Nearly a year after its discontinuation, we’ve got some news about a HomePod successor. Supply-chain analyst Ming-Chi Kuo says that a new Apple HomePod could be coming at the end of this year, or possibly the start of the next.
That’s not going to make scalpers the secondary market happy, where the large, original HomePod has been selling for well over MSRP lately.
The other thing that won’t make anyone happy? Kuo says that there “may not be much innovation in hardware design” for the new HomePod.
Then again, maybe that’s fine. The original HomePod was ahead of its time with its room-filling sound. The main drawback at the time was Siri. The virtual assistant wasn’t up to the mark, but Apple has substantially improved things since then.
At the end of 2020, a report from Bloomberg‘s Mark Gurman (via MacRumors) said that Apple was “internally weigh[ing] a new HomePod that sits in size, price and sound quality between the original $299 HomePod and the $99 HomePod mini.”
That could be the same device that Kuo is talking about, or they could both be talking about Apple trimming the price of the prior device.
Whichever way Apple finally goes, we’re glad to see them hearing our voices. The HomePod mini is great, but it could never compare to the big sound from the larger original HomePod.
Gurman also thinks that a new HomePod with a screen is coming, to compete against competing devices like the Google Nest Hub and Amazon Echo Show.
Have any thoughts on this? Let us know down below in the comments or carry the discussion over to our Twitter or Facebook.
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