Apple's Phil Schiller on HomePod: We Want to Create a New Kind of Music Experience in the Home That Sounds Incredible

Over the weekend, Apple marketing chief Phil Schiller did a quick fifteen minute interview with Sound & Vision, where he once again explained some of the technology behind the HomePod, shed some light on why Apple ultimately decided to create an in-home speaker, and explained how the HomePod will stand out among other smart speakers on the market.

Schiller believes that Apple is in a position to create a "new kind of music experience" that not only "sounds incredible," but is also "fun to interact with." He says that's the driving force behind Apple's work on the smart speaker. Apple's focus, though, isn't on a single product -- the company wants to design a unified experience that's the same throughout the day.

HomePod on shelf 800x451

We don't think it's just about HomePod though, or any one product, it's about creating an experience that moves with you throughout the day -- so the experience you have at home, is replicated in the car with CarPlay, at work with iPad and Mac, and when you're out for a run with Watch and iPhone. You can listen to the same music, control your home accessories or ask Siri to do something for you, wherever you are.

Schiller says that Apple Music, Siri advancements in personal music discovery, and Apple's innovative audio work "come together" in the HomePod to deliver an "amazing music experience" to customers.

He went on to explain many of the technological advancements that improve sound quality in the HomePod, including machine learning to allow the HomePod to sense and adapt to its environment, the A8 chip for real-time acoustic modeling, audio beam-forming, and echo cancellation, and a more advanced thinking of speaker arrays to "create a wide soundstage."

Schiller also explained in detail how the HomePod's spatial awareness features work. From the moment it's plugged in, the HomePod senses its location. The built-in microphone array listens to how sound reflects from neighboring surfaces to determine where it's located in a room and what's nearby, adjusting audio accordingly. The A8 chip beams center vocals and direct energy away from walls that are detected, while also reflecting ambient reverb and back-up vocals against the wall for better dispersion into the room.

The end result is a wide soundstage with a feeling of spaciousness and depth. This entire process takes just seconds and it doesn't stop with the initial setup. Every time you move HomePod, it uses the built-in accelerometer to detect a change in its location and continues to make sure the music sounds great and is consistent, wherever it's placed. We've also done some great things to help minimize the audible side effects of compression artifacts by developing studio level dynamic processing to optimize for rich, clean bass even at loud volumes.

Thus far, it appears Apple's efforts to focus on sound quality have been successful. While full HomePod reviews have not yet been shared, initial first impressions from reviewers who were able to spend a short amount of time with the HomePod have been positive. Many reviewers were highly impressed with the sound quality of the device, which has been described as "warm," "astonishing," "precise," and an "aural triumph."

Apple will, however, need to convince its customers that sound improvements are worth the premium price the company is charging for the device. HomePod is more expensive than competing products from Google and Amazon, but some reviewers have questioned whether the average consumer will value sound quality more than affordability.

Phil Schiller's full interview, which goes into more detail about Apple's aim with the HomePod, how voice recognition works, HomeKit integration, and more can be read over at Sound & Vision.

The HomePod, which is priced at $349 in the United States, can be pre-ordered from the online Apple Store. The first HomePod orders will be delivered to customers starting on Friday, February 9, the official launch date of the device.

Related Roundup: HomePod
Buyer's Guide: HomePod (Neutral)

Popular Stories

M5 MacBook Pro

Apple Announces New 14-Inch MacBook Pro With M5 Chip

Wednesday October 15, 2025 6:07 am PDT by
Apple today updated the 14-inch MacBook Pro base model with its new M5 chip, which is also available in updated iPad Pro and Vision Pro models. In addition, the base 14-inch MacBook Pro can now be configured with up to 4TB of storage on Apple's online store, whereas the previous model maxed out at 2TB. However, the maximum amount of unified RAM available for this model remains 32GB. Like...
Apple iPad Pro hero M5

Apple Debuts New iPad Pro With M5 Chip, Faster Charging, and More

Wednesday October 15, 2025 6:16 am PDT by
Apple today announced the next-generation iPad Pro, featuring the custom-designed M5, C1X, and N1 chips. The M5 chip has up to a 10-core CPU, with four performance cores and six efficiency cores. It features a next-generation GPU with Neural Accelerator in each core, allowing the new iPad Pro to deliver up to 3.5x the AI performance than the previous model, and a third-generation ray-tracing ...
apple oct 2024 mac tease

Apple Expected to Announce These Two to Three Products 'This Week'

Sunday October 12, 2025 7:05 am PDT by
Apple plans to announce new products "this week," according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. Apple's "Mac Your Calendars" teaser last October In his Power On newsletter today, Gurman said the products set to be updated this week include the iPad Pro, Vision Pro, and "likely" the base 14-inch MacBook Pro, with all three likely to receive a spec bump with Apple's next-generation M5 chip. Gurman...
maxresdefault

Here's Everything Apple Announced Today

Wednesday October 15, 2025 3:54 pm PDT by
We didn't get a second fall event this year, but Apple did unveil updated products with a series of press releases that went out today. The M5 chip made an appearance in new MacBook Pro, Vision Pro, and iPad Pro models. Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more videos. We've rounded up our coverage and highlighted the main feature changes for each device below. MacBook Pro M5...
joz macbook tease

Apple Teases Upcoming M5 MacBook Pro Launch: 'Something Powerful is Coming'

Tuesday October 14, 2025 11:59 am PDT by
Apple marketing chief Greg Joswiak today teased the launch of an upcoming product, saying "something powerful is coming" on social media. Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more videos. A short animation accompanying Joswiak's teaser reveals a brief glimpse of a MacBook Pro along with the words "coming soon." The shape of the MacBook Pro is a V, which is the Roman numeral...
airpods max 2024 colors

AirPods Max 2: Everything We Know So Far

Tuesday October 14, 2025 8:43 am PDT by
Apple's AirPods Max have now been available for almost five years, so what do we know about the second-generation version? According to Apple supply chain analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, the new AirPods Max will be lighter than the current ones, but exactly how much is as yet known. The current AirPods Max weigh 0.85 pounds (386.2 grams), excluding the charging case, making it one of the heavier...
HomePod mini and Apple TV

Apple's Next Rumored Products: New HomePod Mini, Apple TV, and More

Thursday October 16, 2025 9:13 am PDT by
Apple on Wednesday updated the 14-inch MacBook Pro, iPad Pro, and Vision Pro with its next-generation M5 chip, but previous rumors have indicated that the company still plans to announce at least a few additional products before the end of the year. The following Apple products have at one point been rumored to be updated in 2025, although it is unclear if the timeframe for any of them has...
Vision Pro M5 Announcement

Apple Updates Vision Pro With M5 Chip, Dual Knit Band, and 120Hz Support

Wednesday October 15, 2025 6:14 am PDT by
Apple today updated the Vision Pro headset with its next-generation M5 chip for faster performance, and a more comfortable Dual Knit Band. The M5 chip has a 10-core CPU, a 10-core GPU with Neural Accelerators, and a 16-core Neural Engine, and we have confirmed the Vision Pro still has 16GB of RAM. With the M5 chip, the Vision Pro offers faster performance and longer battery life compared...
macbook pro blue

Apple's M5 MacBook Pro Imminent: What to Expect

Tuesday October 14, 2025 4:35 pm PDT by
Apple is going to launch a new version of the MacBook Pro as soon as tomorrow, so we thought we'd go over what to expect from Apple's upcoming Mac. M5 Chip The MacBook Pro will be one of the first new devices to use the next-generation M5 chip, which will replace the M4 chip. The M5 is built on TSMC's more advanced 3-nanometer process, and it will bring speed and efficiency improvements. ...
MacBook Pro M5 Screen

New MacBook Pro Does Not Include a Charger in the Box in Europe

Wednesday October 15, 2025 6:59 am PDT by
The new 14-inch MacBook Pro with an M5 chip does not include a charger in the box in European countries, including the U.K., Ireland, Germany, Italy, France, Spain, the Netherlands, Norway, and others, according to Apple's online store. In the U.S. and all other countries outside of Europe, the new MacBook Pro comes with Apple's 70W USB-C Power Adapter, but European customers miss out....

Top Rated Comments

OldSchoolMacGuy Avatar
101 months ago
I think people will be surprised by the positive reviews the HomePod will receive.

Remember how people slammed the AirPods before they actually tried them, then found they loved them. They also slammed the Apple Watch and it turned into a great success too.

Calling a product a failure before it even hits the market almost always turns out to be a failed prediction. It's far easier to gauge success before release than failure. We see it time and time again.
Score: 47 Votes (Like | Disagree)
jrath1 Avatar
101 months ago
I can see it now...Johnny Ive "We have redefined audio, with sound waves that are now 20% thinner, and 10% lighter."
Score: 30 Votes (Like | Disagree)
OldSchoolMacGuy Avatar
101 months ago
And still no high-fi audio via Apple Music.
99% of listeners don't care. For the vast majority of users, a normal 128bit MP3 is perfectly fine.

Apple markets to the average user. They're the largest percentage of the market and the largest potential to make money.

Just look at how going after hi-fi audio has worked out for Tidal.
Score: 21 Votes (Like | Disagree)
ApfelKuchen Avatar
101 months ago
I know it's got seven tweeters, Apple won't let you forget that, but how is subscribing to Apple's compressed music service to be pushed through a mono system of speakers going to "sound incredible?
You could check my earlier explanation of why this is not a "mono system." HomePod takes a stereo input, analyzes that stereo "sound stage," and synthesizes it into an 8-channel system - each speaker in the box has its own channel.

Mono (when created from a stereo signal) is the sum of Left and Right - it is always less than the sum of its parts, because the sum of left and right includes the loss of certain frequencies from certain instruments... Sorry, I don't want to write a treatise on phase cancellation, but basically, summed mono sucks.

Speaking as a former audio engineer who produced concerts for live radio broadcast for 25 years, I had to accept mono as a fact of life - lots of people would be listening on crappy audio systems, and I wanted my sound to be as good as it could be on those systems as well as $100,000 audiophile systems. That meant doing what I could to avoid phase cancellation, and it meant checking my mix in mono and on crap speakers as well as my expensive stereo control room monitors. It was really nice to get compliments from audiophiles on the quality of my sound, but I also had to make sure the masses wouldn't tune out.

The audio industry has long taken advantage of the knowledge that our ears can more easily detect location from mid- and high-frequency sounds, but we have a harder time detecting directionality in low frequency sounds. That's why so many home theater systems have a single sub-woofer and multiple small "satellite" speakers carrying only midrange and highs. It's a highly economical solution to an otherwise expensive and space-wasting alternative - 5-7 large, full-range speakers.

In the case of HomePod, you can consider this to be the equivalent of an 8-speaker home theater system - mono woofer, plus 7 satellites - they just happen to be arrayed in a single enclosure. It's a similar approach to the one Bose has been using for several generations - adding complexity to the listening room sound field by mounting additional speakers on the rear of the speaker enclosure, facing the wall. The big difference is that Bose did this passively - no signal processing. Stereo in, stereo out. Apple, on the other hand, is throwing an entire computer at this.

As to "Apple's compressed music service," of course it's data-reduced, for the same reason web sites post JPG images, not TIFFs or RAW. Bandwidth and storage space come at a cost, both in dollars and in real-world performance. Now, you may happen to be a cost-is-no object audiophile who believes he can detect every nuance and imperfection, but a mass-market product has to strike a balance in order to satisfy the largest possible customer base - if too many users can't stream the service because it demands too good a cellular (or even wifi) signal, then there are going to be a lot of unhappy customers.

In the end, music listening is NOT about technical quality, it's about music - composition, musicianship, arrangement, melody, lyrics, harmony, counterpoint... Someone who truly loves the music, for its own sake, isn't going to let themselves be upset by technical imperfections unless they're so glaring and obnoxious that they become distracted - say, the person sitting behind you coughing or opening a candy wrapper (or loud pops and clicks from a black vinyl disk) during a heart-rending pianissimo passage. What audiophiles typically complain about can be compared to the story of the Princess and the Pea. Sure, the princess may truly have been able to detect that pea under a stack of mattresses, but it takes a really special individual to lose sleep over it.
Score: 17 Votes (Like | Disagree)
HobeSoundDarryl Avatar
101 months ago
Sound quality is amazing according to all the technology journalists/sites allowed to review it in advance. Interesting that not one audio journalist/web site was invited to review it...
Best I know, nobody has actually reviewed it yet. Instead, they got to go to a demo run by Apple. A demo is not a review. For example, in a demo, the demonstrator- Apple- steers the presentation to their product's strengths. In a well done demo, the outcome is predetermined and the demonstration will be engineered to be sure that the desired outcome is the one that results from it.

Real objective reviews will arrive AFTER 2/9, when independent AV reviewers can pound one of these in their own labs, per their own approaches, with their own musical selections. Instead of focusing on only what these do best, they'll consider everything with an aim to build a clear pros & cons list.

Real reviews will also answer about a dozen questions still flying around and still unanswered or ambiguous. For example, relatively how much smarter is Siri here? As smart as it's competitors? Smarter? Or not as smart? Does it definitely have Siri command access to our own ripped music files on our Macs? With Match or without? AM required or not? Will it play the lossless rips on our Macs or only the Matched copy in the cloud? And on and on.

To a buyer, what it's not (relatively) is perhaps as important as what it is. We don't even have a complete picture of what it is yet. Every "review" so far reiterates what we know from the marketing messaging (mostly from way back when it was first revealed) instead of telling us much new.
Score: 14 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Ds6778 Avatar
101 months ago
And still no high-fi audio via Apple Music.
Score: 13 Votes (Like | Disagree)