, finally, where have you been? On the other hand, as somebody who I have Home Hub, I have Google Mini speakers in every room, I'm thinking, well, if I want to switch over, now I'm going to make a big investment to change out all my speakers to...

Home pods, the home view is like 300 bucks.

That's, you know, kind of more than I would like to spend on this.

But I really love the idea.

I love that it has a recipe mode.

I have my home hub in my kitchen right now.

And I've always wished I could kind of use it as like a cooking aid, you know, for looking at recipe content and stuff.

So really like the idea of it.

I probably will cave and get one eventually.

But for now, I'm slightly put off by the investment it will take.

You know, it's interesting.

When I saw this get released yesterday morning, obviously, you know, those of us in the closely following Apple community had been expecting this for a while.

The thing that struck me about that $299 price was that it was cheaper than I expected.

I was fully expecting $599.

Honestly, that was the price I had sort of ballparked in my head.

Not least of all, because the full-size HomePod is $50 more expensive, which I still don't quite understand.

But fair enough.

You know, to answer Micah's question, I think Apple is doing some creative accounting, not like illegal accounting, but creative accounting with how it deals with this entire HomePod line in terms of what things cost.

I think they'd like to entice more people into this HomeView situation.

And so that makes me wonder if perhaps they are subsidizing sort of unofficially this with some of their other products.

Not traditionally a way Apple does things, but with this late entry period, as you said, Carissa, having an even higher price would have made it an even harder sell.

So I'm very intrigued for it.