Apple will release its debut HomePod on the 9th February. The Apple premium speaker will be available in the US, UK and Australia. France and Germany will soon receive it late spring 2018. The device will have call functionalities along with its main use being a high-end speaker for iPhones.
The HomePod will deliver quality audio where ever you are, working together with Apple Music providing the worlds largest cloud music libraries which once connecting with Siri, you are able to play music using voice search. Not only can you listen to your favourite songs you can send messages, set timers, play podcasts, check the news, sports, traffic and weather it even controls a wide range of HomeKit smart home accessories.
Just under 7 inches tall, HomePod uses advanced software for real-time acoustic modelling, audio beam-forming, echo cancellation and more, powered by Apple’s A8 chip delivering a wide, spacious soundstage. Using spatial awareness to sense its location in the room automatically adjusting the audio to sound great wherever placed.
Apple’s Siri is now more invested in the future of local voice search. When it was initially launched, the voice search capabilities were not a focus – it was simply a speaker. However, we are expecting this to evolve over time with updates to the IOS.
When it comes to marketing, businesses could potentially benefit from Smart Speakers in the near future. It was recently reported that Amazon is in talks with companies to advertise on its Echo devices – potentially suggesting brands/products when users ask Echo to buy something.
Now Apple HomePod has entered the market, this could bring in further opportunities. Using Smart Speakers as a source of marketing can help business in several ways such as:
Drive New Users: as a marketer, you can never have enough new users. Filling the top of your funnel is an ongoing effort, and we think voice is a fantastic opportunity to drive new users to your website.
Increase User Engagement: attracting new users is difficult, keeping them engaged and active is even more difficult. Voice presents a wonderful opportunity to extend out core functionality that lends itself to voice in order to increase engagement.
Brand Extension – in our opinion, the most interesting opportunities lie with the ability to create voice specific brand extensions; both as a way to drive publicity and deepen the relationship with your audience.
The Apple HomePod is priced in the premium end of the market but we don’t doubt it will take the world by storm. The HomePod is Apple and Apple has a legion of followers who love that their trusty products always fluidly function with all their devices.