Spotify Offering UK Family Plan Subscribers a Free Google Home Mini Speaker

We can't afford to pay the artists, but we can give you free electronics....

And people wonder why Apple isn’t trying to compete directly with Amazon Alexa and Google Home.

Putting Apple Music on Amazon Echos (and likely soon Google Home) isn’t conceding the smart speaker space. It’s about reaching the widest possible audience with Apple Music, in fact not conceding the smart speaker space to Spotify. Inevitably those Apple Music customers will want better sound and a native Apple experience and will upgrade to a HomePod.

Siri’s feature set is far behind both Alexa and Google Assistant. It’s not just about hardware quality and cost. They have to improve Siri before even making a claim that they are directly competing. For now, HomePod is just a really good speaker that happens to have Siri and work seamlessly with Apple devices. The potential for what a “smart” Siri could add to the HomePod is a promise we haven’t seen any indication of coming yet.

Wow Spotify learned from the last free google home mini promo making it only redeemable to master account holder. Last time they did it last year I managed to buy 8 codes for like $24 to get 8 google home minis easily and they sell for like $20 each.

Honestly, nothing to be proud of.
But good to know

I really don’t know how so many people keep missing this: Apple has already set the groundwork for HomePod to beat Alexa Skills. Siri Shortcuts have been expanding HomePod’s capabilities with already hundreds thousands ('https://techcrunch.com/2019/02/28/siri-new-shortcuts/')* of “skills” in the year since it came out...

People don’t want to have to create shortcuts to make Siri useful. The Google Assistant provides much better responses to just any general question while Siri tends to either not understand, offer any options for whatever reason, or provides a set of links that Google has provided based on the search. Google will read off the top hit and you can skim through responses with voice commands while Siri requires opening an app.


My wife jokes all the time “hey Siri play Supernatural on Bedroom TV.” And it doesn’t talk to our Apple TV because Siri can’t do that. So we have to get our the remote. We tell Google to do the same thing and it works with our Chromecast.


That’s just some examples. I don’t share your optimism for Siri or it’s shortcuts (that have bee around a while now). The HomePod is a great speaker with an OK assistant. It’s currently not targeting the Google Home and Alexa market, but it could be in that category if Siri was greatly improved.


In my experience, I’m not numbing into those “1000s” of “skills.” I’m hitting road blocks. Siri does what I need it to do and that’s well enough for now.

Thank you, ordered!

And people wonder why Apple isn’t trying to compete directly with Amazon Alexa and Google Home.

Everyone I know and their mom has a Google Home mini that they got at a raffle or with their purchase of potatoes at the local supermarket.

Apple isn’t in the business of competing with Free. HomePod doesn’t have to compromise on sound quality just so it can try to price match the others. Apple can continue to focus on excellence in sound and design.

Putting Apple Music on Amazon Echos (and likely soon Google Home) isn’t conceding the smart speaker space. It’s about reaching the widest possible audience with Apple Music, in fact not conceding the smart speaker space to Spotify. Inevitably those Apple Music customers will want better sound and a native Apple experience and will upgrade to a HomePod.