Unveiled at WWDC 2017, the Apple HomePod is Apple's answer to the Amazon Echo and Google Home, equipped with the existing Siri voice assistant that we're familiar with from its inclusion on the iPhone.
After first appearing on phones, voice assistants entered the home in a big way with the Amazon Echo, a speaker that was equipped with Amazon’s Alexa voice assistant.
While Apple has had a voice assistant, Siri, on its phones for some time now, it has so far been left behind when it comes to smart speakers. Competitor Google brought its own voice assistant to dedicated hardware with the Google Home speaker last year.
Rumors have been circulating for a while now that both Microsoft and Apple are planning on bringing their voice assistants, Cortana and Siri respectively, to the home in the form of smart speakers, and at WWDC 2017 Apple finally announced its version.
We first heard reports of Apple employees testing the 'Apple Speaker' in their own homes in September 2016, and another round of rumors suggests this home testing is still ongoing. More recently we've heard rumors that the speaker is actually entering production, making an imminent reveal looking ever more likely.
There's also been word on the Apple street that the speaker is going to be shaped like a Mac Pro - just a bit smaller.
So, read on for all the information we have so far about Apple’s HomePod.
Cut to the chase
- What is it? A smart speaker equipped with Apple’s Siri voice assistant
- When is it out? December 2017 in the US, UK and Australia
- What will it cost? The speaker will cost $349
Apple Siri Speaker release date
The Apple HomePod will be released in December 2017 at a price of $349.
It will be available in both white and space gray.
Apple Siri Speaker features
The HomePod is equipped with 7 tweeters on its base, a 4-inch upward-facing woofer. You can also pair two of the speakers together for a stereo configuration.
The speaker itself is around 7-inches tall.
Apple has confirmed that the new speaker will be spacially aware, so it should know how to optimise its sound to suit your home. It can detect the space that it's in, directing channels as appropriate depending on its location.
The speaker is equipped with 6 microphones that it will use to listen for voice commands. You can not only use it to control music, but you can also ask it questions about the music that's currently playing, such as for the name's of band members.
It can use this intelligent search functionality to recommend more music that's similar to the music that's currently being played.
Apple boasts that the microphone array is intelligent enough to cancel out background noise so that the speaker can hear you over the sound of its own music. This is helped by its included A8 chip, which Apple claims is the most powerful processor to ever be found in a speaker.
The speaker is also compatible with a number of non-music features, such as reminders, giving weather information, and controlling HomeKit supported smart home devices.
- Check out our full list of the devices that work, or will work, with Apple HomeKit.
However, Siri has some significant problems compared to competing voice services.
For example, it heavily prioritises Apple’s own apps rather than allowing you to use alternatives. Ask Siri to play some music, and it will only be able to play songs that are located in your Apple Music app, and Apple's presentation heavily emphasised its Apple Music integration, which it can use to deliver music from your personal music library.
This is in contrast to both Alexa and Google Assistant, which both allow you to use a music app of your choice, rather than restricting you to Amazon Prime Music and Google Play music respectively.
Amazon has been especially open with allowing developers to integrate their services into its smart speakers. It allows the creation of ‘Skills’ which essentially act as apps for the smart speaker, and so far there have been over 10,000 of them created for the speaker.
On a basic intelligence level, Siri also has a number of problems. Ask it when the Mona Lisa was painted (the year 1503, art buffs), and the voice assistant will happily tell you that ‘the answer is one thousand, five hundred and three,’ rather than being intelligent enough to realise that the year should be read aloud as ‘fifteen oh-three’.
Of course there’s always the chance that Apple will put significant effort into improving Siri before the HomePod is released. Google did a similar thing when it overhauled Google Now, creating Google Assistant, in the months before the Google Home was released.
Disappointingly, recent comments by Apple VP Phil Schiller which suggested that Apple was thinking along the lines of a Siri speaker with an integrated screen - turned out to be false.
A new challenger has entered the arena
Smart speakers are one of the most unexpected and cool technologies to have come out over the past couple of years, and interesting to see each of the technology giants repurposing their existing voice assistants to work in a home context.
Apple isn't the only one with such a device on the horizon. Microsoft appears to be readying a home speaker equipped with its Cortana voice assistant, and between that and Google's existing smart speaker efforts, the market is set to get crowded very quickly.
Apple has a real chance of standing out when it comes to its home automation efforts thanks to HomeKit, but it's not as strong when it comes to integrating with non-Apple services such as Spotify.
Apple's next major conference is set to be WWDC in June, but as previously mentioned, we would be surprised to see a hardware reveal come out of the software-focussed show.
Then again when it comes to Apple anything is possible, so keep your eyes trained on the McEnery Convention Centre in San Jose from 5-9 June for any new information about Apple's voice controlled ambitions.
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