Apple is not having much luck with timely product releases. For the first time in Apple’s history they announced their new iPhone X allowing orders at a much later date, not the usual next day. Once released they have had issues fulfilling orders.
Yesterday the technology giant announced their new Apple HomePod has been delayed from the announced release date of December 2017 to ‘early 2018’.
The HomePod, announced in June 2017, was Apple’s first entry into voice controlled speakers and allows users to interact with Siri and control their smart home. In a similar way to Amazon Echo, Google Home and the recently released Sonos One. Apple’s speaker will connect to Apple Music as well as Apple HomeKit. It is not clear if ti will support third party services like Spotify or Tune In.
Apple commented to press:
We need a little more time before it’s ready for our customers. We’ll start shipping in the U.S. UK and Australia in early 2018
We suspect this has been done to allow for product upgrades and to release a product that will dominate rather than compete it the fast-moving smart home speaker space.
One thing is for sure Sonos and Amazon will be grateful there is one less product competing at Christmas in an already busy space.