RIP, Apple HomePod (2018–2021)
TL;DR Apple discontinuing the original HomePod is also a farewell to the company’s aspirations in products for home theater audio.
When Apple introduces a new product, it tends to do so with a largely unavoidable fanfare — especially when such a creation signals the entrance into a new market for the company. However, when a product fails to meet expectations or no longer fits into the company’s larger plans, Apple likes to quietly sunset that item of hardware or software to take its place in silicon heaven, almost as though it had never existed. There have been many such examples over the years, from accessories like iPod Hi-Fi to complete systems including the Power Mac G4 Cube, as well as applications like DVD Studio Pro and Soundtrack Pro.
The latest casualty of Apple’s famously focused product catalogue is the original HomePod, and on Friday, 12th March, TechCrunch broke the news it was being discontinued. Apple issued a statement in response to the story that was later picked up by other news sites, which said simply:
“HomePod mini has been a hit since its debut last fall, offering customers amazing sound, an intelligent assistant, and smart home control all for just $99. We are focusing our efforts on HomePod mini. We are discontinuing the original HomePod, it will continue to be available while supplies last through the Apple Online Store, Apple Retail Stores, and Apple Authorized Resellers. Apple will provide HomePod customers with software updates and service and support through Apple Care.”
Apple’s foray into the smart speaker arena was announced in 2017 and was originally slated for a December release, although this window was delayed as the company felt HomePod needed “a little more time before it’s ready for our customers,” which meant missing the holiday season. The HomePod finally became available on Friday, 9th February 2018, and, by sheer coincidence, I happened to be visiting Apple in Cupertino that day to speak with company representatives about the newly released Logic Pro 10.4. As I subsequently wrote when reviewing the HomePod for the June 2018 issue Sound On Sound magazine, it was hard on that occasion not to be swept up in the enthusiasm of Apple employees wishing each other a happy HomePod day! And besides, since it was my first time visiting the relatively new Apple Park store, I had to buy something while I was there!
Home Sweet HomePod
Although the original $349 price tag (lowered to $299 a year later) wasn’t cheap for a consumer audio device, it certainly wasn’t overpriced given the quality of the results and the audio technology Apple had engineered. In fact, it sounded rather impressive, offering a subwoofer with 20mm of excursion, bass management via software modelling, beamforming tweeters, and a microphone array to aid with automatic room sensing. Indeed, a magazine like Sound On Sound wouldn’t normally publish a review of such a consumer-oriented speaker; but given the technology and that such products were beginning to become commonplace in how listeners were experiencing music, it made sense to take a closer look.
Given that one HomePod was good, it stood to reason that the only thing that could possibly be better would be two HomePods! And so, with the release of iOS 11.4 and AirPlay 2 in May 2018, Apple added the ability to use two HomePods together as a stereo pair, which worked extremely well given that such wireless audio synchronisation isn’t technically trivial. In fact, looking through various patents Apple holds for such technologies, it’s likely this was achieved by employing a combination of both Wi-Fi and Bluetooth networking technologies.
In addition to being able to use two HomePods as a stereo pair, the icing on the cake was perhaps the ability to use such a configuration with an Apple TV 4K, resulting in a seamless home theatre audio experience that was easy to set up and sounded surprisingly good for a modestly sized living room. And with the version 14.2 updates to tvOS and iOS last November further improving this experience, along with immersive sound support for surround formats like Dolby 5.1, 7.1, and Atmos, this solution became closer to offering an equivalent and promising, soundbar-like experience.
Given such potential, it made the news of Apple discontinuing the HomePod in favour of focusing on the newer, smaller, and cheaper HomePod mini somewhat disappointing. It basically means that the company is giving up on any aspirations it might have had in audio for the home theatre and maybe even home theatre products in general, which perhaps shouldn’t be all that surprising given there has long been a question mark hovering over the future of the Apple TV as a standalone device.
Like many, I had long dreamed of being able to use additional HomePods in a true surround configuration rather than just a stereo pair, and this idea had seemed tantalisingly within reach with last year’s software releases. I’d even be willing to bet Apple prototyped such a system at some point, but we’ll probably never know.
Such a refocusing also suggests that speculations Apple might acquire a company like Sonos, who provide such home theatre audio products with support for AirPlay 2, to make a more significant play for the living room seem equally unlikely. Afterall, while Apple did acquire a headphone company in Beats, it did so to aid in the launch of Apple Music — not because it needed help with AirPods. Designing quality audio hardware arguably wasn’t a strength for which the acquiree was known, and Apple’s technologies have found themselves incorporated into Beats-branded products rather than the other way around.
Le HomePod Est Mort, Vive Le HomePod?
the HomePod will be among the first speakers to fall silent due to software incompatibility
While the HomePod is no more, there’s no question that the HomePod mini benefits from the knowledge Apple gained in creating the original, and this might prove to be the lasting impact of that model on the company’s product line. The HomePod mini is far from being a bad speaker, it just hasn’t been designed to provide the same kind of higher end listening experience as the original and isn’t currently supported for home theatre audio use with Apple TV 4K.
Apple took care to mention that the company will continue to “provide HomePod customers with software updates” in its statement to TechCrunch, and this is important because HomePods are essentially useless without software. Unlike other consumer audio products in its price range, including competing smart speakers like Amazon’s Echo Studio, the HomePod doesn’t include a physical audio input connector, meaning that the only way to send audio to it (as opposed to relying on its internal abilities to connect to services like Apple Music) is via Apple’s closed AirPlay wireless ecosystem. This almost guarantees that the HomePod will be among the first speakers to fall silent due to software incompatibility.
