-
Apple’s HomePod.
-
There’s a little bit of engineering going on here.
-
It also came in space gray.
-
It is a very undefined device, but beautiful.
Apple halted production of the expensive smart HomePod speaker, which went on sale in 2018.
The speaker will still be sold until supplies run out, but the space gray version has already been removed from Apple’s online store. Only the white version remains, although you can find the gray version at a third-party reseller.
Regardless of the production change, HomePod owners will continue to get software updates and support from Apple for an unspecified period of time.
Apple says it plans to focus on the most successful mini HomePod. The HomePod mini is priced at $ 99 – a third of the price of the HomePod – and offers noticeably lower sound quality.
The HomePod mini also lacks the same features as the original HomePod. For example, Apple launched the “home theater” mode for the HomePod a few months ago, with optimizations and features designed to make it work as part of a home theater surround sound setup with an Apple TV 4K streaming box. This is not available on the HomePod mini.
Apple provided the following statement to TechCrunch, confirming that HomePod has been discontinued:
The HomePod mini has been a hit since its debut last fall, offering customers incredible sound, a smart assistant and smart home control, all for just $ 99. We are focusing our efforts on the HomePod mini. We are discontinuing the original HomePod; it will continue to be available as long as supplies last at the Apple Online Store, Apple retail stores, and Apple authorized resellers. Apple will provide HomePod customers with software updates, services and support through Apple Care.
The HomePod was the result of considerable investment by Apple; a large team worked for years to build the highest-tech speaker possible, employing machine learning and other techniques to optimize sound quality based on the space in which the speaker was placed and how many other speakers were synchronized with her in that space. Sonos and other companies made similar efforts, but HomePod’s analysis suggested it was at least as good, if not better, than Sonos’ offerings.
But it hasn’t been a good run for ultra-high-end smart speakers; Google has also discontinued competing speaker Google Home Max, for example. As has already been seen in the world of music streaming services and headphones, there is strong evidence that the vast majority of consumers simply do not prioritize superior audio quality, preferring instead to buy cheaper speakers and inferior quality to benefit from your convenience and flexibility.
This is the second product line that Apple recently shut down. Just a week ago, it was discovered that the iMac Pro was ending production, with Apple pointing to the standard 27-inch iMac as an alternative. The iMac Pro had not been substantially updated almost since its introduction, and the main configurations of the regular iMac followed.
Apple is expected to launch a new version of the standard 27-inch iMac sometime next year. Given the relative success of the HomePod mini, more home audio products may also be on the way.
List image by Jeff Dunn