The HomePod is now available for pre-order from today in the Apple Store in the US, UK and Australia.
Six months after it was revealed, Its has been a the long wait for the release of Apple’s HomePod smart speaker
Apple’s wireless audio experience with voice control from Siri is nearly three years behind the Amazon Echo and after the Google Home, which were launched in 2016. The device will work with Apple Music and its capabilities will include smart home integration, voice messaging and, soon, multi-room audio.
The HomePod speaker will provide a wireless audio experience with voice control from Siri. With the HomePod, Apple is promising not only a premium sound experience, but also the kind of voice-control that will throw down the gauntlet to Amazon’s cheaper Echo series. The HomePod is priced at $350 (roughly Rs. 22,200), comparable to Google Home Max, the most expensive Google smart speaker and is more than double the cost of Amazon echo which costs $150 in US market.
The HomePod will be the first smart speaker powered by Siri, Apple’s voice and smartphone assistant, putting it directly against Amazon Alexa and Google’s Assistant. The HomePod is “designed to work with Apple Music, and may not work with third party services like Spotify. Apple says that the AI will be able to learn user preferences and music tastes enabling it to provide a natural language response to customer’s choices.
Apple Music will give users access to its 45 million songs plus their iTunes library. The HomePod will also support messaging services imesage and though third party apps like WhatsApp through development with SiriKit. The Sirikit compatibility may also help voice commands to apps like evernote.
The Homepod is compatible only with ios/MacOS devices specifically iPhone 5s or later, iPad Pro, iPad Air or later, iPad mini 2 or later and iPod touch (6th generation).
