Apple's HomePod speaker comes to US, UK, and Australia on Feb 9

After a delay to market late last year, Apple's heralded HomePod smart speaker is coming on February 9 with preorders happening this Friday. Unfortunately, HomePods is coming to three markets -the US, UK and Australia with other countries (possibly Canada) getting the devices in the spring.

HomePod is a new product category from Apple. It looks to be taking on Sonos in terms of MESH enabled Hi-Fi streaming speakers but also looks to compete with the Amazon Echo and Google Home smart speakers which have been available in Canada since last year. Seen as a delivery methof for Apple Music, Siri, HomeKit and other Apple ecosystems, the HomePod is expected to bring big sound in a compact package.

“HomePod is a magical new music experience from Apple. It brings advanced audio technologies like beam-forming tweeters, a high-excursion woofer, and automatic spatial awareness, together with the entire Apple Music catalog and the latest Siri intelligence, in a simple, beautiful design that is so much fun to use,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing.