There’s No Replacement on the Horizon
One of the biggest surprises when Apple pulled the plug on the HomePod was that it had no replacement waiting in the wings. Instead, the company made it clear that all of its efforts were going to be focused on the smaller HomePod mini.
However, even if some assumed that Apple was being cagey to avoid tipping off a new product release, the fact that April’s event came and went with no mention of a HomePod suggests that if Apple ever plans to release a successor to the full-sized HomePod — and we think that’s a pretty huge “if” — it’s not going to be arriving any time soon.
So, if you’re waiting for a second-generation HomePod, you’re going to be waiting a long time. Some rumours before the event suggested Apple is working on a more advanced HomePod that could combine a screen or even form part of a more integrated Apple TV set-top box, but there’s every reason to believe this is still a way off, and it’s probably going to be an entirely unique device compared to the classic HomePod, with a design that will take it well beyond being just a speaker.
It’s also worth keeping in mind that Apple’s update cycles for these second-string product families are already long. It took four years for the Apple TV 4K to get an update, the HomePod mini came over 2.5 years after the original HomePod went on sale (and three years after it was announced). In these cases, new products always seemed to be just around the corner, and yet we always found ourselves waiting longer than we would have expected. There’s no reason to assume that any kind of next-generation HomePod is going to get here any sooner.