Apple's first million HomePods now shipping from Inventec - report

Having missed an original December launch date, the HomePod is finally rolling off the production lines of one of two assembly partners, Inventec, a report said this week.

The Taiwanese firm is working on a relatively small initial shipment of 1 million speakers, according to Taipei Times sources. It's not clear how many units the other assembly partner, Foxconn, is currently rolling out if any.

Together however the two firms are expected to ship between 10 to 12 million units in 2018, splitting orders equally.

Apple postponed the HomePod launch in November, offering only an "early 2018" date with the explanation that the product needed "a little more time before it's ready for our customers."

A subsequent report claimed that Apple had "dithered" during development, going through many iterations and only making the HomePod a full-fledged project in 2014. That year engineers were allegedly "blindsided" by the Amazon Echo, though they considered it to have inferior sound.

The $349 HomePod will be Apple's first voice-controlled smartspeaker, nominally a challenge to the Echo and Google Home. Apple is placing more emphasis on high-quality sound though, and in fact third-party Siri functions will initially be limited to messaging, to-dos, and notes, moreover requiring a paired iPhone or iPad, and compatible iOS apps.

64 Comments

tulkas 3722 comments · 23 Years

About 6 years ago

jsmythe00 said:

Glad they are back on schedule. Sadly though, I don't see this product being successful. I think they priced themselves out the market.

I don't get apple sometimes. Airpods are GREAT. What made them even greater is they priced them extremely compettitve. Same with the iPad. Apple watch was slightly overpriced. But this...it's a crippled device at premium price.

Fix the price and allow third party music

Agreed. While HomeKit in and of itself seems to be making good inroads with accessory makers, the price of this thing will not help. At this point, now that the market is starting to shake out, ubiquity will be key to driving more 3rd party devices being added. In expensive options from Google and Amazon will drive their ubiquity. Apple has gone in exactly the opposite direction, which may not hurt their sales amongst the faithful, but won't increase their numbers explosively either, which the others have as an advantage for their platforms. Seems like hubris to price a speaker at this price.Might be a great speaker and well worth every penny, but it won't grow the base for HomeKit expansion.

mike1 3431 comments · 10 Years

About 6 years ago

jsmythe00 said:

Glad they are back on schedule. Sadly though, I don't see this product being successful. I think they priced themselves out the market.

I don't get apple sometimes. Airpods are GREAT. What made them even greater is they priced them extremely compettitve. Same with the iPad. Apple watch was slightly overpriced. But this...it's a crippled device at premium price.

Fix the price and allow third party music

Price is fine. $350 is not expensive for good audio. It should be a premium product with better sound. They don't have to compete with Amazon's dreck. If there's any significant functionality missing, that's a different story. Not a rush, but I am looking forward to picking one up at some point.

techprod1gy 838 comments · 11 Years

About 6 years ago

If the audio is as good as I expect the price tag is spot on. It will be interesting to see how the utility of the product plays out...is it just used as a good speaker or will it truly enhance the user experience with voice guided tech.