WWDC 2017: Apple introduces HomePod, an Amazon Echo rival

HomePod is set up so that it works directly with Apple Music. Be it on the Apple Watch faces, photos for face recognition and more.

As for Google Home, the compact speaker benefits from an aggressive price point.

The new iPad Pro is displayed during the 2017 Apple Worldwide Developer Conference. The HomePod won’t be out until December (in the US, UK and AU), but its simple and sleek design will already have Apple aficionados clamoring to get their hands on one.

John Knoll, of Industrial Light & Magic, speaks about virtual reality during an announcement of new products at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference.

This story is developing, check back for more. Phil Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of marketing, mentioned that the speaker can execute acoustic modeling in real-time.

And while its competition has had a head start – the Amazon Echo launched in 2014 for Amazon Prime members and the Google Home was released a year ago – experts in voice and visual search said instead of being late to the party, Apple could raise the bar like it did for digital music players when it launched the iPod, or smartphones, as it did with the iPhone.

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Amazon essentially created the smart home speaker category with its introduction of the Alexa-powered Echo in November 2014, and the category has grown rapidly since.

Communication with Siri is encrypted and it won’t start listening until it hears “Hey Siri”. According to Dickson, a speaker mesh will cover the majority of the device’s surface and the speaker will “carry some form of Beats technology”.

Australia will be one of the first countries to receive the rollout of HomePod units, which will be available in December 2017. The features are part of the Mac software update this fall, to be called High Sierra. It can also read the news, play podcasts, send messages and complete other tasks. So far, the service has limited payments to purchases of products and services from companies and other organizations.

The device itself will come in white and space gray, and will retail for $349 when it hits this holiday season. The new features earning the most applause from the audience, however were the ability to block videos from automatically playing in Safari and intelligent tracking prevention, essentially stopping those pesky targeted ads from following you around the internet. Yet it isn’t as bulky as the 12.9-inch model.

At the event, a parade of executives unveiled updates to Apple’s hardware, software and mobile applications, or apps, including iMac desktop computer, MacBook laptop machine, iPad, Apple Watch, iOS software operating system and App Store.