Apple's HomePod launches in Japan this summer

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.

AppleInsider Staff 6 years ago 4

Jobs biographer slams Apple design and missed TV opportunity

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.

William Gallagher 6 years ago 81

Podcast

New MacBook Pro coming, production leaving China, and more on the AppleInsider Podcast

Victor Marks 6 years ago 5

Everything new with HomePod in iOS 13

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.

Andrew O'Hara 6 years ago 31

Apple's quiet update to Siri Shortcuts brings the niche tool into the mainstream

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.

William Gallagher 6 years ago 32

Spotify, Pandora, and other music apps could gain Siri playback controls

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.

Malcolm Owen 6 years ago 14

Apple's deal to sell on Amazon directly is crushing small resellers by design

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.

Roger Fingas 7 years ago 19

Apple wins Creative Marketer of the Year award at prestigious Cannes Lions

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.

William Gallagher 7 years ago 5

New global smartspeaker data shows Apple's HomePod remains a bit player

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.

Roger Fingas 7 years ago 49

HomePod's multi-user support could use iPhones to secure Siri queries using personal data

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.

Malcolm Owen 7 years ago 6

Future Apple HomePod could customize audio experience to suit multiple users in the same room

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.

Malcolm Owen 7 years ago 5

Editorial: How AirPods and Shortcuts shifted Apple's Siri story and blunted Amazon's Alexa Echo threat

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?

Daniel Eran Dilger 7 years ago 69

Editorial: HomePod is as powerful as the iPhone 6, so let's have an App Store for it

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.

William Gallagher 7 years ago 40

Thousands of Amazon workers are listening in on Echo audio, report says [u]

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.

Mikey Campbell 7 years ago 42

Here are the best ways to get radio broadcasts to play on your HomePod or iPhone

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.

William Gallagher 7 years ago 32

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