Apple HomePod

Apple could launch its first smart display as soon as next year. Analyst Ming-Chi Kuo believes Apple is preparing a HomePod with a 7-inch display for H1 2024.

Launching a smart display under the HomePod branding is seemingly a part of Apple’s new smart home strategy.

Two weeks after its announcement, the HomePod 2 is officially on sale and hitting retail stores in the US, Canada, Australia, and other markets. Customers around the world are also receiving their HomePod 2 pre-orders.

Apple started accepting HomePod 2 pre-orders soon after its announcement. If you placed your order early, your unit should also show up today.

Although the HomePod mini played a key role in helping Apple make inroads in the smart speaker market, the company is reportedly not working on a second-generation model.

Apple launched the HomePod mini in October 2020 with a $99 price tag, which made it much more affordable than the full-size speaker.

Don’t think you’re going to add a new HomePod 2 to your original HomePod to make a stereo pair. It’s not possible because pairs can only be made with two of the same model.

It’s not a new limitation – a first-generation HomePod can’t be in a stereo pair with a HomePod mini, either. But many people might be unaware of the restriction.

The debut of HomePod mini brought a big jump in sales that continues almost a year later. Shipments of Apple’s smart speakers increased a whopping 92% last quarter when compared to the same period of 2020.

And HomePod mini was the second best selling smart speaker globally.

If your HomePod has had problems playing podcasts recently, it might need the software update Apple released Wednesday. It brings the full-size and pint-size audio devices up to version 15.1.1.

It doesn’t include any new features, though.

Apple reportedly hired Afrooz Family as its new head of software development for the HomePod. He’s supposedly been tasked with making the smart speaker a stronger rival for Amazon’s and Google’s products.

That would be something of a turnaround for the product.

Apple smart speakers will be able to play Apple Music’s lossless audio after an upcoming software update. Both HomePod and HomePod mini will get support for the high-quality audio format, according to Apple.

This is good news for HomePod owners who may have been feeling disgruntled about being left out of a signature new Apple Music feature.

Apple smart speakers got a fresh software update on Tuesday. It brings the full-size and pint-size devices up to HomePod Software Version 14.3.

Both sizes of Apple’s smart speaker got an update to HomePod Software Version 14.2.1 on Monday. The new system software promises just general improvements. It’s not yet known if that includes squashing a reported bug in Wi-Fi connectivity for the HomePod mini.

A more affordable version of the struggling HomePod smart speaker will debut next year, according to a generally reliable source. Apple is also reportedly going to introduce AirPods with noise cancellation in 2020.

Both are products that consumers have been asking for.

Not all Apple devices will escape the taxes being levied next month on goods imported from China. The Trump Administration decided to delay tariffs on iPhone, iPad and Mac, but other popular products will still get slapped with a 10% import tax, including Apple Watch, AirPods and HomePod

A drop in the price of the HomePod hasn’t helped Apple grow its share of the smart speaker market. It still has just a tiny percentage of all the units in use in the US, according to new figures from a market-research firm.

The number of smart speakers like Amazon’s Echo and Apple’s HomePod in use around the world is expected to keep growing strongly for years to come. It could pass 200 million in 2019, and pass 500 million in 2023.

Analysts from Canalys indicate the installed base of these devices is now surpassing the number of smartwatches in use. And smart speakers could even outnumber tablets before the end of 2021, they say.

There’s an easy way for Apple to make its rumored streaming video service a hit: buy Netflix. That’s the suggestion of an analyst from J.P. Morgan, who admits it would be very expensive.

And the analyst has recommendations for two other big Apple acquisitions.

Growing concerns about how much companies are spying on us tops our list of the most significant tech trends of 2018. Also on the list are some big changes in applications, a trend in phone design, and a new type of device that became nearly ubiquitous. 

As the new year begins, let’s take a look back at what changed for Apple and the tech world over the past 12 months.

The Apple CEO’s tour of Europe continued today with a visit to sunny Spain. He’s there to promote tomorrow’s launch of the HomePod in the country. He’s also talking up the release of the iPhone XR, which will debut around the world on Friday.

Weak HomePod sales caused it to fall off of the list of top 5 smartspeakers during the second quarter of this year. But there’s a very important metric where this product is beating all its rivals.

And it’s a category where Apple excels: making money.

President Trump reportedly ordered tariffs on $200 billion more Chinese goods yesterday. After these were first proposed several weeks ago, Apple warned that they’ll likely increase the cost of many of its products.

The list of affected devices includes some of Apple’s most popular offerings.

New iPhones and iPads are coming this fall, but some Apple products reportedly won’t be refreshed so soon. New versions of this company’s smartspeaker and wireless headphones might not be out until 2019.

And the wait for AirPods 2 could be much longer than many are hoping.

Craig Federighi is no longer in charge of Siri. Responsibility for Apple’s troubled voice assistant has been given to John Giannandrea, who is now in charge of all Apple’s artificial intelligence efforts.

Siri is seen as poor competition for Amazon Alexa, Microsoft Cortana, and Google Assistant. Its weakness is hurting sales of Apple products, including the HomePod.

Most people would agree that Siri is way behind its competitors. But Apple recently made moves that indicate it’s working to improve this voice assistant.

A British survey discovered what smartspeaker owners actually use them for. This could help Apple decide what new features to add to Siri, as well as the ones that need shoring up.

A Grand Prix in the Cannes Entertainment awards went to “Welcome Home,” a long-form ad for the HomePod created by Spike Jonze. The goal of the “Lions”  is to reward education or advertising excellent enough to qualify as art..

Watch the brilliant 5-minute ad below:

Rumors indicate Apple’s working on a cheaper version of the HomePod. And now there’s a new wrinkle: this device might be sold under the Beats brand name.

This would let the HomePod name stand as a premier product, while still allowing Apple to make a more affordable smartspeaker.

iPhone sells like gangbusters. iPad is at the top of the tablet market. But the HomePod is a very different story. Apple’s smartspeaker earned just a small share of the world market in the first quarter of this year, according to a market research firm.

No surprise, Amazon enjoys the largest piece of the pie. But it doesn’t dominate this market the way it used to.