Apple is expanding availability of its Siri-enabled HomePod speaker this summer with an upcoming launch in Japan, a region in which the device was expected to land early this year.
Walter Isaacson says Apple should have made the kind of TV Jobs wanted, and claims Apple Park is the company's only great design in the last 15 years.
This week on the AppleInsider Podcast, William and Victor talk about the new MacBook Pro that look set for this year. There's also FaceTime altering your eyes, and just what it means to us when companies take their manufacturing to countries other than China.
Apple device owners are complaining about the company's latest AirPods commercial, as a version of the ad spot triggers Siri in HomePods due to the actor saying the verbal prompt 'Hey Siri.'
Alongside iOS 13 and macOS Catalina, the HomePod will be gaining an array of new features making it a far more capable device. Let's go through all the new features arriving for HomePod with iOS 13.
You're either a Siri Shortcuts fan, in which case the new features will absolutely delight you, or you've never looked at it. In which case, Apple wants to help you find out how useful Siri Shortcuts are for you.
Siri could be used to play music from third-party streaming services like Spotify in iOS 13, iPadOS, and HomePod, with a change to SiriKit enabling verbal control of tracks and podcasts being played in non-Apple apps via the virtual assistant, without requiring the use of Siri Shortcuts.
Apple's deal to get an official presence on Amazon has resulted in not just Apple being forced to share data on sales with Amazon, but also many smaller resellers either going out of business or struggling with alternative platforms like eBay, Etsy, and Walmart.
It's the first time Apple has won Creative Marketer of the Year despite decades of other awards from the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, including plaudits in 2018 for its Today at Apple program.
Apple and the HomePod remain a marginal factor in the global smartspeaker market, not even in the top five brands, according to new research estimates.
The HomePod could offer support for Siri with multiple users in the future without worrying about a user's personal data being accessed, with Apple coming up with a method to authenticate the speaker is authorized to make potentially sensitive queries using the presence of a nearby iPhone.
A future HomePod audio system may take a nearby user's position into account when playing sound, including creating separate stereo experiences for individuals in different places, and automatically adjusting the audio or even turning it off if the listener moves out of the room.
Two years ago there was no shortage of media coverage imagining that Apple's entire hardware business was about to be eclipsed by a new voice-first world where Amazon's Alexa, Google's Assistant and perhaps even Microsoft Cortana would shift consumer and developer attention away from iPhone apps and toward stationary Internet-connected microphones running ambient "skills." Why didn't that actually happen?
Amazon and Google have the reputation for selling smart speakers with far more features than Apple's HomePod. Yet Apple's brilliant music player is really a powerful device that just needs an App Store to make it the smartest speaker of them all.
In a bid to enhance its in-house Alexa voice recognition technology, Amazon reportedly employs thousands of people around the world to listen, transcribe and annotate audio clips recorded by Echo devices.
Tips: It's easy to use AirPlay with a radio station's stream, but with a few steps, and an app or two, you can turn Apple's HomePod in conjunction with your iPhone or iPad into a fantastic, and flexible radio player.
Apple has permanently lowered the retail price of the HomePod to $299 in the U.S, a $50 cut from the launch price.
As the number of smarthome devices approaches a forecast 1.56 billion in 2023, ones compatible with Apple's HomeKit should finally gain more "traction," according to research firm IDC.
Apple doesn't promote this and it wasn't available when HomePod first launched, but since iOS 12 you've been able to ignore your iPhone and make or receive all your calls through the company's smart speaker.
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AppleInsider Staff
William Gallagher
Victor Marks
Malcolm Owen
Andrew O'Hara
Roger Fingas
Daniel Eran Dilger
Mikey Campbell
Mike Wuerthele
