HomePod
2021-01-15 23:44
Among the giants, Amazon, an e-commerce giant, was the first to take the lead. Echo smart speaker came into the market in 2014. This product was originally criticized by all circles, but it sold very well. The Echo can now answer questions, set an alarm, play music, control other devices and shop directly online. In the last quarter, manufacturers sold another 16.1 million smart speakers to ride the holiday shopping season.
The trend toward smart speakers entering the home will continue in the future, with Canalys predicting 56 million units will be shipped worldwide in 2018, up 70% from last year. The best part is that smart speakers are not a hot product, and will be used beyond the honeymoon period, rather than being thrown into a drawer to eat dust.
Is HomePod Pricing a Bad Step for Apple?
Today, Amazon and Google are firmly in the top tier of the smart speaker market, while companies like Apple are playing catch-up. They showed off HomePod at WWDC last June, but sadly announced in November that the smart speaker would not be available until early 2018.
Unlike other companies, HomePod is more geared toward listening to music, with smart speakers coming in second place. Industry experts believe that Siri is the main reason for HomePod's delay. After all, Apple is always careful when it comes to using data, and the more aggressive Google Assistant already has strong natural language processing capabilities. It's a bit of a surprise that Apple, the first company to launch a smart voice assistant, woke up early and stayed up late for the show.
