The HomePod — now due in 2018 — will mark Apple's first real attempt at making Siri an "ambient" voice assistant. Arguably, though, the company needs to push a lot harder if it wants people to choose Siri over alternatives from Amazon and Google.
According to a report on Thursday, Samsung's smart home speaker is expected to debut in the first half of 2018 with support for the firm's Bixby virtual assistant, setting the device up for direct competition with Apple's delayed HomePod.
Apple employees with a HomePod have a new firmware version available for testing — with older versions of the device's code having revealed much about the then forthcoming iPhone X.
Apple Senior Vice President of Worldwide Marketing Phil Schiller continues his media rounds talking about all things Apple, with the latest interview delving into the internal thought process when the company decided to move away from Touch ID in the iPhone X, thoughts on Apple's collaborative environment, and the iMac Pro's imminent release.
While Apple's HomePod couldn't reach store shelves before the end of 2017, Google's competing Home Max speaker has arrived right on time, with orders now being accepted at Best Buy and shipping in time for Christmas.
Introduced this summer at WWDC17, Apple's HomePod was immediately positioned next to Amazon Echo and Google Home by bloggers as a "smart speaker" serving primarily as a way to chat with a voice assistant. But that's not how Apple introduced it.
When Apple announced it was acquiring Beats in 2014, lots of critics scoffed and some even suggested the purchase was evidence that Tim Cook was just grasping at straws, with a good measure of racist-tinged denigration of the value of the LA-based music firm on the side. Why was the most valuable, competent and profitable tech company on earth prepared to spend $3 billion—by far the most it had ever paid in an acquisition—to get Beats?
Just days after Apple delayed its HomePod speaker and personal assistant into 2018, Amazon's low-priced Echo Dot was the company's top seller over Black Friday and Cyber Monday, giving the online retailer an even greater lead over rivals in the home speaker market.
Apple recently announced that its highly anticipated premium HomePod speaker won't launch in December as was originally planned. AppleInsider brings you up to speed with everything you need to know about the HomePod's delay until 2018.
Apple's HomePod project actually predates the Amazon Echo, but was reportedly canceled and restarted multiple times, and has undergone radical design changes.
Originally scheduled to debut in December, Apple has pushed the launch of its Siri-equipped HomePod speaker into early 2018, saying the company needs more time to complete the home audio accessory.
Before the first-generation HomePod can even make its way into the wild, rumors are already cropping up about a future update to the premium speaker, as the president of supplier Inventec made comments about future smart speakers with facial recognition capabilities.
A delve into the new HomePod firmware, and developer documentation shows that Apple's forthcoming smart speaker will process full Siri queries on a synchronized iPhone or iPad rather than refusing them, or processing them on-device.
The first iOS 11.2 beta — launched earlier on Monday — enables SiriKit for third-party developers working on HomePod support, according to Apple.
With just 11 days left in the month, Apple will not be holding an October press event this year, the company's head of software engineering reportedly said in an email.
The first batch of Google Home Mini hardware distributed at assorted release events had a serious flaw that caused the device to listen in on every noise generated in a house — and has since been pinned down as a hardware problem with a key feature now temporarily disabled after a firmware update.
In addition to its budget-priced $49 Google Home Mini, the search giant also introduced a push to the premium end of the speaker market, unveiling the $399 Google Home Max with speakers 20 times more powerful than the regular Home.
Google on Wednesday unveiled a smaller, more affordable version of its Home speaker and assistant, dubbed the Google Home Mini, set to launch in stores on Oct. 19 for $49.
This Tuesday, the first-ever event at the Steve Jobs Theater at Apple Park in Cupertino will celebrate the 10th anniversary of Apple's iconic iPhone. It's expected to be headlined by a new OLED model known as the iPhone X, but that's not all the company has in store. AppleInsider gives you a complete rundown of what to expect.
Though Apple is not due to open HomePod orders until December, versions of the hotly anticipated Siri-equipped speaker appear to be in testing by employees in the U.S., while one Instagram user seems to have snagged a unit in China.
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Roger Fingas
AppleInsider Staff
Mike Wuerthele
Neil Hughes
Daniel Eran Dilger
