Apple has announced that the company is discontinuing the original HomePod, and, for now, it is only available as long as stocks last. At the same time, the HomePod mini will still be sold, and Apple told TechCrunch:
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. […] Apple will provide HomePod customers with software updates and service and support through Apple Care.
It’s undeniable that the original HomePod was too expensive, and its audio wasn’t ideal for everyone. In my review of the HomePod, I said that “when the HomePod sounds good, it’s great, but it doesn’t always sound good.” This is because it works well with certain types of music – mostly bass-heavy pop and hip-hop – but doesn’t offer any EQ settings. And when you set up a stereo pair, which sounds much better than twice a HomePod, you don’t even have settings to adjust the left-right balance between them.
Apple sold the original HomePod as a device offering superior sound, but the HomePod mini is totally different: it is a smart speaker that highlights the smarts, not the speaker. As a Siri device, it’s small and unobtrusive, and as a music device, it’s good enough for most people.
Read the rest of the article on The Mac Security Blog.