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HomePod

The Apple HomePod is a smart speaker developed by Apple Inc. It was announced on June 5, 2017, at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference.

The HomePod was originally scheduled for release in December 2017, but was later delayed to early 2018. It was initially released in Australia, the UK and the US, available in two colors: White and Space Gray. On January 23, 2018, Apple announced that the HomePod will be available for preorders on January 26, and orders started arriving on February 9.

The HomePod supports AirPlay 2, which allows multi-speaker audio streaming. It uses the Apple A8 chip and Siri software. Requires an iOSdevice running iOS 11.2.5 or later.

A touch display atop the device shows a dynamic waveform when Siri is activated, similar to the one displayed on other Apple devices. Touch commands allow users to physically adjust volume, play/pause the current track, and go forward or back a track.

It has seven tweeters in its base and a four-inch woofer towards the top. Six microphones around HomePod's center gauge the acoustics of the room; software directs parts of the mix to various speakers for improved sound quality and separation. Also incorporated into the device is a six-microphone array for far-field Siri and a low-frequency microphone for bass correction.In August 2017, an official Apple firmware file was accidentally released for (AudioAccessory1,1), which was later revealed by Twitter users to be firmware for the HomePod. The HomePod was shown to have similar specifications to the iPhone 6. The iPhone 6 has 1 GB of LPDDR3RAM and a 1334×750 screen resolution,while the HomePod also has 1 GB of RAM but a 272x340 screen resolution. The HomePod runs a variant of iOS as its operating system.The iOS SpringBoard is called SoundBoard in the HomePod firmware.