At yesterday’s iPhone 12 announcement, Apple pulled the old “one more thing” on us by introducing a new, smaller and cheaper HomePod that pretty much no one was asking for.
Despite looking a little like a giant dust mite in the opening of Apple’s promo video the new HomePod mini is quite the attractive little smart speaker.
Retailing at just A$149 it’s a far more reasonable price point than its original big brother and by all accounts bring a significantly higher level of audio quality than similarly sized smart speakers.
Apple also doubled down on its privacy campaign, touting the HomePod mini as being “private and secure” with none Siri’s requests being recorded and analysed in a way that other smartspeakers might.
Unfortunately for Apple, that’s also the problem, with Siri still being at the bottom of the pecking order when it comes to virtual assistants. For me personally, I actively go out of my way to avoid Siri, disabling it in as many places I possibly can.
Additionally, Apple have gone the extra yards to incorporate new radio and music services to extend the HomePod’s appeal beyond its own walled gardens. Something I honestly never thought I’d see.
apple announces podcast/radio partnerships for homepod mini, but where's spotify ? pic.twitter.com/AujfzpLmZC
— Ashley Carman (@ashleyrcarman) October 13, 2020
What’s missing though, is the world’s largest and most popular music streaming service, retarding the device’s appeal beyond the Apple faithful.
I have no doubt the new mini will be a banger of a little device, ideal for bedroom side-tables, bathrooms and alike, but even at a new and extremely attractive price point I fear it will only continue to play in the shallow end of the smartspeaker sales pool.
The new Apple HomePod mini is available to pre-order from November 7th with units shipping November 16th.