Apple HomePod, a smart speaker equipped with the Siri voice assistant, was released on Feb. 9, 2018. It was planned to be released in Dec. 2017 with a $349 price tag, but was delayed. Currently, it is only available in the U.S., U.K. and Australia.

The HomePod is compatible with an iPhone 5 and up. The HomePod is equipped with seven tweeters on its base, along with a four-inch upward-facing woofer. You can also pair two of the speakers together for a stereo configuration. Apple has confirmed that the new speaker will be spatially aware, so it should know how to optimize its sound to suit your home or any location. The six microphones on the bottom are placed to listen for voice commands. You can use it to control music, but you can also ask it questions about the music that’s currently playing. Above those microphones, there is a woofer that provides a deep-base that tunes into the low frequencies for the smooth sound. With the A8 chip, it can process the commands faster and more accurately. Apple claims that the HomePod is able to adjust the playlist and give recommendations according to the customer’s taste. The HomePod also contains a number of non-music features, such as giving reminders, providing the weather, and controlling HomeKit supported smart home devices. All of those smart innovations are protected by the seamless mesh fabric, which provides an elegant design to the speaker. Setting up the HomePod is fairly easy, just plug it in and iOS devices will connect to it automatically, and when friends have your Wi-Fi network, their devices are connected to it, too!

This is in contrast to both Alexa and Google Assistant, which allow people to use any music app of their choice, while the HomePod only supports Apple Music or the music on the Music App. Also,the HomePod cannot recognize distinct voices, so it will respond to anyone, while both Alexa and Google Assistant have voice training, which allows them to have customized responses for different people. Nevertheless, the HomePod does a good job on responding to follow-up questions. HomePod is also doing significantly better than its rivals on reminding the users, as it syncs with the Apple Note App on the devices and makes a to-do list to remind users of their upcoming events. The HomePod also provides more privacy than other brands, as it encrypts the questions and data to your account. Not surprisingly, the price of the HomePod is significantly higher than its rivals: it costs twice as much as the Amazon Echo, which costs $180. It also costs over $200 more than the $129 Google Home. Both of those devices even have a mini version that only costs $50 each!

Overall, with this fairly new device, there is still a need to investigate more and see how much does it match with the claims. However, the HomePod does sound interesting, even though it lacks a little in certain aspects when compared to its rivals.