HomePod Firmware Reveals New Details About Apple's Upcoming Smart Speaker

Apple recently released firmware for its upcoming HomePod device. Although it's unclear if the release was intentional, the firmware reveals some new details about the smart speaker.

Developer Steve Troughton-Smith notes that the 'shell' app on HomePod is called SoundBoard. It runs a full iOS stack and its apps are prefixed with 'Air'.

Looks like the 'shell' app on HomePod is called SoundBoard. It runs a full iOS stack, unsurprisingly. Its apps are prefixed with 'Air'


…I don't know that there's much else to say about HomePod other than this. From what I can tell it's just all of iOS on a device sans screen



Troughton-Smith also notes that AirMusic is coded in Swift while AirPodcasts and SoundBoard are Objective-C.

The +/- controls on the top of the HomePod are just regular LEDs and not a display. They function like this:




The HomePod has VoiceOver and other accessibility features. It makes itself known to iTunes as an iPhone SE. There does not appear to be a way to install apps or extensions.

Perhaps most interestingly, the center part of the HomePod surface appears to be an LED matrix which could perhaps allow the device to display shapes/symbols.



Designer Alan Miller tweets, "So the #HomePod probably has a screen like this. If it's the right density could easily show basic things like temperature & weather icons".





The HomePod is set to arrive in December. You can learn more about it here!

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