The authentic HomePod flopped. But Apple wasn’t discouraged. It reconceived the product and launched the HomePod mini, a much less high-tech–and extra reasonably priced–iteration that appears to have been extra profitable out there and instructed Apple had bigger residence ambitions.
Now come rumors that Apple’s planning on constructing a brand new HomePod. In truth, there are rumors that as many as three new HomePods might be headed our means. Could it’s, in the identical yr that the iPod lastly pale away, that the HomePod will remodel itself from a failure right into a key Apple product line?
It’s time. Not only for a HomePod comeback, however for HomePod domination. Two HomePods? I would like extra. I would like 4. It’s time for Apple to hurry again into the good residence sport and the HomePod can prepared the ground.
Return of the HomePod
Analyst Ming-Chi Kuo reported that Apple’s engaged on a brand new HomePod for later this yr or early in 2023. The logical assumption right here is that the HomePod mini will as soon as once more be given a non-mini counterpart, a bigger speaker that sounds higher–however maybe is extra like a scaled-up HomePod mini than a revision of the unique, costly HomePod.
It is sensible. The HomePod mini, as enjoyable as it’s, can’t fill bigger rooms with high-quality audio and lags behind the unique HomePods by way of performing as audio system for an Apple TV. There’s room in Apple’s speaker line for a extra highly effective mannequin. Will it fulfill followers of the unique HomePods? Probably not, however all it must be is a bit higher than the HomePod mini for not much more cash. All of a sudden, the HomePod is a product line once more.
Could we quickly see a rebirth of the bigger HomePod?
Next cease: Living room
Could it’s true? As somebody who has advocated many times for Apple to smoosh the Apple TV and HomePod collectively, I’m excited to relay that Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman thinks that this product could lastly be on the best way.
Perhaps arriving subsequent yr, it might be a single machine that will act as an Apple TV and Soundbar in a single. Attached to your TV, it might fill your room with audio from streaming motion pictures and TV exhibits in addition to from Apple Music, together with Spatial Audio. Step 1: Plug the HomePod TV in. Step 2: Plug it into your TV. Step 3: There’s no step 3!
Gurman additionally means that this HomePod may also function a Center-Stage-style digital camera, which additionally is sensible. Imagine having the ability to kick off FaceTime conversations with relations out of your front room sofa, with a digital camera that’s good sufficient to zoom in to wherever you’re sitting within the room. (It’s truly a extra becoming use of Center Stage than the Studio Display!)
What’s extra, there’s nothing on this product that goes notably past the expertise Apple’s transport as we speak. All Apple has to do is combine it right into a single handy machine–and it could be a good way to drive tvOS into many extra properties.
The kitchen HomePod?
Another rumored HomePod is one that will be extra akin to the Amazon Echo Show and the Meta Portal: a sensible speaker with voice management that additionally has a show and a digital camera. Again, that is all tech that Apple at present gives–it might simply have to be remixed into a brand new product that will discover a residence on a desk or within the kitchen.
I preserve an Echo Show in my kitchen, and it’s not a nasty product, however it simply makes me want for one thing higher. Imagine a Center Stage-style digital camera, with assist for all of the streaming providers by way of their Apple TV apps. The actual problem can be in determining the interface for such a tool. Would it simply be… an iPad caught to some audio system? An Apple TV you may drive with easy gestures?
Amazon’s Echo Show is an honest product, however Apple might do higher.
Amazon
Here’s my concept: Just as Amazon does, preserve it easy. Offer a distant management and an Apple TV mode for easy navigation–in different phrases, don’t replicate iPadOS, as a result of these kinds of units will not be ones you need to spend so much of time touching. Besides, the killer app for a tool like this isn’t one with heavy interactivity–it’s one which dispenses ambient data. Allow me to populate that display with iOS-style widgets, and also you’re on to one thing good.
As somebody who has two authentic HomePods nonetheless in use to today, I don’t maintain something in opposition to the product regardless of its failure out there. And with the iPod now formally buried, it looks like the correct time for the HomePod model to come back into its personal. That’s a superb factor because it’s gone time that Apple spent extra time specializing in its smart-home product line.
Source: www.macworld.com