Streaming music leader Spotify on Wednesday began testing out a new in-app voice assistant feature that allows users to quickly find songs, albums, playlists, artists and more with a single tap. More interesting are playback controls that suggest potential integration with smart speaker devices.
With dissatisfaction with Siri threatening to hurt various product lines now, several former employees on the Siri team have spoken out about blunders that took place during the rolling out of the technology back in 2011, as well as infighting and turf battles afterward.
In an attempt to stay one step ahead of the virtual assistant competition, like Apple and Google, Amazon recently released a new feature that allows users to ask multiple questions in succession without repeating the "Alexa" wake word.
Sales of Apple's first smartspeaker, the HomePod, have so far been "underwhelming," according to a Barclays analyst, citing a week-long trip his team spent meeting companies in Apple's Asian supply chain.
The HomePod is Apple's first step into a world of smart speakers that can do everything from stream music to control all of your smart home devices. The main downside is that it's priced at a hefty $349, more than many people are willing to pay for a smart speaker.
A somewhat questionable report out of Taiwan on Wednesday says Apple is working on more affordable editions of stalwart product lines including iPhone, iPad and Mac, as well as a lower priced HomePod.
Imagine turning your home into the bridge of the Star Trek Enterprise, where a disembodied voice deftly answers every question you can ask, and you don't carry an iPhone or iPad anymore. Unfortunately, you also can't unlock your doors, you can't go outside, the brands you like are replaced with generic alternatives, and popular games, creative apps and other content aren't available anymore. This is the fantasy future of Amazon Alexa—but fortunately not the vision of Apple's new HomePod.
In its latest advertising push for HomePod, Apple on Monday shared a new ad directed by acclaimed music video and film director Spike Jonze, and starring English performer FKA twigs, who uses the speaker to unwind after a hard day's work.
Apple's HomePod brings Siri into the home for the first time, but how does the virtual assistant stack up against established technologies like Amazon's Alexa and Google Home's Google Assistant? We put the latest versions of each smart speaker to the test in this video comparison.
This week on the AppleInsider podcast, Victor and Mike talk about Consumer Reports scoring cameras, the carriers in the US and the FCC, the end of Best Buy Mobile, Apple's handling of iCloud user data in China, and iPods.
HomePod is a sophisticated computer dedicated to the task of producing immersive, room-filling sound. That's not all it can do, however. Equipped with the same A8 processor as Apple TV 4, it can also serve as a HomeKit hub for choreographing home accessories, even enabling remote access to your devices. Here's an in-depth look.
Over the last nine months, Apple announced HomePod, provided early demonstrations of its sound, briefed journalists on its design and intent, released the product to the market and followed up with additional details highlighting its capabilities that many early reviews didn't catch on their own. Here's an in-depth look at what makes HomePod not just an interesting product, but new product category with the ability to change how users experience audio at home.
Apple's HomePod is more than twice as expensive as Amazon's second-generation Echo, incorporates a less capable virtual assistant in Siri and is limited to Apple's ecosystem of service. So why would anyone choose it? It's all about sound quality.
There are a few options by which to stream music directly from HomePod, the main contender being Apple's monthly subscription service Apple Music. But if you, like many others, have built up an extensive iTunes library over the years, iTunes Match offers the biggest bang for your buck.
Priced at $349, the Apple HomePod saw more pent-up demand at launch than virtually all of its competition, save for one budget-priced smartspeaker: Amazon's $50-and-under Echo Dot.
For decades, market research firms have been confidently asserting that the "winners" in PCs, tablets, smartphones and other consumer electronics are not firms that are profitable or even sustainable, but merely those shipping the largest volumes at any given time. This has enabled them to crown a successive line of failed players, then rapidly move on to a new "winner," often within the same year. The bigger problem for this sort of flawgic is that the game itself is changing.
The HomePod is not strictly limited to Apple Music playback through Siri — it is also an AirPlay target, and can recieve an audio signal from nearly every app on your iPhone. Here are some of the most common apps, and where to tap to get that to play on your new speaker.
Apple's HomePod and Google's Home Max are both vying for the high end of the audio market. But which one is worth your hard earned cash? AppleInsider put these premium speakers to the test to tell you which one wins out.
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Mikey Campbell
Stephen Silver
AppleInsider Staff
Roger Fingas
Daniel Eran Dilger
Victor Marks
Neil Hughes
Mike Wuerthele
