Remember Apple’s smart speaker it was planning to release called HomePod? Well, if you’ve been waiting for the company to release it, you’re going to have to wait a bit more now. Apple has indefinitely delayed the release of HomePod until 2018. The company says that it needs more time to work on the smart speaker.
“We can’t wait for people to experience HomePod, Apple’s breakthrough wireless speaker for the home, but we need a little more time before it’s ready for our customers,” an Apple spokesperson said. “We’ll start shipping in the US, UK and Australia in early 2018.”
Apple was originally planning to release the HomePod in December, but has now delayed it until 2018. Priced at $349, Apple is setting the bar high for the smart speaker as a higher-end sound system like Sonos. It comes with built-in smart assistant like you find on Google Home and Amazon Echo.
The Homepod is a cylindrical smart speaker that features seven-speaker arrayu of tweeters, a four-inch subwoofer, and a six-microphone array. These specs puts it on par with some of the best speakers available on the market in its price range. Where Apple does fall short is providing a smart experience with Siri. Siri hasn’t been able to keep up with other assistants like Alexa and Google Assistant. When Apple was announcing the release of HomePod at WWDC this past June, the company focused more on music first and smart features second.
We don’t have specific reasons as to why Apple decided to put back the release of the HomePod, but this likely wasn’t a light decision for Apple seeing as holiday shopping season is right around the corner. Apple sets no firm date and just states vaguely that they are planning a release for early 2018. HomePod will be a while before we see it on sale and available to the public. For right now though, you should enjoy your Amazon Echo, Google Home, or any other smart speaker you may have. We’ll let you know when Apple decides to release the HomePod.
