Apple HomePod Puts Siri Inside A High-End Home Speaker

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With Google and Microsoft both throwing their hat into the intelligent assistant speaker fray that Amazon created, we all knew it was only a matter of time before Apple followed. That happens at the end of the year when the Apple HomePod makes its debut.

Like the Amazon Echo, Google Home, and Harman-Kardon Invoke, it’s a wireless speaker that doubles as an intelligent virtual assistant that you can interact with via voice commands, whether to find information, perform a digital task, or control music playback. Unlike them, it comes with Apple’s Siri, the OG virtual assistant that iPhone users have come to know through the years.

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The Apple HomePod takes on a chubby cylinder shape that’s wrapped in a fabric mesh cover, with a disc on top that houses a multi-colored lighting unit at its center. Unlike similar products in the category, it’s designed to function as a speaker first and a virtual assistant second, ensuring it can serve as a proper replacement for any great-sounding speakers in your home. Inside, it houses a high-excursion woofer with a custom amplifier and seven tweeters with individual amplifiers each to ensure high-quality sound, while a six-microphone array ensures it will pick up voice commands from anywhere in the room.

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Features include multi-room speaker support (via AirPlay 2), built-in Wi-Fi, and intelligent music playback that automatically analyzes a room’s acoustics then adjusts the sound based on its findings. It measures 6.8 x 5.6 inches (height x width).

Slated for a December release, the Apple HomePod is priced at $349.

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