Vratislav Holub According to the latest information, Apple is planning to introduce a brand new HomePod. Now comes Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, who is considered one of the most respected sources in the apple growing community. The new HomePod should apparently follow on from the initial model from 2017 and be inspired by it with a larger design. However, the first generation did not meet with much success - HomePod was, according to most, overpriced and in the end it was not even able to do much, which is why it was completely overshadowed by its competition.
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Adam Kos It is therefore a question of what innovations Apple is going to come up with this time, and whether it will succeed in breaking the failure of the mentioned first generation. In 2020, the Cupertino giant still boasted the so-called HomePod mini. It combined a compact and elegant design, first-class sound and a low price, thanks to which it became a sales hit almost immediately. Does the larger model still have a chance? What innovations could Apple come up with and how can it be inspired by the competition? This is exactly what we are going to shed light on together now.
What the new HomePod will bring
As we mentioned above, in terms of design, the HomePod follows on from the very first generation from 2017. But it doesn't end there. Gurman also mentioned that the resulting sound quality will be very similar. Rather, the new model is supposed to move forward in terms of technology and build everything on a more powerful and newer chip, while the Apple S8 is most often mentioned in this context. By the way (with a high probability) we will also find it in the case of the expected Apple Watch Series 8.
HomePod (2017)
But let's move on to the essentials. Although from the point of view of design, the new HomePod should be similar to the original one, there is still speculation about the deployment of the display. This move would bring Apple's voice assistant substantially closer to competing high-end models. At the same time, this speculation is also related to the deployment of a more powerful Apple S8 chipset, which should theoretically offer more performance for touch control and a number of other operations. Deploying a display is a relatively fundamental milestone expanding the capabilities of voice assistants, which are thus transformed into a comprehensive home center. Unfortunately, something like this is missing from the apple menu for the time being, and the question is whether we will actually see it.
Siri enhancements
Apple has long been criticized for its Siri voice assistant, which is losing out to its competition in the form of Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant. However, Siri's abilities are a matter of software, and everything can theoretically be fixed with just an update. For this reason, we should not count on the fact that the new generation of HomePod will bring a fundamental breakthrough in the capabilities of the aforementioned voice assistant. In this regard, we will have to wait until Apple directly focuses on the subject and surprises its users with fundamental changes.
At the same time, not only HomePods, but also Siri have a relatively fundamental shortcoming – they do not understand Czech. Therefore, local apple growers must rely primarily on English. Because of this, even the current HomePod mini is not sold here, and it is therefore necessary to rely on individual resellers. Although the arrival of the Czech Siri has been talked about several times, for now it looks like we will have to wait for another Friday. The arrival of the Czech localization is not in sight for now.
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Flying around the world with Apple Availability and price
Finally, there is still the question of when the new HomePod will actually be released and how much it will cost. Unfortunately, not much is known about it for now. The available sources just mention that the new generation of the apple speaker should arrive in the next 2023. Many question marks also hang over the price. As we mentioned above, the first HomePod (2017) paid for a high price, due to which it was literally overrun by models from competitors, while the turnaround was brought by the significantly cheaper HomePod mini (it is available from 2190 CZK). Apple will therefore have to be quite careful in terms of price and find a reasonable balance in it.
