Apple's big announcement at this year's Worldwide Developer Conference was a smart speaker called HomePod, the Apple answer to Amazon's Echo.
Elsewhere at the 2017 WWDC in San Jose, California, Apple confirmed a range of new operating systems for its devices. Apple was nearly sheepish in mentioning that, yes, Siri on the HomePod can do most of the usual Siri things like make appointments, find sports scores, and send messages.
In a statement, Apple said the HomePod is "a breakthrough wireless speaker for the home that delivers wonderful audio quality and uses spatial awareness to sense its location in a room and automatically adjust the audio". I especially like using the feature on Apple TV and Apple Watch.
HomePod will be available for $349 (US) in white and space gray starting in December initially in Australia, the United Kingdom and the US.1 HomePod is compatible with iPhone 5s and later, running iOS 11. In fact, whatever it learns on one device will also be synced to all other Apple devices that you may own, so that the same experience is available across. At the WWDC 2017, the tech giant unveiled the all new Apple HomePod.
Siri was also front-and-center of Apple's machine-learning, a type of artificial intelligence that helps software adapt to data and recognize patterns automatically. And the result is quite evident; a comparison of the audio qualities of HomePod and Amazon Echo will definitely bring out some clear differences, with the former topping the chart in most of the charts.
A new Siri interface on the Apple Watch will also blend users' calendar information with other useful details, like airline tickets they may have booked, the company said.
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If you use your laptop or desktop for just web browsing and other light work, then your current Mac computer may be your last. However, iOS 11 for iPhone has added another feature which will allow AirPods users to skip a track by just double tapping.
In many ways, Apple kicked off the mass-market digital personal assistant trend in 2011 with the release of Siri for the iPhone, then considered novel for its abilities to respond to commands to make phone calls, check the weather, or set up an appointment (though its ability to understand queries was sometimes comically bad). After all, the Amazon Echo is regarded in an entirely different gadget category, so it seems Apple has played it smart and demonstrated the strength of its new HomePod which could take down the Amazon Echo.
With Apple Music integration, the smart speaker has 40 million songs on tap.
The speaker will sell for about $350 in December in the USA, United Kingdom and Australia. The research firm eMarketer says than 35 million people in the USA are expected to use a voice-activated speaker at least once a month this year, more than double its estimate from last year. Google's new ads for the Home, however, position it as something young and hip users will also appreciate.
"There is so much momentum building around these speakers that it would be hard for Apple not to come out with one", said industry analyst Patrick Moorhead of Moor Insights & Strategy. Apple's strategy to downplay AI could very well do the task for them. During Jobs' last decade, Apple introduced the iPod, iPhone and iPad all huge commercial successes that both reshaped daily life and swamped previous digital music players, smartphones and tablets.
The company was expected to introduce iOS 11, the next version of the software that powers the iPhone and iPad.
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