Apple ‘HomePod’ speaker to take on Amazon, Google

At its annual developer conference in San Jose, California, on Monday, Apple promised its personal assistant software Siri a second home.

The company rolled out new tools for developers to create augmented reality applications for iPhones and iPads.

“Though Apple appears to be playing catch up with Amazon and Google, the primary casualty here may be Sonos”.

The HomePod will be available in Australia, the United Kingdom, and the U.S. when it ships in December.

Earlier this week Apple unveiled the aptly named HomePod, a speaker that stands seven inches tall.

The speaker can also be linked up to an existing Apple Music subscription, which provides access to over 40 million songs.

“Apple reinvented portable music with iPod and now HomePod will reinvent how we enjoy music wirelessly throughout our homes”, said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing. The release date is December 2017 in the US, UK and Australia, which means it’ll likely be here just right before Christmas – and it’ll very likely be sold out everywhere. It also combats the competitive threat from Google’s and Amazon’s connected speakers: Those don’t support Apple services like Apple Music, which brings in US$10 in revenue per user each month.

Amazon Echo and Google Home work the same way, maintaining active mics (unless disabled by the user) that supposedly don’t transmit data until the invocation phrase has been detected.

But really, this is Apple’s admission that it needed to kick the voice command can down the road a bit and strengthen Siri but it goes gunning for Google and Amazon.

The speaker, while expected by some industry watchers, marked Apple’s first new product announcement since the Apple Watch in September 2014. To show the tools off, Apple invited Wingnut AR, the company formed by “Lord of the Rings” director Peter Jackson, on stage.

Perhaps the biggest one will be coming to your iPhone and iPad with iOS 11.

“As the iPhone reaches a point of near saturation in mature markets and replacement rates continue to slow, Apple must find new ways to lock in users”. (Many reviewers have suggested that the current incarnation of Apple’s assistant already trails competitors in key respects.) “This is the start of the AI wars”, he said. New iMacs released Monday are getting better displays and graphics capabilities. Apple’s pitch, as usual, is that it’s delivering a more premium audio experience. At least it can transcribe and send messages, do basic translation, read you news, and control your IOT devices. It will not actually block ads, though. Apple also announced a new translation service in Siri between English, Chinese and the four most popular European languages. Sales of the iPhone propelled Apple to become the most valuable company in the world and still account for more than half of the company’s revenues, which were $215.6 billion in 2016.

OS updates: Since WWDC is typically a software conference, upgrades to various Apple operating systems is standard.

Ortutay reported from NY.