Thoughts on Apple's HomePod

By Gadjo Cardenas Sevilla

San Jose, California - Apple's newest product category since the Apple Watch in 2015 (or, it can be argued, since the EarPods last year) is their HomePod speaker revealed here a few days ago and which is coming to the US in December (with mid-2018 availability in Canada likely).

In typical Apple fashion, the company comes rather late into a market that's already quite mature. Amazon's Echo can be credited for creating the connected speaker/voice assistant space, and it's a huge seller in the US, Amazon's even expanded their product line to smaller Dot speakers as well as licensing Echo across various OEMs, including high-end speaker brands.

Amazon Echo is all but nonexistent in Canada. You can get the thing to work, but it is not natively supported, likely because of Canadian French language integration. This is one reason why Google Home is in a good position to thrive in Canada. Google's made the device available and it isn't exorbitant at CAD $179. I've tested the Google Home briefly in the US and found it to be a capable speaker and even better assistant. Connected to services like Spotify (for streaming music) and Netflix (for casting to Chromecast-connected TVs), makes it very useful, as does Google Home integration (I've used it with Phiips Hue smart lights) and Nest products.

The one thing the Google Home isn't is a great speaker. Sound is muffled and there's a lack of range, most users won't quite mind this but compared to a Sonos speaker, the difference is dramatic.

Here's where I think HomePod will excel. Just like the AirPods, which are a tremendous product that are truly unmatched in terms of ease of use and quality, specially for the size. Apple will re-invent the speaker, make it sound great for homes and give it the ease of connectivity that Sonos has long been known for.

The iPod business is tiny, iPhones have replaced standalone music players, as have Apple Watches. HomePod brings the entire Apple Music catalog to homes (40 million songs), enables some HomeKit functionality and, although downplayed in the WWDC keynote, should serve as a Siri-speaker for getting various things done by voice.

My big question is whether HomePod will be exclusively for Apple Music and iTunes or if users can access Spotify, Google Music, Microsoft Groove and other music or podcast streaming services. I'm afraid the answer to this will be no, at least not at first. 

I am also wary about the Siri aspect of HomePod. I know Apple is improving Siri quite dramatically, but having used Siri on my iOS devices and MacBook and having used other personal assistants, there's a significant gap in range. HomePod isn't due until December (likely a soft launch, in limited quantities, only in US and UK). So, there's a lot of time to iron out the functionality. Aside from great design, awesome sound and Apple's patented ease of use, HomePod is going to need to really be something special to be able to win the smart home assistant war, just like iPod, iPhone and iPad before it.