Pre-orders for Apple's HomePod smart speaker are now live in the United States, Australia, and the UK.
HomePod delivers stunning audio quality wherever it’s placed — in any room in the house, playing any style of music. Using just your voice, it’s easy and fun to use, and works together with an Apple Music subscription for a breakthrough music experience, providing access to one of the world’s largest cloud music libraries. Siri, now actively used on over half a billion devices, has developed a deep knowledge of music and understands your preferences and tastes. And with Siri, HomePod can send a message, set a timer, play a podcast, check the news, sports, traffic and weather, and even control a wide range of HomeKit smart home accessories.
Currently, HomePod orders are set to deliver on February 9th. The device comes in white or space gray and costs $349 USD. Multi-room audio is not available at launch; however, with AirPlay 2 appearing in iOS 11.3 beta, we're hopeful that the feature gets added soon.
Maybe if it was not $349 then we might consider ditching Alexa but really Apple, this is way over priced even for you. You have gone too far now with your price inflations.
Usually new technologies arrive to my country or hometown one to two years later, but honestly this home smart speakers that every tech company is making I haven't encounter anybody showing interest in it, As far as I know to unlock the full potential of it you gotta have a smart home where you can control things wirelessly or by voice commands, starting from the inside walls wiring to a capable expensive devices, and I mean by that to change the refrigerator, the AC, the heating system, the plumbing, the lights the switches, the plugs .. And so on I mean who's ready to do that ?!, and since it's freaking costly and doesn't seems as a must have options, I really don't see the use of it at all, if it's about the weather I can turn the weather channel, or check on the internet, if it's about time I can have a look on my watch, if it's about music Well I got a tones of options there, and one more thing not every body in the world speaks english, and those who does certainly have different accents, please somebody body gives me one good reason for this home-pod.
Ya it's awful if apple released it as a speaker and WiFi all in one then it might have a spot in a home but there's better things to spend on if you want sound