Apple has officially entered the Indian smart speaker market with its Homepod speaker. The Apple Homepod will soon be available for purchase for Rs 19,900. The sale date is yet to be revealed by the company.
Apple unveiled the HomePod as its answer to Amazon Echo and Google Home smart speakers back in June 2017. The speaker debuted in the US, UK, and Australia in January 2018. It then went on sale in Canada, France, and Germany in June 2018, and Spain and Mexico in October 2018. Later, it became available in China and Hong Kong in January 2019 and Japan and Taiwan in August 2019.
Once the Homepod goes on sale in India, it will be available in two colours- Space Grey and White. The listing on Apple India website at the moment shows ‘Check back later for availability.’
Apple is also rolling out iOS/iPadOS 13.3.1 for iPhones and iPads, which introduces compatibility for Indian English Siri voices for the HomePod.
Apple HomePod is 6.8-inch tall and it features a large, Apple-designed woofer for deep bass along with seven tweeters -each of which has its own amplifier and a transducer, and six distinct microphones. The smart speaker is powered by Apple’s A8 chip and comes with Siri integration.
The Apple Homepod measures 172 mm high and 142 mm wide and it weighs 2.5 kgs. Homepod also has support for AirPlay from iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch, Apple TV or Mac. Apple users can seamlessly play audio via Apple Music, Apple Podcasts and so on.
Connectivity options on the Homepod include Wi-Fi 802.11ac with MIMO, Bluetooth 5.0 and multi-room speaker support with AirPlay 2. It has a built-in power supply and supports audio formats such as HE-AAC, AAC, protected AAC, MP3, MP3 VBR, AIFF, WAV, and FLAC.