HomePod … Apple’s first smart speaker is finally available
HomePod is finally here. Apple’s answer to Google Home and Amazon Echo is officially available to pre-orders starting from today and will be available to buy on February 9, according to Apple’s press release published lately on its official website.
The new smart speaker by the American tech giant that firstly announced during Apple’s WWDC 2017 event is the golden gate that will allow Apple’s smart assistant, Siri, to participate for the first time in the smart speakers battle ruled by Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant, which lives their boom days specially after the last releases announced at CES 2018.
Until this moment, only a few sites had the opportunity to test and review the new Apple’s smart speaker, HomePod. One of these few lucky sites is Refinery29, which had the chance to spend a whole hour with the new device and published its review that could be summarized in one sentence: “HomePod is really tough competitor”.
According to Refinery29 review, the first thing that distinguishes HomePod from Amazon Echo and Google Home is the outstanding audio quality, thanks to the powerful audio system that consist of a high quality strong woofer supported with an array of seven high quality tweeters. The mentioned audio system allows HomePod to delivers stunning audio experience.
Both Apple’s press release and Refinery29 article refers to the new notification privacy system of HomePod. The new smart speaker from Apple can determines if its owner is present in the same place, and if not, Siri will never speak about any personal notification or alerts such as text messages and reminders.
Apple does not reveal the secret behind this new privacy system, but it seems that HomePod have the ability to scan its own Wi-Fi network to search for an iPhone with the same iCloud account registered previously on the smart speaker. It is noteworthy that HomePod accepts only one registration with only one iCloud account. By that account, Siri can determines its owner and synchronize all iCloud integrations like messages, reminders and to do lists.
Apple announced that HomePod will costs $349 and will be available first in the U.S, UK and Australia with plans to coming to Germany and France next spring and then to the rest of the world markets.
