Apple recently confirmed that its original full-size HomePod smart speaker was being discontinued. When shopping on the tech giant’s website, the HomePod is still available, but the color choice may be limited in some areas and at the top of the order page a note specifies ‘while supplies last.’ The HomePod mini is still an active product, so the decision to remove the much larger version may seem counterintuitive.
The HomePod was Apple’s first smart speaker, announced in 2017, trailing the Amazon Echo by three years and Amazon was the biggest name and among the first to launch a voice-controlled speaker that provided much the same experience as a smartphone voice assistant, but without the screen. It dominated until Google entered the market providing strong competition with its superior natural language processing that had been refined by processing data from a large number of Android phone s.
Apple’s arrival into the smart speaker market was barely noticed by the leaders, Amazon and Google. The HomePod had much more focus on sound quality and music, which most reviews noted was very good, but the drawback of the relatively poor performance of Apple's AirPlay 2, while ing Amazon's Alexa voice assistant, so it may be a good alternative for better audio and smart speaker functionality than the HomePod mini can deliver.
Why HomePod mini & Not HomePod?
ultra-wideband tech will become increasingly important to Apple in the near future, so there may be extra incentive to phase out or replace devices lacking this capability.
Perhaps the biggest reason to clear out the original HomePod inventory and not restock may be to replace it with something new. While no rumors have surfaced about a new smart speaker from Apple, a new HomePod would likely come at the end of the year. On the other hand, Apple may be planning to add more features to the much more Stereo pairing is possible with two of Apple's budget smart speakers, but surround sound has not been enabled yet. This may not be a limitation of the hardware, but rather a feature missing in software. Keeping features exclusively for the more expensive device makes sense, but Apple may be seeing an opportunity to expand its limited market share by adding more capabilities to the HomePod mini. If four or more of the small speakers could be paired for high-quality surround sound, the need for the larger HomePod would be diminished. Clearly, the HomePod was a rare miss by Apple's design and marketing team and letting it run out of stock will enable it to move toward a stronger position among competing smart speakers in the future.
Source: TechCrunch