Apple Home
Apple says that it wants to ‘reinvent home music’ with its new HomePod speaker – and its innovative multi-room features could do just that
HomePod and multi-room audio
Apple was as modest as ever when it announced its new HomePod speaker back in June. “We want to reinvent home music,” said CEO Tim Cook – which is quite a boast when the big names of the hi-fi industry have almost a century worth of experience designing speakers tucked under their collective belts. Cook has given a number of interviews where he talks about the HomePod’s excellent sound quality, and it’s certainly true that the hardware design of this compact little speaker looks very impressive (see p25). And, of course, the HomePod is a ‘smart’ speaker too, with the ability to use Siri voice commands to control your lights, heating and other smart household appliances. However, Apple is ‘reinventing’ home music in another way too, since it’s introducing some genuinely innovative technology for multi-room speaker systems that even leading companies, such as Sonos, can’t currently match.