Apple today updated its HomePod product page with new details about the speaker's gesture controls for Siri and audio playback.
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Apple has confirmed that users can tap the top of the HomePod to play, pause, skip a song, or adjust the volume, or touch and hold to talk to Siri. A colorful, animated LED waveform will appear when Siri is listening.
A single tap plays or pauses music, a double tap skips to the next track, and a triple trap returns to the previous track. Tapping and holding the digital plus or minus sign raises or lowers the speaker's volume respectively.
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The touch and hold gesture to invoke Siri is in addition to the "Hey Siri" voice command that can be said from anywhere in a room.
Apple today announced that the HomePod will be available to order starting Friday, January 26, with in-store availability and orders arriving to customers starting Friday, February 9, in the United States, Australia, and the United Kingdom.
Apple also revealed some other HomePod information today: the speaker will launch in France and Germany this spring, while multi-room audio and stereo sound support for multiple HomePods will be included in a software update later this year.
HomePod comes in White or Space Gray and is priced at $349 in the United States, £319 in the United Kingdom, and $499 in Australia.
Top Rated Comments
And that’s the reason I could never spend £319 on this, regardless of the sound quality.
Siri and suck it. She pushes me closer to getting off the apple train and that's someone who is deep in the sandbox with the watch, the phone, the tv, a laptop, and all my accounts synced in between and what have you.
I'm extremely skeptical she'll work better than where she is currently at which seems to some how have taken two steps backwards and five steps diagonally. The Amazon Echo can hear me in a room where people are talking and the TV is on, but Siri can barely do Hey siri in a quiet room if someone else is talking.