Breakthrough Wireless Speaker Brings Advanced Audio Technologies
Into Any Home For an Incredible Music Listening Experience
HomePod™, the innovative wireless speaker from Apple®, arrives
in stores beginning Friday, February 9 and is available to order
online this Friday, January 26 in US, UK and Australia. HomePod
will arrive in France and Germany this spring.
HomePod delivers stunning audio quality wherever it’s placed —
in any room in the house, playing any style of music. Using just
your voice, it’s easy and fun to use, and works together with an
Apple Music® subscription for a breakthrough music experience,
providing access to one of the world’s largest cloud music
libraries. Siri®, now actively used on over half a billion devices,
has developed a deep knowledge of music and understands your
preferences and tastes. And with Siri, HomePod can send a message,
set a timer, play a podcast, check the news, sports, traffic, and
weather, and even control a wide range of HomeKit™ smart home
accessories.
“HomePod is a magical new music experience from Apple. It brings
advanced audio technologies like beam-forming tweeters, a
high-excursion woofer, and automatic spatial awareness, together
with the entire Apple Music catalog and the latest Siri
intelligence, in a simple, beautiful design that is so much fun to
use,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of
Worldwide Marketing. “We’re so excited for people to get HomePod
into their homes, apartments and businesses to hear it for
themselves. We think they will be blown away by the audio quality.
The team has worked to give Siri a deeper knowledge of music so
that you can ask to play virtually anything from your personal
favorites to the latest chart-topping releases, simply by saying
‘Hey Siri.’”
Audio Innovations and Advanced Technologies
At just under 7 inches tall, HomePod represents years of
hardware and software innovation:
- Packed with Apple-engineered audio
technology, HomePod uses advanced software for real-time acoustic
modeling, audio beam-forming, echo cancellation and more, powered
by Apple’s A8 chip, delivering a wide, spacious soundstage. Using
spatial awareness to sense its location in the room, it
automatically adjusts the audio to sound great wherever it is
placed.
- HomePod features a large,
Apple-designed woofer for deep, clean bass, a custom array of seven
beam-forming tweeters that provide pure high frequency acoustics
with directional control, and powerful technologies that preserve
the richness and intent of original recordings. With an array of
six microphones, HomePod can hear “Hey Siri” from across the room,
even when loud music is playing.
- Setup is as easy and intuitive as
setting up AirPods — simply hold an iPhone next to HomePod and it’s
ready to start playing music in seconds. The Siri waveform appears
on the top to indicate when Siri is engaged, and integrated touch
controls also allow easy navigation.
Apple Music
HomePod is designed to work with an Apple Music subscription for
access to hundreds of genres, moods and activities. It also learns
preferences and tastes that are shared across devices. Using Siri
to deliver deep knowledge of artists, songs, albums and more,
HomePod can handle advanced searches within Apple Music’s catalog,
so users can ask questions like, “Hey Siri, when was this song
released?” or “Hey Siri, can you play something totally different?”
to change the mood. Apple Music subscribers can enjoy a catalog of
more than 45 million songs, combined with their entire iTunes®
library, for online or offline listening — completely ad-free.
Home Assistant
HomePod is a convenient way to send messages, set timers and
reminders, check the weather and listen to shows on Apple Podcasts.
The latest business news, headlines and sports updates stream
directly to HomePod from NPR, CNN, ESPN and others. HomePod can
also be used as a speakerphone with iPhone for crisp and clear
audio quality.
With support for HomeKit, HomePod can control hundreds of home
accessories or set scenes like, “Hey Siri, I’m home,” to control a
number of different accessories at the same time. HomePod can turn
on the lights, raise the shades, set the desired temperature or
make other adjustments and serves as the perfect home hub, enabling
remote access and automations.
SiriKit for HomePod
Through SiriKit™, HomePod supports third-party messaging apps,
so users can ask Siri to send a message to a friend or colleague
using apps like WhatsApp. Reminders, note-taking and to-do list
apps like Things and Evernote will automatically work with HomePod,
so Siri can set reminders, create a new list, mark items as
complete, or create and modify notes. For developers interested in
adding SiriKit support, more information is available at
developer.apple.com/sirikit.
Multi-Room Audio and Stereo
Coming this year in a free software update, users will be able
to play music throughout the house with multi-room audio. If
HomePod is in the kitchen, users can ask Siri to play jazz in the
dining room, or play the same song in each room — perfectly in
sync. If there's more than one HomePod set up in the same room, the
speakers can be set up as a stereo pair for an even more immersive
sound experience.
Security and Privacy
Security and privacy are fundamental to the design of Apple
hardware, software and services. With HomePod, only after “Hey
Siri” is recognized locally on the device will any information be
sent to Apple servers, encrypted and sent using an anonymous Siri
identifier.
Pricing and Availability
HomePod is available at an Apple retail price of $349 (US) in
white and space gray in the US, UK and Australia and available to
order beginning Friday, January 26, from apple.com and the Apple
Store® app. HomePod will be available in Apple Stores and at select
Apple Authorized Resellers, including Best Buy in the US; Argos,
Dixons Carphone (Currys PC World), John Lewis, Shop Direct (Very
and Littlewoods), EE, and Apple Premium Resellers in the UK; and
The Good Guys, Harvey Norman, JB Hi-Fi, Myer and Telstra in
Australia, beginning Friday, February 9. HomePod will be available
in France and Germany this spring.
HomePod is compatible with iPhone® 5s or later, iPad Pro®, iPad
Air® or later, iPad mini™ 2 or later, or iPod touch® (6th
generation) with iOS 11.2.5 or later.
NOTE TO EDITORS: For additional information visit Apple Newsroom
(www.apple.com/newsroom), or call Apple’s Media Helpline at (408)
974-2042.
© 2018 Apple Inc. All rights reserved. Apple, HomePod, Apple
Music, Apple Store, Siri, iPad, iPhone, iPod, HomeKit, SiriKit,
iTunes and the Apple logo are trademarks of Apple. Other company
and product names may be trademarks of their respective owners.
View source
version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180123005574/en/
AppleJacqueline Roy, 408-862-4386jacqueline_roy@apple.comTrudy
Muller, 408-862-7426tmuller@apple.com
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