{"id":31670,"date":"2017-11-18T13:12:20","date_gmt":"2017-11-18T08:12:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tns.world\/?p=31670"},"modified":"2017-11-18T13:12:20","modified_gmt":"2017-11-18T08:12:20","slug":"apple-pushes-launch-of-homepod-smart-speaker-to-early-2018","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tns.world\/?p=31670","title":{"rendered":"Apple pushes launch of HomePod smart speaker to early 2018"},"content":{"rendered":"

SAN FRANCISCO Nov 18 (TNS):<\/strong> \u00a0Apple Inc has pushed the launch of its HomePod smart speaker to early next year from December, the company says, missing the holiday shopping season as the market for such devices becomes increasingly competitive.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can\u2019t wait for people to experience HomePod … but we need a little more time before it\u2019s ready for our customers. We\u2019ll start shipping in the U.S., UK and Australia in early 2018,\u201d an Apple spokeswoman said via email.<\/p>\n

Apple introduced the voice-controlled HomePod in June. The speaker, which can make music suggestions and adjust home temperatures, takes aim at Amazon.com Inc\u2019s Alexa feature and Echo devices.<\/p>\n

Apple has forecast between $84 billion and $87 billion in revenue for the holiday – mostly driven by sales of its $999 iPhone X – so it\u2019s unlikely that missing a few weeks of sales of its $349 speaker will affect its financial results, Bob O\u2018Donnell, founder of Technalysis Research, said.<\/p>\n

The indirect effects will have a stronger negative impact, he said. Apple is working to keep its Siri voice assistant relevant in the face of competition from Amazon\u2019s Alexa and Alphabet Inc\u2019s Google Assistant, both of which are featured on smart speakers from those companies.<\/p>\n

People use voice assistants more often on smart speakers than on phones, so even if owners of Amazon or Google speakers also have an iPhone, there\u2019s a good chance that they\u2019re talking to Alexa or Google Assistant as much or more than Siri.<\/p>\n

\u201cLast holiday season, smart speakers were huge, and this season they\u2019re going to be huge,\u201d O\u2018Donnell said. With Apple\u2019s delay, \u201cthere will now be some people who make a different choice. The market\u2019s getting more and more competitive.\u201d<\/p>\n

Apple is also counting on HomePod to boost subscriptions to Apple Music and block the rise of rival Spotify. Smart speakers from Google and Amazon let users give voice commands to play Spotify, but Apple Music does not work on the rival devices.<\/p>\n

Apple\u2019s main pitch for its HomePod smart speakers was superior audio quality, but that advantage appears to be slipping: Sonos, which also pitches its speakers\u2019 audio quality for music lovers, now features support for the Alexa voice assistant.<\/p>\n

Earlier this year, Amazon announced the Echo Plus, a smart speaker with better audio quality, and Google confirmed to Reuters that its Home Max speaker with improved speakers will ship in December, though it has not given a specific date.<\/p>\n

But Apple could still have a surprise or two in store. The company gave scant details about its speaker in June, leaving it room to announce exclusive music content or other unexpected features, said Brian Blau, an analyst with Gartner.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen HomePod comes out, you\u2019ll probably hear some great content from artists that are familiar and popular, and there\u2019s probably going to be some other special aspects as well,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SAN FRANCISCO Nov 18 (TNS): \u00a0Apple Inc has pushed the launch of its HomePod smart speaker to early next year from December, the company says, missing the holiday shopping season as the market for such devices becomes increasingly competitive. \u201cWe can\u2019t wait for people to experience HomePod … but we need a little more time […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":31671,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[732],"class_list":["post-31670","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-science-and-technology","tag-science-and-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31670","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=31670"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31670\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31672,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31670\/revisions\/31672"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/31671"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=31670"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=31670"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=31670"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}