In November of 2017, Apple took upon itself to announce its very own smart speaker going by the name of Homepod. However, while the speaker was indeed subject to being announced back in 2017, it wasn’t until 2018 that it finally started to ship. Regardless of this though, in the most recent turn of events, it has actually been announced by the company that the speaker has indeed been discontinued.
Apple revealed to TechCrunch that the company will instead be focusing on the Homepod Mini which it launched last year – and which mostly received positive reviews. The mini doesn’t only come in a smaller shape when compared to the original Homepod, but it also makes way with a much affordable price tag.
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It has been subject to reports that the Homepod will in fact be available for purchase up until the point where the stock runs out. It has also been noted that these existing units will in fact still be on the receiving end of software updates and support. But taking into consideration the track record set by Apple, one would have to imagine that the company won’t exactly be following the same suite in this regard when for example compared with the likes of Microsoft. Indeed as far as Microsoft’s support for its own speaker goes, it actually turned out to be the case where the software giant decided to end support for the assistant for the speaker, however, a new update is actually expected to make way which will lead to the transformation of the smart speaker into a regular Bluetooth speaker.
Coming back to Apple though, the speaker actually happens to be the second product that the company has ended up discontinuing this month. Indeed the company also discontinued the iMac Pro. The desktop computer, which had a target audience of professionals as well as developers, had a starting price of $4,999.
Nonetheless, it is expected that Apple will proceed on to announce a new models under the Homepod series in the future.
