{"id":11880,"date":"2017-06-05T13:17:00","date_gmt":"2017-06-05T21:17:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/associatednews.info\/content\/apple-joins-smart-speaker-race-with-music-focused-homepod\/"},"modified":"2017-06-05T13:17:00","modified_gmt":"2017-06-05T21:17:00","slug":"apple-joins-smart-speaker-race-with-music-focused-homepod","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/associatednews.info\/content\/apple-joins-smart-speaker-race-with-music-focused-homepod\/","title":{"rendered":"Apple Joins Smart-Speaker Race With Music-Focused 'HomePod'"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Alina Selyukh<\/a><\/span> <\/p>\n

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\n Apple executive Phil Schiller introduces the HomePod speaker at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference in San Jose, Calif.<\/p>\n

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Marcio Jose Sanchez\/AP<\/p>\n

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Marcio Jose Sanchez\/AP<\/p>\n

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And then there were three.<\/p>\n

Apple has finally unveiled its answer to Amazon’s and Google’s smart speakers slash digital assistants \u2014 and it’s called HomePod.<\/p>\n

This has been one major area in consumer electronics lacking Apple’s footprint. Amazon has heavily dominated the field with its home speaker called Echo, which uses the digital assistant Alexa. Google Home followed<\/a> in October and Microsoft’s assistant, Cortana, is also finding a home<\/a> in home speakers.<\/p>\n

Both Amazon Echo and Google Home respond to voice commands to play songs, look up stuff online, check the weather, set a reminder or control Internet-connected home appliances.<\/p>\n

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Siri can do those things, too, but Apple’s pitch for Siri-powered HomePod is instead focused heavily on music \u2014 the company appears to bank on consumers paying for smart speakers that deliver high-quality audio sound as a sort of gateway into the world of smart home assistants.<\/p>\n

“Just like we did with portable music, we want to reinvent home music,” Apple CEO Tim Cook said at the Worldwide Developers Conference, where HomePod was unveiled, becoming Apple’s first new device since the release of the Apple Watch in 2015.<\/p>\n

The HomePod \u2014 due to launch in December \u2014 looks like a mesh cylinder. Inside is the same processor that powers the iPhone and an upward-facing 4-inch woofer. Pulling music from the Apple library, the speaker was presented as being able to recognize its placement and direct rich audio sound into the room.<\/p>\n

The HomePod will be priced at $349, more expensive than Amazon’s $180 Echo or $50 Dot and Google’s $129 Home. The pricing of Apple’s device was shared at the conference in comparison to both smart home speakers as well as premium audio speakers. As The New York Times<\/em>points out<\/a>, that’s where one company might feel the competition the most:<\/p>\n

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“Though Apple appears to be playing catch up with Amazon and Google, the primary casualty here may be Sonos. That company offers a similar wireless multi-speaker system for listening to music throughout the home, similar to HomePod’s ability to chain together multiple speakers.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n