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It’s time for Apple to start thinking different again–and a little weird
Last week’s strange news tidbit: the full-size HomePod, that most recent of Apple’s perhaps misguided product choices, is going at a premium on the resale market after having been discontinued back in spring 2021. It’s odd but not inexplicable. As my colleague Jason Snell pointed out, the HomePod was a case of Apple making trade-offs that ultimately appealed only to a niche audience—but a niche audience that was very excited about it.
The lesson I take away from all this is that though the full-size HomePod was not necessarily a market success, Apple should be willing to take risks on product categories that may not be obvious crowd-pleasers. Macs, iPhones, iPads—all of these are established products these days, ones that the company can count on selling in droves when they release updates every year or two. They’re easy and, if I can be excused for saying so, boring.
But the weird one-off products? The kind that seem destined to be appreciated by the few? Those are the places where you never know when you might find a hit.