Apple Hi-Fi: Good Handles, Bad Sound

Last week, I was looking for a speaker system for my iPod, so I walked to the Apple Store on University Avenue and got an Apple Hi-Fi. I was looking for something with a clean design and sound quality. The Apple Hi-Fi seemed like the perfect candidate. I even tried it a little in the store, but the environment was too noisy and I didn’t want to be a jerk and crank the sound up too much. Well, as the title says, the sound is bad, more details below…

The design and size was exactly what I was looking for. Unfortunately, the audio quality is just not good enough for the price. It sounds worse than my $100 Hi-Fi system bought at Costco a couple of years ago. What I did love, however, was the handles: they will provide a 100% customer satisfaction for the 3.76 seconds during which they will be used to get the unit from its box to the shelve. I don’t recommend the Apple Hi-Fi to anyone unless you’re in need of a white, boxy speaker. Now that i think about it, the weight of this unit, combined with the excellent handles represents a clear threat to Bowflex®…

By the way, it seems really weird that no-one came with a similar design. I guess that audio companies with the know-how are reluctant to create one because of the (expensive) iPod license fee (due to the presence of an iPod connector). So what about this?

Instead of embedding the iPod connector in a speaker system (with real audio), why not build a system with a “Universal Connector”, and sell a “Universal Connector Adapter for iPod” separately? The “Universal Connector Adapter” would be subject to the iPod license fee, but not the speaker system… Anyway, I have no idea about how the iPod license work, but someone out there might care to comment. We just need more competition in that space.

Who (the hell) at Apple let this thing out the door?

Update: Apple is helping settling this discussion: they discontinued the product. Would they do this if it was a winner?

Hubert Nguyen
Categories: Apple, Audio
Tags: Hands-On