Virtual assistant Siri “lives” inside the body of the Apple speaker, and is connected to the smart home ecosystem, which she can control via your commands. Thanks to the HomeKit, the speaker can function as an alarm, weather station, news reader or universal responder to question. For the moment, only in English.
The HomePod is a cylinder 172 mm high and 142 mm wide and it weighs 2.5 kg. It has 1 subwoofer and 7 speakers concentrated in a circle, each with its own amplifier. There are 6 more speakers in the body and a luxurious Apple A8 control chip.
On the upper side there is an LED touch panel, which can be used to adjust the volume, stop or start playback. However, it is expected that voice command will be used above all. You can tell Siri to play some hip-hop or your favourite song. You can ask who is playing the given instrument at the moment, or tell her to play hits from your favourite year.
The software identifies the acoustics of the room and automatically adjusts the sound rendering. The speakers can exploit reverberations from walls, meaning that even music played from one place will be audible everywhere. What’s more, the speakers are highly sensitive and will hear you even if there is noise.
The speakers should bring audio to your entire home, be entirely wireless and offer the purest possible rendering of music. The HomePod can play anything via AirPlay, but WiFi allows you to connect to the internet where you can stream music from Apple Music as you please.
You will be able to choose from the black or white variant of the luxury HomePod. It is expected to go on sale in December 2017. First it will be available in countries like the USA, Great Britain and Austria. The price is set at 349 USD.