It is clear that Apple has not been able to exploit all the possibilities offered by its smart speaker HomePod. It launched its first model in 2017 and it seemed that it was going to be the most natural way to communicate with Siri and thus be able to have a real secretary at home.
However Apple fell asleep, and smart speakers from Amazon and Google burst onto the market with great force, overtaking the HomePod in low-cost home automation features and solutions. With the HomePod already discontinued and only having the home pod miniIt seems that Apple has not thrown in the towel, and is going to return to the load with new smart speakers. We will see.
No matter how fanboys we are of Apple, we must admit that Amazon has eaten the toast to the Cupertino in the sector of smart speakers. Amazon's "low cost" Echo system has taken over the market for these devices, offering very good performance from both the speakers themselves and the third-party home automation accessory system, at a very good price.
We are left with only the consolation that the original HomePod (already discarded) had a spectacular sound, with a quality far above the competition. But that alone is not enough. Echo is capable of doing much more than Siri, and much cheaper. That does count, even if it doesn't sound so good.
Afrooz Family returns to the company
And it seems that Apple is not going to throw in the towel in the smart speaker industry. As reported Bloomberg, Apple just "re-signed" engineer Afrooz Family to lead the HomePod software development team.
And I say "refichar" because said engineer had already been in Cupertino. Family He has already been working on that team since 2012. In 2016 he left the company to co-found the audio startup Syng, and now he has returned to Apple.
Several rumors suggest that Apple is designing new HomePod models. We may soon see a new speaker somewhat larger than the HomePod mini, but much cheaper than its predecessor HomePod. Apple will not stumble twice on the same stone.
