by Eric Lopez Montilla
Apple is one of the most popular companies of our era. It’s pretty shocking what they have accomplished over the years compared to other companies. It was kind of surprising how Apple hadn’t innovated an AI for homes like Alexa and Google Home. But of course, they caught up with that trend and created the Apple HomePod. Let’s see if it is worth buying it over smart speakers.
The Apple HomePod was announced on June 5th, 2017 and then released in early 2018 at a price of $350 dollars which is much more than google home which stands at $125 and the original Amazon Echo which is $180. So it must be better, right. Well, the Apple claims that the HomePod has deep base engineered to lower the boom, seven tweeters which make for great all-around sound, and A8 chip which is, in fact, the biggest brain ever in a speaker. It’s also automatic so it tunes to its environment to make it optimal for anyone as well as having spatial awareness so it can hear your requests from anywhere in the room even with loud noises around. Most of all the home pod is all about music. With Siri being able to access pretty much all the world’s songs, “it’s like having your very own musicologists,” people have said. This all sounds so great but you might not be convinced by the price tag yet but I’ll convince you.
Now, we all know what Siri is. If you have an apple phone you most likely use Siri. It makes everything much easier and convenient. Well, she is even better in the HomePod. Siri can send messages and answer calls by just using your voice as well as reading texts to you creating hands-free conversations. Let’s not forget the main reason the HomePod is here: your home. So, in your home Siri has many voice-activated functions she can perform, for example saying things like, “Hey Siri, turn on the lights”, or “Hey Siri, make the room cooler” which can be performed by connecting the HomePod to Apple’s HomeKit software on your phone.
The HomePod is truly one magnificent piece of hardware and having these many features, and more to come in the future, for that price is pretty incredible considering the prices of their phones and computers. With that being said the HomePod is probably the cheapest system that Apple has right now so I highly recommend purchasing one if you want to take one step into the future.