HomePod Pre-Orders Begin Friday But Will Ship Missing Crucial Features

Apple on Tuesday announced that its HomePod speaker will become available to pre-order this Friday, Jan. 26, before shipping out to customers on Feb. 9.

HomePod was unveiled at Apple’s WWDC ’18 event in June, and was originally slated for a launch this December. The company’s first smart home speaker, however, was delayed until “early 2018.”

That delay is finally over, and HomePod will hit store shelves and ship to customers the second Friday of February.

HomePod Features

The Siri-enabled smart home speaker is Apple’s first, but in an effort to differentiate it from its competitors, it is being touted as a music-focused device. Dubbed a “magical new music experience,” the high-end speaker boasts a beam-forming seven-tweeter array and a high-excursion subwoofer.

The end result, of course, is that HomePod will presumably have much better audio quality than similar devices like Amazon’s Echo speakers, or the Google Home series.

Nicer speakers aren’t the end of its music-oriented features, however. HomePod will also use advanced spatial awareness to determine its location in the room, analyze the music that it’s currently playing, and adjust the sound quality accordingly. In other words, HomePod remixes the music it’s playing based on ambient acoustics.

But despite being a musical device first, HomePod is also a fully fledged smart speaker. HomePod, via Siri, will be able to perform a variety of tasks, from checking the news and weather to controlling connected smart home appliances. Developers will also be able to use the SiriKit development toolset to create new abilities for the platform.

As far as additional considerations, it might be worth noting that HomePod is designed for use with an Apple Music subscription — so keep that in mind if you’re a Spotify or Prime Music subscriber. Additionally, HomePod will also be able to play music from local iTunes libraries, as well as stream Beats 1 and podcasts without a subscription.

Missing Features

Despite the delay, there will reportedly still be two missing features when HomePod launches: stereo sound and multi-room audio.

• Apple says the two features will roll out in a “free software update” this year.
• The stereo sound, when it’s added, will allow two HomePod devices in the same room to be separated into left and right channels, playing musical tracks in each.
• Multi-room audio, on the other hand, is an AirPlay 2 feature that lets users send audio tracks to another HomePod in a different room.

Additionally, HomePod will only be available in English at launch. Additional languages supported by HomePod’s Siri will, presumably, be added in a future software update.

Launch Date & Price

• Pre-orders for HomePod will begin this Friday, January 26.
• The smart home speaker will then ship out to customers on Friday, Feb. 9.
• HomePod will retail for $349.
• At launch, Apple’s Siri speaker will rollout in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. According to Apple, it’ll launch in France and Germany this spring.