R.I.P. Big HomePod. You Deserved Better

Misunderstood until the end

With Apple’s recent announcement that the original HomePod was being discontinued, and that the $99 HomePod mini will now be the focus of Apple’s smart speaker strategy, the saga of one of Apple’s most maligned and misunderstood products seems to have come to an end. If Apple is ever going to make a large HomePod again — especially one priced at $349 — it almost certainly won’t be for a long time. While the vast majority of Apple users likely don’t care, as tech pundits gloat and pat themselves on the back for correctly predicting that HomePod was doomed to fail, I think the demise of the big HomePod is a real bummer.

See, I own a big HomePod, and I use it every single day and absolutely love it. In fact, I wrote a post on Medium over two years ago, “In Defense of the HomePod”, explaining all the reasons why I think it’s terrific. Paramount among those reasons is the fact that HomePod continues to be the best-sounding piece of audio equipment I’ve ever owned that not only has me appreciating more about my favorite music, but also encourages me to listen to more music more often by being so easy to use. And if you watch the 12-minute segment of the WWDC 2017 Keynote when it was first unveiled, you’ll see that this is exactly what the HomePod was created to do. Nine of those twelve minutes were devoted to explaining…