“This week, we learned that Apple’s much-rumored smart speaker is real, and it’s called HomePod,” Jason Snell writes for Macworld. “Now the wait begins — six months until it ships in December.”
“Sure, a few of us lucky souls were able to listen to a HomePod at Apple’s developer conference, but nobody outside of Apple has talked to one or picked one up. At the risk of stating the obvious, that’s because this is a product that’s not finished yet,” Snell writes. “Apple doesn’t want to publicly commit to a feature and then realize it can’t ship it; the product as the company conceives it today may not be the product that ends up in customers’ hands in December.”
“I can tell you that what I heard from the HomePod speakers in San Jose, I mostly liked. Certainly, the device can fill a room with impressive, dynamic sound,” Snell writes. “I’ve still got some questions about the processing the HomePod does to the sound—but we’ll get to that in a bit, since that’s likely driven by software that’s still a work in progress. But there’s no doubt in my mind that the HomePod’s speakers are impressive.”
Much more in the full article – recommended – here.
MacDailyNews Take: A little birdy tells us that Siri’s ability to hear users, even with loud music playing, is an eye-opener, thanks to an array of microphones that put even Siri’s best conduit, Apple Watch, to shame. basically, HomePod users will not have a problem being heard accurately. Whether or not Siri will be more capable of dealing with conversational language than she is today is the big question.
SEE ALSO:
With HomePod, Apple just wants to shake things up (for now) – June 7, 2017
Apple HomePod vs. Amazon Echo – June 7, 2017
CNET: Apple’s HomePod offers superior sound quality vs. Amazon Echo and Sonos Play:3 – June 6, 2017
Apple’s new HomePod sounds incredible! – June 6, 2017
Apple HomePod takes on Amazon Echo – June 6, 2017
Apple reveals HomePod smart home music speaker – June 5, 2017