Apple HomePod is the latest addition to the extraordinary gadgets provided by the tech giant. Tim Cook announced the “one last thing” on the Apple WWDC keynote 2017 last night and it was the HomePod.
Apple HomePod Important links and news
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Apple HomePod VS Amazon Echo
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Apple HomePod VS Google Home
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Apple HomePod Siri commands
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Apple HomePod Australia release date and price
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Apple HomePod sales predictions
HomePod basically is a smart speaker but it’s way better than its competitors. Apple wants to reinvent the home music with this gadget, like it did the ‘music on the go’ with the iPod several years ago. Take a look at the quick intro video and then we’ll talk about its features, price and release date:
Apple HomePod Specs:
Size and Weight
Dimensions:
• 6.8 inches high (172 mm)
• 5.6 inches wide (142 mm)
Weight:
• 5.5 pounds (2.5 kg)
Audio Technology
• High-excursion woofer with custom amplifier
• Array of seven horn-loaded tweeters, each with its own custom amplifier
• Six-microphone array for far-field Siri and room sensing
• Internal low-frequency calibration microphone for automatic bass correction
• Direct and ambient audio beamforming
• Transparent studio-level dynamic processing
Wireless
• 802.11a/b/g/n/ac Wi‑Fi with MIMO
• Multiroom speaker support with AirPlay 23
Languages: English (Australia, UK, U.S.)
Colors: Space grey and white
Apple HomePod Features:
Rock the house
HomePod is just under 7 inches tall. It’s covered in a seamless 3D mesh fabric that has incredible acoustic properties. It hides beneath it amazing audio technology. On the bottom, there is a 7 beam-forming tweeter array packed. Each tweeter has their own individual driver. It has a big subwoofer facing upward with a large motor to move a lot of air. All of this is controlled by an Apple A8 chip. The same chip that powers the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus. It is perhaps the biggest brain inside a speaker. A8 chip offers:
Real time acoustic modeling, audio beam-forming and multi channel echo cancellation. There is an LED waveform on the top of the speaker that animates with your words. This also indicates that Siri is listening to you. Apart from that, it is a touch panel and you can tap it to pause, play or adjust the volume.
Spatial awareness
Apart from that, the speaker has spatial awareness. What does that mean is wherever you place the speaker in your home, on a table, on a shelf, against the wall or in a corner, the speaker automatically detects the space its within. It uses that information to adjust the audio to balance it and take full advantage of the environment and create a very spacious sound.
Musicologist
HomePod is compatible with Apple Music. It is a wireless device and can access your full Apple Music library. HomePod has 6 microphone arrays so you can talk to it. You just have to say “Hey Siri” and then you can tell it to play your favorite track.
Home Assistant
Apart from listening to music on it, you can use it as a home assistant too, pretty much like Amazon Echo. You can ask it to give you the latest news, ask for weather, traffic, sports etc. You can ask it to set a reminder, set a timer, text someone with messages. And if you’ve a HomeKit devices set up at your home, you can speak to your HomePod and control your devices. For eg. turn the lights on, turn the AC on, open the shades halfway, turn on the front yard sprinklers, close the blinds, dim the bedroom lights, play a movie etc.
Setting up a HomePod is pretty easy, you just have to hold your iPhone next to the HomePod. It supports iPhone 5S and up. You can even use two or more HomePods together for a better sound experience. It also keeps your privacy on priority. While it’s microphone are always ready to hear the ‘Hey Siri’ commands, it does not send any of your normal conversation to the Apple servers.
HomePod price and release date:
Update: Apple HomePod won’t be made available to buy in December this year. It has now been confirmed by Apple. Launch has been postponed till early next year. It was supposed to be launched in USA, UK and Australia in December 2017. However, it seems Apple is having delays in the manufacturing. It should be now available in January or February 2018. We’ll keep you updated. Here’s the statement from Apple:
“We can’t wait for people to experience HomePod, Apple’s breakthrough wireless speaker for the home, but we need a little more time before it’s ready for our customers. We’ll start shipping in the US, UK, and Australia in early 2018.”
Original story: This smart speaker will be available to buy In December in USA, UK and Australia. It will be released in other parts of the world in 2018. The speaker will be available in two colors: Space grey and white. Coming to the price point, as we all know, Apple products comes at a premium price. HomePod will cost you $349. As per Apple, HomePod is much affordable when you compare it with total price of a WiFi speaker ($300-$500) and a smart speaker ($100-$200).
That’s all about the Apple HomePod. If you’ve any queries, please post below. We’ll be posting a lot more interesting stuff related to the HomePod. Stay connected.
Over priced and under featured in a space they didn’t create or own. No reasons to not buy an Echo over this.
If someone really cares about sound quality, they won’t be using these little speakers. They will already have a system. Simply plug in a $40 Echo Dot to your existing speaker, sound bar, or Sonos.
If they wanted to make a splash in this space they should have done a sound bar with a sub, and upgraded sound quality on Apple Music to at least lossless, or even better MQA or DSD.
This is a swing and a miss. Stupid name too.
Or upgrade iTunes so it can hold FLAC instead of ALAC. They definitely need to raise the kbps of purchased songs too
Oh you were able to hear the quality of the speaker today?
Based on their current products and over the years previous versions…I don’t expect this to be an amazing update.
Unfortunately, Apple supporting FLAC before their own ALAC is like not charging for extra capacity in an iPhone. They are more likely to up-convert their AAC to ALAC and tell everyone it’s the same thing even though it’s not even remotely close, despite the same encapsulation. FLAC support would be nice, but I still wouldn’t ditch Musicbee for ITunes. Regardless, they really got to stop screwing people and give a lossless option. Absolutely no reason to exclusively sell lossy anymore.
Can we say a dollar short and a day late? Or better said this unit prices more than 120$ over it’s competitor which has been out there for at least two years. Apple users are screaming innovation, people who have common sense are scratching their heads and asking how they plan to catch up in a market where they are so far behind, and so over priced. TO boot this is with technology that doesn’t meet the Smart Home and IOT standards already in play. Most IOT items are already centered around the standards Google and Samsung have brought to light over the last two years. This would have been innovative 3 years ago. Coming out today, it’s a sad play to try to catch up in a market they have already lost.
Siri is the worst virtual assistant on the market and now Apple makes it the most expensive in a field of better products. How many million you think they’ll sell in the first month?
“Hey Siri, is crapple stealing tech and innovations from Amazon, Google and Microsoft?” “Yes, they are… and they’re laughing all the way to the bank when ever iSheep buys their overpriced outdated products.”
innovation has created technologies in the absence of agreements like Paris…we now have technology that can scrub CO2 from the air…agreement about carbon trading not aggressive action …we need to start deploying this new technology filtering emissions switching to EV hybrid cars…proft revenue all flow from solving new problems tapping new markets. Graphene offers us new processes and materials to alter how we manufacture new fabrics that breath warm us catch solar enegy through windows.Govt must channel this innovation though perhaps this is a new mandate for the EPA rather than as a regulator.
Sooooooo out lateseg point of technology in 2017 is artificial intelligence on phones and speakers. We’re amazing!! I should have never watched Flash Gordon growing up smdh.
Does everybody realize that all of these homes speakers are actually listening to & recording every single thing you say?
And I’m just sitting here, with my Google home, that can play music louder than both for $100, has a fabric texture bottom, and can actually answer my questions, just, WISHING, that I could get my hands on that overpriced underperforming speaker that has an assistant that doesn’t work half the time baked in 1 year after I got my Google home. Late, overpriced, underperforming, speaker.
Why is it underperforming?
Erwin It lacks features that make the Google home great. Chromecast control, TV Volume control (Samsung/LG smart TV), many of the home controls don’t work with the homepod yet, etc. Still Apple charges $350 for it
Homepod 2 will come in various colours like rosegold, gold, silver, jet black, and priced at a low of just $999.
What’s the point?… I genuinely have no clue why I need this stupid thing, or how it is supposed to improve my life. All I see is a Trojan horse, with nothing of benefit inside.
Apparently these things can order you a pizza, tell you what the weather is like outside, or play your music by shouting at it. Picking up a phone, looking out of the window, or pressing a button to listen to music is too much work I guess. At least with these the government can know when you’re at home, what you’re doing and listen to every conversation you have. What’s not to like.
so apple keeps its image as a copycat copying what others came up with but improving the design and experience… then don’t blame chinese copying you.., yeah and tim cook about the worst ceo ever.. he hasn’t done a thing… bad decision and decision… how many flops apple already introduced that ceased to exist, yet they excuse their slow introduction of new things to their assurance that what they come up must be made to the perfection… tom cook resign you are a joke sitting on a global conglomerate allowing u to play with trillions and even on that u screw
It will be interesting to have this conversation in June 2018.
I have a curious feeling that the HomePods will be back ordered just like the AirPods… 🙂